Christopher McDougall Quotes

Quotes about:

Animals Art Heart Injury Inspiration Marathon Motivation

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.

Christopher McDougall

Inspirational, Motivational, Running

Christopher McDougall (2010). “Born to Run: The hidden tribe, the ultra-runners, and the greatest race the world has never seen”, p.13, Profile Books

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If you don't have answers to your problems after a four-hour run, you ain't getting them.

Christopher McDougall

Running, Meditation, Answers

Christopher McDougall (2010). “Born to Run: The hidden tribe, the ultra-runners, and the greatest race the world has never seen”, p.213, Profile Books

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You don't stop running because you get old, you get old because you stop running.

Christopher McDougall

Positive, Basketball, Running

Christopher McDougall (2010). “Born to Run: The hidden tribe, the ultra-runners, and the greatest race the world has never seen”, p.240, Profile Books

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In 'Tarahumara' land, there was no crime, war or theft. There was no corruption, obesity, drug addiction, greed, wife-beating, child abuse, heart disease, high blood pressure, or carbon emissions. They didn't get diabetes, or depressed, or even old: 50-year-olds outran teenagers.

Christopher McDougall

Children, War, Teenager

Christopher McDougall (2010). “Born to Run: The hidden tribe, the ultra-runners, and the greatest race the world has never seen”, p.14, Profile Books

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The reason we race isn't so much to beat each other... but to be with each other.

Christopher McDougall

Running, Race, Reason

FaceBook post by Christopher McDougall from Nov 08, 2016

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That was the real secret of the Tarahumara: they'd never forgotten what it felt like to love running. They remembered that running was mankind's first fine art, our original act of inspired creation. Way before we were scratching pictures on caves or beating rhythms on hollow trees, we were perfecting the art of combining our breath and mind and muscles into fluid self-propulsion over wild terrain. And when our ancestors finally did make their first cave paintings, what were the first designs? A downward slash, lightning bolts through the bottom and middle-behold, the Running Man.

Christopher McDougall

Running, Art, Real

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Running is the heart of what it means to be human.

Christopher McDougall

Running, Heart, Mean

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We've got a motto here-you're tougher than you think you are, and you can do more than you think you can.

Christopher McDougall

Thinking, Motto, Born To Run

Christopher McDougall (2010). “Born to Run: The hidden tribe, the ultra-runners, and the greatest race the world has never seen”, p.61, Profile Books

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Anyone can do running. Running should be easy. It should be fun. It should include everyone. It shouldn't be a punishment for eating cheesecake, which is what we've turned it into.

Christopher McDougall

Running, Fun, Punishment

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The only way to truly conquer something, as every great philosopher and geneticist will tell you, is to love it.

Christopher McDougall

Way, Philosopher, Conquer

Christopher McDougall (2010). “Born to Run: The hidden tribe, the ultra-runners, and the greatest race the world has never seen”, p.125, Profile Books

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That was the real secret of the Tarahumara: they'd never forgotten what it felt like to love running. They remembered that running was mankind's first fine art, our original act of inspired creation.

Christopher McDougall

Running, Art, Real

Christopher McDougall (2010). “Born to Run: The hidden tribe, the ultra-runners, and the greatest race the world has never seen”, p.92, Profile Books

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Only recently have we come up with the technology to turn lazing around into a way of life. We've taken our sinewy, durable, hunter-gatherer bodies and plunked them into an artificial world of leisure.

Christopher McDougall

Taken, Technology, Hunters

Christopher McDougall (2010). “Born to Run: The hidden tribe, the ultra-runners, and the greatest race the world has never seen”, p.243, Profile Books

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...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 you better at the other.

Christopher McDougall

Running, Engineering, Capacity To Love

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Perhaps all our troubles - all the violence, obesity, illness, depression, and greed we can't overcome - began when we stopped living as Running People. Deny your nature, and it will erupt in some other, uglier way.

Christopher McDougall

Running, People, Greed

Christopher McDougall (2010). “Born to Run: The hidden tribe, the ultra-runners, and the greatest race the world has never seen”, p.99, Profile Books

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There's something so universal about that sensation, the way running unites our two most primal impulses: fear and pleasure. 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

Running, Two, Way

FaceBook post by Christopher McDougall from Jul 13, 2011

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Know why people run marathons? …Because running is rooted in our collective imagination, and our imagination is rooted in running. Language, art, science; space shuttles, Starry Night, intravascular surgery; they all had their roots in our ability to run. Running was the superpower that made us human — which means its a superpower all humans posses.

Christopher McDougall

Running, Art, Mean

Christopher McDougall (2010). “Born to Run: The hidden tribe, the ultra-runners, and the greatest race the world has never seen”, p.239, Profile Books

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We were born to run; we were born because we run.

Christopher McDougall

Running, Born To Run, Born

Christopher McDougall (2010). “Born to Run: The hidden tribe, the ultra-runners, and the greatest race the world has never seen”, p.93, Profile Books

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You don't have to be fast. But you'd better be fearless.

Christopher McDougall

Fearless, Born To Run

Christopher McDougall (2010). “Born to Run: The hidden tribe, the ultra-runners, and the greatest race the world has never seen”, p.61, Profile Books

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If you can run six miles on a summer day, then you, my friend, are a lethal weapon in the animal kingdom.

Christopher McDougall

Summer, Running, Animal

Christopher McDougall (2010). “Born to Run: The hidden tribe, the ultra-runners, and the greatest race the world has never seen”, p.228, Profile Books

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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 your limited sugar tank is going to last." -The way to activate your fat-burning furnace is by staying below your aerobic threshold--your hard-breathing point--during your endurance runs.

Christopher McDougall

Running, Distance, California

Christopher McDougall (2010). “Born to Run: The hidden tribe, the ultra-runners, and the greatest race the world has never seen”, p.207, Profile Books

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I received the best advice for running I ever heard: 'You're not going to win, so just relax. If it feels like work, you're running too hard.

Christopher McDougall

Running, Winning, Advice

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We wouldn't be alive without love we wouldn't have survived without running maybe we shouldn't be surprised that getting better at one could make you better at the other.

Christopher McDougall

Running, Get Better, Alive

Christopher McDougall (2010). “Born to Run: The hidden tribe, the ultra-runners, and the greatest race the world has never seen”, p.98, Profile Books

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We are the biggest sissies in the jungle. Every other animal is stronger than we are - they have fangs, they have claws, they have nimbleness, they have speed. We think Usain Bolt is fast - Usain Bolt can get his ass kicked by a squirrel.

Christopher McDougall

Motivation, Inspiration, Animal

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Try the meditation of the trail, just walk along looking at the trail at your feet and don't look about and just fall into a trance as the ground zips by," Kerouac wrote. "Trails are like that: you're floating along in a Shakespearean Arden paradise and expect to see nymphs and fluteboys, then suddenly you're struggling in a hot broiling sun of hell in dust and nettles and poison oak... just like life.

Christopher McDougall

Running, Fall, Struggle

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If you don't think you were born to run you're not only denying history. You're denying who you are.

Christopher McDougall

Running, Thinking, Born To Run

Christopher McDougall (2010). “Born to Run: The hidden tribe, the ultra-runners, and the greatest race the world has never seen”, p.244, Profile Books

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Born: 1962
Occupation: Author
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