“So simple...just move your legs. Because if you don't think you were born to run, you're not only denying history. You're denying who you are.”
-Dr. Dennis Bramble, from Christopher McDougall's Born to Run
My body sometimes feels like an organic machine. Food becomes fuel, providing energy to the strong, slow beat of the engine, which supplies the power to flex and extend the system of pulleys, levers, and gears that in turn exert forces on the hinges, all working in tandem to move my body down the road. All this occurs to the quiet background rhythm of the bellows, faithfully drawing cooling air in and out, and providing oxygen to the entire system. It is a miracle that it works so well, and not surprising when the parts occasionally refuse to cooperate. Because of old injuries, sometimes the gears turn a little rough and the levers and pulleys squeak a little in protest. The bellows often become cantankerous when the dog fennel is blooming.
On days in which the machine is being particularly uncooperative, I wonder if I was ever meant to run. So many people glide down the road effortlessly, putting in more miles in a week than I do in two, or even three. They run, not hindered by pain, or injury, and their bodies hum along like well oiled machines. It seems that they were created for the task at hand, as they literally flow across the earth beneath their feet. They are perfect running machines.
I've been reading a book, Born to Run, by Christopher McDougall. Never before have I been so fascinated with a book. Besides being a great story, I found Born to Run immensely inspirational. I've been thinking a lot lately about running as a skill. Well, not so much as a skill, but as an inborn ability. To be a great runner, or even a mediocre runner, is it necessary to possess some kind of special genetic makeup? If so, must the moon and stars line up correctly to create this “running gene sequence”? Is it purely based on the genetics of a person's lineage? Is it a random trait that somehow appears in some people like a DNA version of winning the lottery? Does the “running gene” exist in all humans, and we must tap into it, activating the sequence like a tiny genetic “on switch”, in order to unleash an innate primal ability we all possess? Or, perhaps the genetic ability to run exists in us all, quietly humming along in the background, always in the “ready”position, and meant to be used daily from the moment we take our first steps into the world of bipedalism.
In reading this book, I have honestly come to believe the latter. The evidence is glaringly obvious that the human race was made for running. We have been given a great gift that unfortunately, for some reason, many of us have to expend copious amounts of energy, motivation, and frustration to tap into. Rather than just slide easily and gracefully into our innate ability, many of us tackle running as if it is a means to an end, forgetting that it could be as natural as breathing if we would just allow it.
For centuries upon centuries, running has been a necessity. Running down food, running away from enemies and predators, running to pass along urgent messages or to find help...running to survive. It has been theorized that one reason we as a species have seemingly “forgotten” how to run is that our brains are always searching out ways to conserve energy, and running has become quite unnecessary. After all, why expend the energy if there isn't a survival enhancing reward at the end of the run?
I believe that there are more than just practical and physical rewards to running. Running can foster intense feelings of joy, camaraderie, spirituality, and pride, which are precious rewards for the energy expended. Tribes of people still exist in which the people no longer need to run down an antelope to survive, but still run ultra distances just for the sheer joy of the run. These people run with joy in their hearts, even running into their nineties! Why? No one has told them that they shouldn't or that they can't. The benefits to body and soul are immeasurable.
We are all indeed born to run, having been gifted with the genetic ability to tear it up if we so desire. The difference is, I believe, heart. Not the anatomical structure with its ever beating ventricles and atria, but the metaphorical heart - the source of our strength, desire, courage, and perseverance. This is the “on switch”. Our ability to run has been preset to “ready”. All we need to do is flip the switch by believing in our hearts that it can be done, throwing ourselves into it, and taking true joy in moving our legs. I am far from being a perfect running machine, but when I run down the gravel road, winding through the Eden Valley pines with the wind in my hair, I feel joy bubbling up from a primal place in my heart, and I know I am doing something I was meant to do. I am a runner.
