Were you really “Born to Run”?

Born to Run – Christopher McDougal

Christopher McDougal started with the question “why does my foot hurt?” It’s a question I’ve asked about many of my body parts since I was about 8 years old so I had an immediate personal interest. As an adventure writer who’d taken on just about every challenge known and unknown to man, McDougal was baffled by his inability to simply run without something hurting. The standard medical response was to take anti-inflammatory medications, then inject cortisone and prescribe orthodics. When you consider that Leonardo De Vinci was inspired by the engineering brilliance of the foot, and that it’s design is the basis for bridge building, it’s hard to believe that in the last 30 years man has trumped a few million years of evolutionary development. Still that’s what podiatrists and shoe manufacturers are claiming. None of it worked for Christopher (or me with my long history of running injuries) so he decided to look much deeper than most people could even dream. McDougal’s search for the truth about whether he was born to run really captured my interest because he didn’t give up when obstacles crossed his path nor did he adhere to the dogma of the establishment, and like all good hollywood flicks, the ending is worth the wait.

Runner David Smyntek took the rejection of “shoe science” to the next level. He officially buried the concept of cushioning and motion control by winning a number of races in the cheapest shoes he could find, eventually progressing to wearing the shoes on the wrong feet to get extra life out of his shoes!

If you’re not convinced consider the words of Gerard Hartmann, the physiotherapist of choice for Haile Gebrselassie, Khalid Khannouchi and Paula Radcliffe: “The deconditioned musculature of the foot is the greatest issue leading to injury, and we’ve allowed our feet to become badly deconditioned over the past twenty-five years. Pronation has become a very bad word. But it’s just the natural movement of the food. The foot is supposed to pronate ”

Paula Radcliffe and her feet!

In “Born to Run” McDougal talks about an evolutionary theory which seems to fly in the face of a lot of what Charles Poliquin and Robb Wolf have to say about human evolution; “We’re meant to throw a rock at the rabbit not chase it.”

What was the evolutionary advantage of standing up in the savannah millions of years ago?

Standing meant we lost some of our climbing ability compared to other primates and now we were sticking our head up even though we were slower than just about everything on the ground. We only started using spearheads about two-hundred thousand years ago! So why did it work out? We know that over the next couple of million years we got a big brain that helped us use tools and out-smart our prey but how did we get by in the meantime and what was the genetic selection advantage that kept allowing the biggest energy using brains to survive and reproduce?

Running with the Tarahumara

David Carrier discovered that many mammals breathing rates are in a one to one ratio with their stride rates. This made their breathing rate largely dependent on their movement. Humans have the ability to breath independently of, and often at twice our stride rate. Does this solve the evolutionary conundrum?

Almost everything on the ground was faster than us. Tigers, rabbits, deer, you name it and it could outrun us. David Carrier decided to lengthen the race and he worked out that the longer the race went on the better humans fared. Our two-legged, sweaty, twiggy, springy, snail pace turns out to be a true case of the tortoise and the hare. Almost everything can outrun us over a hundred meters, but if we can keep the chase up for a few hours we should be able to run down just about anything. Dr Dan Lieberman helped complete this picture by demonstrating that we have evolved achilles tendons and a nuchal ligament at the base of the skull. Adaptations only seen in running animals. Interestingly the “Horse Vs man” 50 mile race in Arizona is now often won by a man.

Louis Liebenberg seems to provide the final piece of the puzzle. He went and lived with some of the last true Kalahari Bushmen who still use persistence hunting. They literally chase the animal to death using generations of knowledge and intuition. He wrote the bookThe Art of Tracking: The Origin of Science. This ancient method of hunting explains why we “out survived” our more muscular and intelligent brothers, the neanderthals, and why we have developed the massive energy sapping brains that brought us Big Brother and the nuclear bomb.

We got meat because we could run. We got smarter because those who could remember tracks and predict the path of the animals and keep track of multiple factors on the run got more meat. Makes sense.

The Art of Tracking – a case for the ‘running man” theory

So how does this fit with the idea shared by many natural health experts that long-duration endurance exercise does more harm than good by, elevating cortisol levels, lowering testosterone and increasing oxidative stress?

I think the fact that post-exercise nutrition is so important to strength gains and quickly restores the body to balance in terms of hormone levels comes from this very evolutionary challenge. If you get the kill you eat some raw liver and your recovery is sped up. If you miss the hunt your cortisol levels stay high and you’re one step closer to the grave. The quicker you can get the kill the better off you are. That makes sense to me from an evolutionary perspective.

Charles Poliquin, Mark Sisson and Paul Chek are right for modern man: if you keep your training intense, control insulin and cortisol the universe will thank you. Still if these guys were on the savannah a million years ago they may have had to bang out a few hundred kilometres a year to meet their meat requirements.

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It looks like this old guy might know a thing or two about health & nutrition aswell!

The same goes for sex in mating season. If you don’t get it during mating season your body knows it and your stress levels sky-rocket as a result. As Paul Chek says, if you’re not strong you’re either not eating right, not training right or not getting laid enough.

The other side of the “Born to Run” story delves into the torturous world of long-distance running which seems to be “over-run” by vegans, many of whom sound like they are experiencing severe adrenal fatigue and blood sugar issues. They run amazing distances and the women are just as good as the men!

The adventure part of the plot takes us into the Tarahumara culture in northern Mexico. Anything to do with Mexico interests me because of the time I spent almost a year in the south of Mexico with the Tzotzil (mayan descendants) and although they aren’t runners these days, they are capable of incredible feats of endurance well into what western culture considers to be “old age.”

The mysterious Tarahumara tribe thrive on a diet of corn, corn beer, beans, wild mice and the occasional deer. Their people have been driven into some of the least hospitable lands in the world in the Copper Canyon which sounds like both heaven and hell. Carlos Casteňada first piqued my interest in the mystical knowledge of Yaqui people now McDougall has added another layer of intrigue with his athletic appraisal of another northern mexican tribe.

Corn drying in Mexico – If you want to eat grains you need to grow and prepare them the traditional way.

For another article about why we learned to run in the first place and how we compare to the rest of the world check out http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2012/06/long_distance_running_and_evolution_why_humans_can_outrun_horses_but_can_t_jump_higher_than_cats_.2.html