Natural Born Heroes by Christopher McDougall

Natural Born Heroes by Christopher McDougall is his latest book, following on the heels of Born to Run from 2011, and I enjoyed Born to Run quite a bit and also found Natural Born Heroes to be a really interesting read.

The subtitle this recent book is How a Daring Band of Misfits Mastered the Lost Secrets of Strength and Endurance and, as McDougall notes in the afterword, it blends together two stories, one of heroic action with the capture of a WWII German General on the occupied island of Crete and one of how to set oneself up physically to be useful, and potentially heroic.

In terms of this idea of staying healthy and being someone who contributes, the descriptions of three things from Natural Born Heroes all tie together, a fighting art and self-defense based on fascia or connective tissue in the body, exercise that’s around natural movement of the body, and an approach towards nutrition that eschews simple carbohydrates and enables us to tap into more healthy fat reserves while exercising rather than just burning sugar.

About self-defense, McDougall writes of how the body twist, or utilization of one's fascia, can be the central movement to winning a fight, with mention of Wing Chun, a martial art, practiced by Robert Downey Jr. and related to the fighting art of Pankration, centered around the idea of power spiraling up through the center of the body. Additionally in the book is the story of Norina Bentzel, who in 2001 held off someone with a machete in an elementary school, in part by bear hugging him and utilizing this idea of twist power.

McDougall also notes that utilization of one's fascia works off the idea of muscle memory, teaching the body how to do a movement and that movement can then be called upon instinctively rather than through deliberate thought. This idea is mentioned as applying to something like firing a weapon and how just firing is likely going to be more effective than taking the time to aim and how in a fight, someone should throw the opponent off balance, charging when they expect a retreat and fighting dirty when they expect civility, basically treating self-defense as a survival and not spectator sport.

Around exercise, McDougall, writes of Natural Movement, which came out of Georges Hebert, a French naval officer in the early 20th century and his notion of heroic action and being useful through the Natural Method of training, and relates to the sport of Parkour with an emphasis on skipping and bouncing around outside. As part of this, McDougall notes the modern day practitioner of Natural Movement Erwan Le Corre, his idea of exercise as problem solving and staying alive and his YouTube video The Workout the World Forgot.

The last area McDougall covers in Natural Born Heroes is nutrition, with details on Dr. Phil Maffetone and the problem of processed carbohydrates, typically high in sugar, and how high fat foods and other staples of the Paleo Diet are much better for the body.

- Bad foods: pizza, juice, rice, bread, granola, cereal, beer, soy, fruit, beans, pasta, milk, yogurt.
- Good foods: meat, fish, eggs, avocados, vegetables and nuts (such as cashews), cheese.

McDougall notes how Maffetone prescribes a two week test of a changed diet and how we can in fact alter the body so it craves the food we've hunted and gathered, not processed foods and also mentioned in the book is that drinking too much water, especially during strenuous exercise, can actually be dangerous as diluting the blood sodium concentration can lead to brain swelling.

Tying this idea of nutrition back to exercise, Maffetone’s notion is to get your body to burn fat, not sugar, and to accomplish this, one keep the heart rate low (goal should be should be at age subtracted from 180) when exercising as if the body strains, it will dip into using sugar stored up. It can take the body some time to get used to having the heart rate low and workouts will be slow at first, but this idea of long, lower-impact training should lead to a higher level of fitness.

There was definitely a lot of material covered in the book and while I probably found the story in Born to Run more compelling, Natural Born Heroes was an excellent read with interesting ideas to consider.

The Passing of Caballo Blanco (Micah True)

It was a sad story I came across recently in the form of a Christopher McDougall tweet about his friend Caballo Blanco (also known as Micah True)... "caballo had the only funeral he would have wanted: his friends spent days running in the wilderness in his honor."

The name was familiar as one of the main characters in McDougall's bestseller "Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen". I noted in my review last August that the book was one of my favorites of the year and a part of what made it so great was the both larger than life and giving people featured, with Caballo probably standing out above all the others.

After seeing the McDougall mention of Caballo passing away, I subscribed to McDougall's twitter posts and over the past few days found a couple of excellent items linked to. For the Boulder Daily Camera, Mike Sandrock wrote "Micah True lived the dream: simply, fully" and McDougall also linked to a YouTube photo montage of True. The Sandrock piece particularly struck me with the profound statement on his friend... "He was doing exactly what he wanted, not postponing life until his 'ship came in.' He was living the dream right here and now, and that is appealing simply because it is so rare."

"Born to Run" by Christopher McDougall

Recently finished one of my favorite books of the year thus far... Born to Run by Christopher McDougall (author website here). Published in 2009, it's subtitled A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen and combines a compelling story with well researched detail about running as a pastime.

The book extends on a piece done several years ago by McDougall for Runner's World Magazine and starts with the Tarahumara Indians in Mexico's remote (and dangerous) Copper Canyon region. The Tarahumara then serve as a center for the book while different topics and areas (detailed below) are examined and then brought together for the aforementioned race.

Running - how

McDougall writes early on of being a runner with the personal question of why his feet hurt from running. He then did extensive research and the writing on running here gets into both the technical and conceptual.

In terms of actual how to run advice, there's the ideas of staying below your aerobic threshold and running with a straight back, from the gut and light on the feet. Additional ideas are given around a low meat, low carbohydrate diet (heavy on fruits salads) and using minimalist running shoes.

On this topic, McDougall writes of staying away from new and heavy cushioned running shoes and instead using older broken in shoes. Along these lines, barefoot running or the use of Five-finger shoes is spoken off as definite options that could be worked into. Barefoot running is a fairly controversial idea, but one of the main benefits as trumpeted by it's proponents would be to encourage running light on the feet and help keep the legs under the hips while running. The idea behind beat up or less padded running shoes has the same basis with the striving towards the goal of the natural foot working with you and seeking to find an optimal landing point at each step.

Running - why

McDougall writes both scientifically and through examples from runners themselves of the health benefits of running with it serving to lower disease, help bring about better sleep and serve as an anti-depressant. Additionally, he writes of endurance running as an evolutionary step that our bodies are built for.

Running - how (again)

In terms of conceptual ideas on how to run effectively, McDougall broaches the topic of enjoyment and love of running. Whether it's the Tarahumara, Czech Olympic runner Emil Zatopek or the American runners featured in this book, there's a definite thread of people running well who truly love it. The struggle may certainly be there as people push themselves, but that's enjoyed as part of the overall experience.

Characters in the book

The Tarahumara are the center of this story around running and life, but there's some remarkable Americans featured as well. Early on in the book McDougall introduces Caballo Blanco... the man who came to live among the Tarahumara (and previously went by the names Michael Hickman, Gypsy Cowboy and Micah True). Also central to the story are the ultra marathoners Scott Jurek, Jenn Shelton, Billy Barnett and the iconoclast (though, they all are in one way or another) Barefoot Ted.

Race that ties it all together

There's a lot of interesting content in the book and what keeps it driving forward is the compelling narrative of the Copper Canyon race put together by Caballo Blanco with the Tarahumara and the American ultra marathoners (as well as McDougall himself).

It's fascinating stuff that brings together running (both the how to do it, why to do it and how to feel about it) with the human drama of those competing at the highest level, but with that competition being grounded in a brotherhood of sorts. It's remarkable (and serendipitous at times) content about incredible people and achievements.

Really good book... and in addition to simply reading the the thing, more can be learned about both McDougall and the Tarahumara via a quick YouTube search.