Recently I started reading the book Born to Run by Christopher McDougall! This is a great book that has given me inspiration for keeping up with working out, spending time in nature, and mostly getting grounded by knowing my body more. Not only have I started running and working out, but I have changed my diet drastically. Through all of this though I have been successful to drop 40lbs this year, thus far! On this journey through finding out who I am, and getting to know myself I look to this book for motivation and knowledge. Here are a few of my favorite quotes so far! I am only on pg 100 and I am addicted and want to try to find the passion that Chris writes about through these real people's lives.
"In terms of stress relief and sensual pleasure, running is what you have in your life before you have set. The equipment and desire come factory installed; all you have to do is let 'er rip and hang on for the ride" (12).
"'Bueno!' he shouted. ' Andale pues, a mas aventuras!' Excellent! On to more adventures!" (23).
"Translation: Tarahumara men couldn't even muster the nerve to get romantic with their own wives if they didn't drown their bashfulness in home brew" (28).
"We got a motto here--you're tougher than you think you are, and you can do more than you think you can...You don't have to be fast. But you better be fearless" (61).
"Running was romantic...For them running was miserable...but you can't muscle through a five-hour run that way; you have to relax into it, like easing your body into a hot bath until it no longer resists the short and begins to enjoy it...you have to listen closely to the sound of your own breathing; be aware of how much sweat is beading on your back; make sure to treat yourself to cool water and a salty snack and ask yourself, honestly and often, exactly how you feel. What could be more sensual than payingn exquisite attention to your own body? Sensual counted as romantic, right?" (69).
"How do you flip the internal switch that changes us all back into the Natural Born Runners we once were?...That was the real secret of the Tarahumara: they'd never forgotten what it felt like to love running. They remembers 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" (92).
"You ran to eat and to avoid being eaten; you ran to find a mate and impress her, and with her you ran off to start a new life together. You had to love running, or you wouldn't live to love anything else. And like everything else we love--everything we call our 'passions' and 'desires'--it's really an encoded ancestral necessity. We were born to run; we were born because we run. We're all Running People" (93).
"There are two goddesses in your heart...The Goddess of Wisdom and the Goddess of Wealth. Everyone think they need to get wealth first, and wisdom will come. So they concern themselves with chasing money. But they have it backwards. You have to give your heart to the Goddess of Wisdom, give her all your love and attention, and the Goddess of Wealth will become jealous, and follow you" (94).
"...connection between the capacity to love and the capacity to love running. The engineering was certainly the same: both depend on loosening your grip on your own desires, putting aside what you wanted and appreciating what you got, being patient and forgiving and undemanding. Sex and speed--haven't they been symbiotic for most of our existence, as intertwined as the strands of our DNA? We couldn'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" (98).
"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" (99).
I have never thought of running like this before. What a new and fresh perspective! What are your thoughts?
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