Born to Run

Needed an inspiration to run again so I picked up this book which had been recommended by a few running friends.

Chris is a humorous and up-beat storyteller which made the book an enjoyable read. However as far as it went, the fiction was fact. Which makes his point about humans being natural born runners believable with the amazing true-life characters who seem like super-human running machines.

Inspired (although I don't think I'll be running a Marathon de Sables soon), I do think that our body can do much more than we think it can. Quote from the book,"We don't stop running because we get old. We get old because we stop running" I've had too many people tell me that too much sports is bad for you especially when you get older (one of which is my aunt who's an ex national runner) but I think we underestimate ourselves.

I've also seen how older people (even in their 70s) are still running marathons and beating younger people. The oldest marathoner is Fauja Singh, who finished the Toronto Waterfront Marathon on 16 October 2011 , becoming the first centenarian ever to complete a run of that distance. His race time was 8:11:5.9. The oldest female marathoner is Gladys Burrill, 92 years who completed the 2010 Honolulu Marathon in 9:53. I remember running the Watford 10 miler and being passed by 2 septegenarians in silky red
shorts. I'm convinced we deteriorate over time partly because we allow it to.

Anyway the book is a great read - not sure if it was all true but it will definitely inspire your running.