“Poetry, music, forests, oceans, solitude—they were what developed enormous spiritual strength. I came to realize that spirit, as much or more than physical conditioning, had to be stored up before a race. —HERB ELLIOTT,” — Christopher McDougall Copy Share Image
We run when we're scared, we run when we're ecstatic, we run away from our problems and run around for a good time. — Christopher McDougall Copy Share Image
“Whenever an art form loses its fire, when it gets weakened by intellectual inbreeding and first principles fade into stale tradition, a radical fringe eventually appears to blow it up and rebuild from the rubble. Young Gun ultrarunners were like Lost Generation writers in the ’20s, Beat poets in the ’50s, and rock musicians in the ’60s: they were poor… — Christopher McDougall Copy Share
Nearly all runners do their slow runs too fast, and their fast runs too slow." Ken Mierke says. "So they're just training their bodies to burn sugar, which is the last thing a distance runner wants. You've got enough fat stored to run to California, so the more you train your body to burn fat instead of sugar, the longer… — Christopher McDougall Copy Share
“Death Valley is the perfect flesh-grilling device, the Foreman Grill in Mother Nature’s cupboard. It’s a big, shimmering sea of salt ringed by mountains that bottle up the heat and force it right back down on your skull. The average air temperature hovers around 125 degrees, but once the sun rises and begins broiling the desert floor, the ground beneath… — Christopher McDougall Copy Share
“that it took him nearly the entire walk to notice what was happening: his back didn’t hurt. Didn’t hurt a bit. Heyyy … Ted… — Christopher McDougall Copy Share Image
Extreme heroism springs from something that no scientific theory can fully explain; it's an illogical impulse that flies in the face of biology, psychology,… — Christopher McDougall Copy Share Image
“To live with ghosts requires solitude. —ANNE MICHAELS, Fugitive Pieces” — Christopher McDougall Copy Share Image
...there was some kind of connection between the capacity to love and the capacity to love *running*. The engineering was certainly the same: both depended on loosening your grip on your own desires, putting aside what you wanted and appreciating what you've got, being patient and forgiving and... undemanding...maybe we shouldn't be surprised that getting better at one could make… — Christopher McDougall Copy Share
“You get leafy greens in your body first thing in the morning and you'll lose a lot of weight.” — Christopher McDougall Copy Share Image
“Distance running demands a brain-body connection that no other creature is capable of.” — Christopher McDougall Copy Share Image
