Born to Run

because our heads were expanding, thereby providing more ballast.

They were expected to accomplish nothing, so they could try anything. Audacity beckoned. “You ever heard of the Mountain Masochist?”

had dropped into a chair to drink a Coke, but

“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and turns into a racket.”

Marcelino nodded, before disappearing inside the school-house.

Young Gun ultrarunners were like Lost Generation writers in the ’20s, Beat poets in the ’50s, and rock musicians in the ’60s: they were poor and ignored and free from all expectations and inhibitions. They were body artists, playing with the palette of human endurance.

“If you’re going to try, go all the way,”

the only way to truly conquer something, as every great philosopher and geneticist will tell you, is to love it. Scott would never again linger

Maybe you’ll beat the odds if you stretch like a swami? Nope. In a 1993 study of Dutch athletes published in The American Journal of Sports Medicine, one group of runners was taught how to warm up and stretch while a second group received no “injury prevention” coaching. Their injury rates? Identical. Stretching came out even worse in a follow-up s