BORN to Run leaves the reader inspired. Christopher Mc- Dougall’s book is about much more than the physical aspects of putting one foot in front of the other and moving them very quickly: it explores the origins of why humans run, why we climbed down from the trees and developed – at a very early stage – the skill of endurance running when no other species did. It ventures into the spiritual aspects of running and why it has become such a large part of modern life.

And it takes the reader from the wet and dismal streets where he or she might be plodding tonight, to the searing heat of Death Valley (where you have to run on the white lines because tarmac burns your feet), to the misty coldness of Leadville’s minedout mountains in the Colorado Rockies – and the secret tracks of Mexico’s Copper Canyons.

Born to Run is McDougall’s quest to track down the legendary American wilderness runner Caballo Blanco and the Tarahumara, a tribe of Mexican Indians who are reputed to be the best distance runners in the world.

How do these secretive people run like gazelles through valleys and over mountains, and for hundreds of miles? And how do they do it after a night on the corn beer and lechuguilla, a homemade tequila brewed from rattlesnake corpses and cactus sap?

McDougall provides some answers.

His gripping account is a true story about real people, some of whom race for glory in ultramarathons across the US, others who run because they were born to it – because it’s their way of life.

Alen McFadzean