The Derek Loudermilk Show

"Turn running into play" - Chris McDougall I am super excited for this episode because my guest is one of my personal adventure heroes! He is the very definition of a curious explorer, and all his work ties back into the simple truth of having fun being a human. Chris McDougall is perhaps best know for his phenomenal 2009 book, Born to Run, where he explores running as a human birthright, by following the Tarahumara indians of Copper Canyon, Mexico. Born to Run is one of the main reasons I started eating chia seeds and got back into train running when I lived in Montana. Born to Run is also currently being made into a movie with Matthew McConaughey. Chris has another amazing new book out in Natural Born Heroes which tells a further story of Cretan resistance runners in WWII, parkour, and human performance. This episode was a ton of fun for me, as Chris and I share a lot of common interests. We go over both his books, and broadly covers diet, running, athletic performance, movement, evolution, and mindset. I think you will be fascinated at how many different ideas Chris can bring into the conversation. If you are at all interested in optimal human performance, running, or health, this is the episode for you! Quotes: "Born to run articulated what people were already thinking" - Chris McDougall "We have a weird notion that other people are better than we are" - Chris McDougall "Turn running into play" - Chris McDougall "Why do we pay people to play our games for us?" - Chris McDougall "We can't pretend we can outthink mother nature" - Chris McDougall "I try to never do what I've done the day before" - Chris McDougall "We are curious about what we don't understand" - Chris McDougall "What is good for the species is good for the individual" - Chris McDougall "We are unstoppable explorers" - Chris McDougall "I practice running with pleasure and not pain" - Chris McDougall "Adventure is ignorance, I live my life by stupidity" - Chris McDougall What you will learn in this episode: -How to take advantage of free elastic recoil (stored energy in your fascia) -The running form technique the the world's most efficient runners use -Why you should consider removing fast burning foods from your diet -How and why you should get into Parkour -How to Vault and Bear Crawl -How to forage for food in an urban environment -How to minimize injury and maximize fat burning -Why Chris refines his running form every couple of years -How you can emulate the virtues of ancient Greek heroes -The mental stages of attempting new movements Continue the adventure:ChrisMcDougall.com The Outside Magazine series The Art of the HeroBorn to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen