I've inferred the entire contents of the book from the plethora of HN comments discussing it.

This was my opinion too until I read it. Definitely well worth a read if you're at all interested in running, fitness and human evolution. The autobiographical story parts are great reading, too.

I don't care at all for running (I'm a bike guy), but it's still a fun read.

It's a really fascinating story on top of all of the running stuff.

FWIW I doubt it. This has nothing to do with you and everything to do eith the book. It's a great book and the comments I have seen here only hit on a few central points of the book.

It is a fantastic story, even if you don't care about running. I was shocked that it wasn't a documentary format so much as a very raw and emotional first person account.

reading by proxy (by couple of orders of magnitude) is no substitute for the real thing. you probably would be better off reading top reviews on amazon :) or even the blinkist app for that matter. but then again, ‘reading someones description of sistine chapel michelangelo paintings vs seeing it yourself’ and all that...

edit: minor details

One side of "Born to Run" is the first-person story; another side is gonzo journalism / supposedly factual reporting.

How well does the reporting fact-check?

From "Born to Run":

"But what surprised Dr. Marti … was the fact that the most common variable among the casualties wasn't training surface, running speed, weekly mileage, or "competitive training motivation." It wasn't even body weight, or a history of previous injury: it was the price of the shoe." page 172

From Dr Marti's report:

"Occurrence of jogging injuries was independently associated with higher weekly mileage (P < 0.001), history of previous running injuries (P < 0.001), and competitive training motivation (P = 0.03)."

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/036354658801600316

Furthermore:

"Injuries were not significantly related to race running speed, training surface, characteristics of running shoes, or relative weight."

Indeed.

Perhaps, somewhere, Dr. Marti did in-fact express surprise about "the most common variable" — whatever that means.

However, at-best Christopher McDougall seems to have chosen not to report conclusions that could have helped some runners avoid injury.

fyi I found another primary source:

Marti, B. (1989). "Relationships between Running Injuries and Running Shoes — Results of a Study of 5,000 Participants of a 16-km Run — The May 1984 Berne Grand Prix". In Segesser, B.; Pförringer, W. (eds.). The Shoe in Sport. pp. 256–265.

https://archive.org/details/shoeinsport0000unse_r2y3/page/25...

In the 1984 Bern 16 km race questionnaire, runners who had no shoe brand preference and presumably changed brands frequently had significantly fewer running injuries. There was also some correlation between higher shoe price and increased injury. "It is probably incorrect, however, to interpret this surprising finding to mean that more expensive shoes cause more running injuries…". That group was 1 1⁄2 minutes slower than expected from their training and had a higher proportion of orthotics use. It may well be that runners with existing injuries hope that expensive shoes will fix their body.

Also an interesting TED talk by the author: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-iGZPtWXzE

...and two talks at "Authors at Google" (apparently he spoke there twice within one week):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_usxrvKvus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXRe0N1hejE

I only got past the first 1/3 of the book.

Extended use of the noble savage trope mixed with iconoclastic views on brands like Nike might make the reader feel like they’ve entered a fresh new world. And yet I found zero value for someone who wants to improve his capacity as a runner/athlete.

The author is a good storyteller but that’s where it ends.

If one is interested in tearing down current sporty world views, might I suggest going after the HIT fad?

> … someone who wants to improve his capacity as a runner/athlete…

"Running Rewired: Reinvent Your Run for Stability, Strength, and Speed"

https://books.google.com/books?id=epZUDwAAQBAJ

Did you mean HIIT? Because that’s well supported by numerous studies and is unlikely to go away. The tradeoffs seem to be reduced weight loss for improved cardiovascular fitness.

HIIT, yes.

To clarify: I mean specifically the over-emphasis on intensity by amateurs for competitions longer than a few minutes.

Fair enough, various forms of interval training have been commonly used to condition for endurance sports all the way back to the 1950’s. It’s all about building aerobic capacity via anaerobic exercise.

But, the current spike is probably going to go away.

If you like Born to Run you should check out Natural Born Heroes if you have not already read it. It's sort of the WW2 variant of Born to Run.

I heard about it, is it good book?

A really good read, quite interesting ideas and it certainly changed my outlook on running and movement.