Born to Run Review

Hello! I hope you all had a nice weekend.

We spent a wonderful Saturday evening at a friend’s house, playing board games and laughing at hilarious cat antics. For the above photo, we decided the caption is, “Take this iPad away; it bores me.”

Workouts

Fri – 30 minutes of elliptical intervals.
Sat – Rest.
Sun – 60 minutes of walking.
Mon – 30 minutes of elliptical intervals.

Eats

1) 2-course breakfast (because timing everything is too much work for Saturday morning). First, roasted veggies, topped with avocado, cheddar cheese, and a runny egg.

Followed by a pancake and PB. We recently purchased our first bag of almond flour and subbed it for half of the wheat flour in this recipe. I couldn’t really discern a difference, though the almond flour increases the fat enough that I may start to reconsider smearing it with PB. It’s nice to have different alternatives to wheat, which can give my belly a little trouble.

2) Sautéed green beans, chicken, and mashed cauliflower. Chris was a little heavy-handed with the butter, which made this cauliflower insanely creamy and delicious.

3) We visited my new favorite salad bar for brunch on Sunday and I’m so in love that I can’t even handle it. Starting my day with fresh pineapple and coffee really reminded me of our trip to Costa Rica.

Born to Run

A few months ago, I finished Born to Run, by Christopher McDougall, and I’ve been meaning to write a review ever since.

McDougall wonders why some people frequently experience running injuries while others don’t. He tracks down the Tarahumara Indians, who live in the Mexican desert and run incredibly far distances wearing handmade huarache sandals. This book examines the Tarahumara’s culture of running, the development of barefoot running, and argues why humans excel at long distance running.

McDougall’s writing is very narrative-driven, so it reads more like a story and less like a scholarly article. There are a few chapters about the importance of endurance to the evolution of humans and the biomechanics of foot strike, but the writing mainly focuses on the Tarahumara and the unfolding drama around a race.

I’m a little suspicious that McDougall may have overly romanticized the Tarahumara’s very isolated lifestyle. However, this read very easily and the story developed at a great pace, so I would recommend it to anyone even mildly curious in endurance running or barefoot running.

Have you read anything fun lately?

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