Born to Run
Hawaii is everything and more. I’ve been able to truly unplug and absorb all that this magic island has to offer.
My workout game, as predicted thanks to my endorphin addiction, has been off the charts.
I’ve even been reading Born to Run by Christopher McDougall, and since it’s a long one, I’ll capture some of my favorite points:
“How do you make anyone actually want to do any of this stuff? How do you flip the internal switch that changes us all back into the Natural Born Runners we once were? Not just in history, but in our own lifetimes. Remember? Back when you were a kid and you had to be yelled at to slow down? Every game you played, you played at top speed, sprinting like crazy as you kicked cans, freed all, and attacked jungle outposts in your neighbors’ backyards. Half the fun of doing anything was doing it a record pace, making it probably the last time in your life you’d ever be hassled for going too fast.”
“Way before we were scratching pictures on caves or beating rhythms on hollow trees, we were perfecting the art of combining our breath and mind and muscles into fluid self-propulsion over wild terrain. And when you ancestors finally did make their first cave paintings, what were the first designs? A downward slash, lightning bolts through the bottom and middle-behold, the Running Man.”
“Distance running was revered because it was indispensable; it was the way we survived and thrived and spread across the planet. You ran to eat and to avoid being eaten; you ran to find a mate and impress her, and with her you ran off to start a new life together. You had to love running, or you wouldn’t live to love anything else. And like everything else we love-everything we sentimentally call our “passions” and “desires”- it’s really an encoded ancestral necessity. We were born to run; we were born because we run.”
“Make friends with pain, and you will never be alone.”
-Ken Chlouber
“…she liked to tell them that running huge miles in the mountains was “very romantic.” Gotcha. Grueling, grimy, muddy, bloody, lonely, trail-running equals moonlight and champagne.”
“Relax enough, and your body becomes so familiar with the cradle-rocking rhythm that you almost forget you’re moving.”And once you break through to that soft, half-levitating flow, that’s when the moonlight and champagne show up.”
“You have to listen closely to the sound of your own breathing; be aware of how much sweat is beading on your back; make sure to treat yourself to cool water and a salty snack and ask yourself, honestly and often exactly how you feel. What could be more sensual than paying exquisite attention to your own body?”
I hope these quotes have inspired you to get out there and run or do something challenging. Think of exercise as a reward to yourself.
Wherever you are, there you are, so go for it!
