{"id":136530,"date":"2017-10-18T06:00:29","date_gmt":"2017-10-18T06:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wildideas.wpengine.com\/?p=1009"},"modified":"2020-03-18T13:03:54","modified_gmt":"2020-03-18T20:03:54","slug":"chris-mcdougall-writing-untold-stories-about-running-and-amazing-human-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wild-ideas-worth-living\/chris-mcdougall-writing-untold-stories-about-running-and-amazing-human-performance","title":{"rendered":"Chris McDougall – Writing Untold Stories about Running and Amazing Human Performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris\u2019s Wild Idea: To explore the limits of human potential, and to write amazing stories about it.<\/p>\n

Chris McDougall is the author of the bestselling books, Born to Run and Natural Born Heroes. His first book spawned the barefoot running movement and altered the running shoe industry forever. It\u2019s also being made into a movie starring Matthew McConaughey.<\/p>\n

Natural Born Heroes dove into the history of how every-day citizens and amazing athletes on the island of Crete withstood the German forces during World War II. This is the kind of thing he loves: finding amazing stories about less-known athletes achieving amazing feats, and digging in to learn about their strategies, training, diets, and more, then sharing them with readers.<\/p>\n

In 2011, I traded Chris surf lessons for barefoot running lessons for a story in the Adventure Journal. Since then, Chris has become not only a great writing mentor, but also a friend. On this episode we talked about his life since the success of his books, what techniques he learned while researching them (including movement based exercises used by the Cretans), why he may discourage you from becoming a writer, and why donkeys (yes, donkeys) make great running partners. Chris is an amazing storyteller and I think that really comes through in this podcast.<\/p>\n

Listen to this Episode if<\/h2>\n