I am not gonna lie, when I start each podcast, I am nervous. I am well aware that I am talking to someone who has given up their most precious resource to share their knowledge with the runners connect community. When I received the confirmation email about the interview with my guest today, I was over the moon.
However, that excitement soon turned to panic as I realized just how influential this guest is within our running world. I am pretty sure almost everyone listening has read or at least heard of the book born to run, and when you hear that people like Matthew Mchonaguey read the book, and requested to play one of the main characters in the upmcing film, it is hard to not be intimidated.
Chris McDougall is a legend in the running world. However, from the moment I began talking to chris for this interview, I felt at ease. He told me he was excited for the interview questions, and at the end of the interview, he stated that he would have been happy to continue recording and talking. WOW.
I am sure you are going to enjoy this interview as much as I enjoyed talking to chris, and you will learn so much, in addition to wanting to read his new book, natural born heroes, as soon as you possibly can!
Chris McDougall
- Best known as the author of 2009 Book, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen. It spent 178 weeks on the NY Times Bestseller list, was selected as one of Amazon's 100 books to read in a lifetime, and was voted the Forbes and Washington Post book of the year. Born to run is currently being made into a feature film.
- Chris created the Outside Magazine series "Art of the Hero, and has also written for Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, Men's Journal, and Men's Health.
- His new book, Natural Born Heroes-How a Daring Band of Misfits Mastered the Lost Secrets of Strength and Endurance releases this week, and is available for purchase from Amazon, which you can access through the link below.
Some of the topics chris and I are going to discuss today include:
- How Chris knew Born to Run was going to be a success and what he would change about it if he could go back
- What gave Chris the inspiration to travel to crete to learn about the unsung heroes of WWII and how they were able to accomplish what should have been impossible tasks
- How Chris changed his perception of what a hero is, and why we need to move away from the stereotypical Hollywood image of a hero towards the true traits of heroes- strength, skill, and compassion
- Why we have become obsessed with competing, and performing, and what we can do to get back in tune with our bodies
- Why most of our problems are linked back to a product to change a behavior
- What we can learn from a baby goat
- What role the fascia plays in our human movement, and why it has not become more popular in studies
- Why you should try to put yourself in a situation where you are forced to confront doubt every single day
- How you can use the maffetone method to retrain your body to no longer reach out for sugar or go into panic mode to look for fast fuel
- Why our social media sharing culture is actually good for us, and why we will bring more joy to our lives if we step away from the race culture to get back into sharing instead