Meeting McDougall

Last Thursday I had the opportunity to meet Chris McDougall, the author of the book Born to Run.

It was exciting to find out that Boise was his first stop of only 13 on his Naked Book tour. 🙂

Yes, he is calling it the Naked Tour. Which is exactly what he talked about, the idea of running naked. Naked in the sense of leaving all these running gadgets and gizmos behind.

And how they actually can be a distraction to us as we run, taking our attention away from our form and even causing mental barriers.

I’m so guilty of this. I rely on my garmin to tell me when my work out is over. I hardly ever just run until my body is done. I usually monitor my garmin until the last possible second it hits X miles.

But he suggests that by letting go of some of those barriers, you may actually improve your running.

This rang a bell with me. My first race ever, I had no garmin or iPod, just me and my pre-race jitters. I ran my little heart out without a worry of time or knowledge of what mile marker I was at. I finished my first 5k race in 31:32. A time that blew my mind considering I had no concept of speed since it was my first race. I just ran that day. It’s still one of my most amazing runs to date.

Which makes me wonder how much I let my garmin hold me back, ya know? Or how much more I pay attention to my garmin when I should be paying attention to my body as it runs.

He also made a simple statement that we were all born to run.

We have all the technology we need, without all the iPods, garmins, etc to hinder us. But it’s our technique that is most important, and is what is causing runners injuries in the long run when it’s wrong.

It was fascinating to hear about his experience of running with the Tribe and to hear about he found a running technique that has kept him injury free when before he could barely run a few miles without problems.

When asked what his favorite running shoes were, he proclaimed that running barefoot is his favorite.

But he said that was due to the fact that it kept his feet closest to the ground without anything in between his foot and the ground to interfere with his running technique.

It was so enlightening to meet Chris McDougall. He was just such a down to earth guy.

And he just seemed so passionate about running. But from the perspective that anyone can do it.

It was fun to listen to him talk and to learn more about his experiences with the tribes that he wrote about in the book.

I am honestly so excited to take the steps into running barefoot and finally getting my Vibrams some love! And I want to try to focus more on myself and the run as opposed to worrying about my garmin or other things around me that may be distracting as I run.

What are your thoughts about running “naked”?

For my race in May (a 5k), I am going to just run it. No garmin, no ipod and just see how it goes.

Happy Tuesday Friends!!