Tanja Berg's Reviews > Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Nearly five years ago I started walking. As I got stronger, I progressed to running. Then came the winter of 2015-2016 when I had a cough that would not let up and consecutive colds. Plus I had a young dog. I went back to walking. Although my hikes were long, it wasn't quite the same and I started to regain the weight I had lost. Two months ago, I decided that enough was enough. If I wanted to avoid buying bigger clothes I would have to do something. Either run and see if that helps, or if that hadn't helped by Christmas, start going to the gym. Horror of horrors for an outdoors person such as myself.

I exchanged my walks for interval runs and the effect was immediate. Within two weeks I could button all my blouses again and the black pants I couldn't button I had to wear a belt for. That was really as far as my weight loss scheme went, although I keep an eye on it still. What I discovered too was that rather than taking my usual routes faster, I would simply be out for my usual hour, hour and half - difference being that I covered a lot more ground. I found a world beyond my usual routes. I went up new trails in the woods I knew well. I went further. I discovered that after about ten kilometers, a joy surfaces that I didn't know I could feel. My weekend trail runs are now twenty km - a day. Not because it makes me thin, but because it makes me happy.

It's the lull of the rythm while keeping an eye on roots and stones. It's the falling leaves, the landscape, the lakes. Today I came to a lake that had just frozen and frost had blown across the newly formed ice. The trees and moss and grass were white from frost. It was so incredibly beautiful that I teared up with gratitude for being able to be there and see it.

This book "Born to run" is a fantastic story that confirms what I have discovered. We are, indeed, born to run long distances. It's a story about crazy ultra runners, for whom marathons are too short - they go much further. What they have found is a joy of running.

There is also this funny chapter about how shoes have caused so much damage to us. It is better to run with cheap shoes that aren't padded because then the running style - landing on your padded forefoot - is easy on the body. Landing on your heels causes all kinds of problems, whether you are running with air padded shoes or not.

I loved this book because it was an affirmation of what I have found on my cross country trails: happiness.