Gracie Shaw

Period 8

English

Fitzgerald

April 28, 2022

Born To Run

“Just move your legs. Because if you don’t think that we were born to run, you

are not only denying history you are denying who you are.” -Dr. Dennis Bramble. The

non fiction book Born To Run was about the author Christopher Mcdougall's journey in

the Mexican Copper Canyon to learn and study about the Tarahumara tribe who are

amazing natural born runners. Throughout the book Mcdougall provides many studies

done by scientists and doctors that make claims about how we run and what affects our

running. Also, many studies have proved different things about how humans run and

why. Humans have evolved over time to be long distance runners.

Many people would argue that humans were not born to run because some of

our body parts have not evolved causing many injuries. In the book “Born To Run”

Mcdougall says, “Man's foot was not originally designed for walking much less running

long distances.”While the statement that our feet have not evolved to run may be true,

there is more to running than just our feet. Humans have evolved to have running

adaptations making us good runners. For example, “The secret weapon is our sweat.

We have 2-4 million sweat glands all over our body, which means we can run and cool

ourselves at the same time. Having no fur is also a huge plus. In contrast, dogs rely on

panting to cool down, and other animals, like horses and camels, also sweat, but less
effectively. As a result, they overheat faster and must slow down sooner.”(Umma

Sharma and Shira Polan) In the quote it explains that humans have more effective

cooling methods(sweating). This also shows that because they overheat faster allowing

us to run longer. Why would the human body have features that allow us to be able to

run easier than it is for other running animals such as dogs, and horses if we were not

born to run?

Mcdouagall uses scientific claims to develop the argument that humans have

evolved to be runners by presenting the question, how did humans catch their food

before technology was created to help us? On page 226 Mcdougall makes the

connection that early humans changed their diet to include meat but needed a way of

catching it and says,“ The bow and arrow is twenty thousand years old, the spearhead

is two hundred thousand years old. But Homo erectus have been around two million

years old. That means for the most of our existence- for nearly two million years

hominids were getting meat with their bare hands.” This quote is proving that early

humans had evolved to be runners so that they could catch food to survive. Mcdouagll

is trying to say that early humans were eating meat from other running animals meaning

that they had to catch the animal. In order to catch the animal they had to either outrun

the animal and kill it or they had to run a long way until the animal slowed down so they

could catch it. Either way early humans were running so that they could get meat to

survive. Mcdougall is proving that we have been running for millions of years to either

be fast runners or long distance runners for survival purposes.

Mcdougall uses scientific claims to develop the argument that we evolved to be

long distance runners by introducing Dr.Bramble and his discoveries. On page 221of
Born To Run Dr. Bramble says, “ Maybe the human running was about going far, not

fast. That would explain why our feet and legs are so dense with springy tendons,

because springy tenons store and return energy.” The quote is proving that our bodies

have features in the leg that help us run. This explains how the achilles tendon helps us

run rather than being a feature that does not help us run. The achilles helps us go far by

storing the energy which is what allows us to run for longer periods of time and

releasing energy(which allows us to run long distances). In the article Evolution of the

Achilles tendon by Churchill LivingStone it says, “The Achilles tendon had an integral

role in evolving apes from a herbivorous diet to early humans who started hunting for

food over longer distances, resulting in bipedal locomotion. Evolutionary advantages of

the Achilles tendon includes it being the strongest tendon in the body, having an

energy-saving mechanism for fast locomotion, allows humans to jump and run, and

additionally is a spring and shock absorber during gait.” The author of the article is

communicating that we originally did not have an achilles tendon and eventually evolved

to get one. This is demonstrating that the reason humans got an achilles tendon was

to run long distances. The achilles tendon also is meant to be able to serve as a shock

absorber when we run or walk. As demonstrated in the two quotes,the reason that we

evolved was to be runners.

The Human body has developed to be long distance runners overtime.All of the

claims in the quotes have pointed to the conclusion that we have evolved to run further

distances for survival. Also in the book Born To Run the author demonstrated that we

evolved to run through key running features throughout our bodies such as the achilles

tendon and body temperature regulation. Also the book emphasized that we have
evolved to run long distances as the early humans diet changed. Why would humans

evolve to walk on two legs, have the ability to store and release energy, be able to

breathe while running and have body parts that help us run if we were not born to run?
 Work Cited

Malvankar, S., and W.S. Khan. “Evolution of the Achilles Tendon: The Athlete's Achilles
Heel?” The Foot, Churchill Livingstone, 6 Sept. 2011,
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0958259211000885.

McDougall, Christopher. Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest
Race the World Has Never Seen. Alfred A. Knopf, 2019.

Sharma, Uma. “How Humans Evolved to Become the Best Runners on the Planet.”
Business Insider, Business Insider, 2 June 2021,
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-humans-evolved-to-be-best-endurance-runners-2
018-3.