Born to run: how running makes us human, and why it’s an urge that’s built into us all
Author – an academic and runner - draws the connections between soles and souls in a book that veers between health, philosophy, literature and science, sometimes on the same page
What makes us human? A big question, but for Vybarr Cregan-Reid, the answer is not just in our minds or souls but also in our feet.
Cregan-Reid’s new book, Footnotes: How Running Makes Us Human, reframes running not as sport but as a vital part of the human experience. Sound cheesy? It would be – if it didn’t also make pounding the pavement so appealing.
The author, a nephew of champion Irish marathoner Jim Hogan, travelled the world in search of the reason people run. Simple enough. The result, however, is anything but. The book is a densely layered memoir/manifesto/meditation on what happens when people move their feet, an activity that, Cregan-Reid argues, is literally built into our bodies.
Cregan-Reid veers from Romantic poets to the biology of the places he runs to the biomechanics that let the human body sprint or slog – sometimes on the same page. Literature, philosophy, health and science share each chapter, along with accounts of his runs in such places as Paris and Boston.
