Their real strength was their ears: Theseus and Hercules were lifelong learners and equal-opportunity students, always seeking advice and just as happy to get it from women. That was the mark of a hero and the signature of pankration: total power and knowledge.

— Christopher McDougall

Christopher McDougall Quotes

Salvador’s brother, however, is the Indiana Jones of the Mexican school system;.

— Christopher McDougall

Running isn’t about making people buy stuff. Running should be free, man.

— Christopher McDougall

The engineering was certainly the same: both depended on loosening your grip on your own desires, putting aside what you wanted and appreciating what you got, being patient and forgiving and undemanding.

— Christopher McDougall

The death toll had gotten so bad, Mexico would eventually rank second only to Iraq in the number of killed or kidnapped reporters.

— Christopher McDougall

The truth is that there can be no proper training that does not educate the whole system of the man.

— Christopher McDougall

Runners in shoes that cost more than $95 were more than twice as likely to get hurt as runners in shoes that cost less than $40.

— Christopher McDougall

If he could do it, Churchill was certain, so could his fellow misfits.

— Christopher McDougall

Patience and kindness don’t show up on demand; they’re disciplines that require constant practice, and there is no better boot camp for learning those skills than hitching your survival to your ability to discern – and respect – the needs of another creature.

— Christopher McDougall

Empathy, the Greeks believed, was a source of strength, not softness; the more you recognized yourself in others and connected with their distress, the more endurance, wisdom, cunning, and determination you could tap into.

— Christopher McDougall

Vigil couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but his gut kept telling him that there was some kind of connection between the capacity to love and the capacity to love running.

— Christopher McDougall

Because we have to answer to one another, and they did not.

— Christopher McDougall

Darwin’s great gift to science was simplifying all life to pure mathematics: your one and only goal on earth is multiplication. Everything you do, every instinct you have, is an evolutionary urge to make babies and leave behind as many copies of yourself as possible. From that perspective, heroism makes no sense. Why risk the grave for someone else if there’s no guarantee of a biological payoff? Dying for your own kids: smart. Dying for a rival’s? Genetic suicide.

— Christopher McDougall

Vegetables, grains, and legumes contain all the amino acids necessary to build muscle from scratch. Like.

— Christopher McDougall

Skillful marketing has made carbohydrate consumption a religion among athletes,” he’d fume. “They believe that you cannot get energy from anywhere but carbs.” The same foods Noakes had assured people would make them stronger and faster were a slow-acting poison making them fatter, weaker, and more prone to heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, and dementia.

— Christopher McDougall

I’ve butchered my own chickens, milked my own goats, and ridden in Amish buggies, and believe me, when it comes to meals and daily commutes, you need only one go-round with those experiences to appreciate how nice it is to have machines take all the gore, udders, and manure off your hands.

— Christopher McDougall

You don’t start with today and aim toward your goal. You start with the goal, and aim back toward today. Do it like that, and you’ll always find a way.

— Christopher McDougall

Talkers aren’t listeners.

— Christopher McDougall

If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. – Gnostic Gospel of St. Thomas.

— Christopher McDougall

Caesar set his legion’s All Day speed at exactly “twenty Roman miles in five summer hours,” or 15:00 minutes a mile. The next faster gear was double-time, a 13:30 clip that covered twenty-two Roman miles in five hours. When you factor in the gnarly terrain and 45-pound packs on their backs, that’s a churn rate any ultrarunner would envy.

— Christopher McDougall

Think of these runs as dance rehearsals rather than exercise: your goal is to master moves and rhythm, not just bash out distance.

— Christopher McDougall
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