This week, we host Chris McDougall, runner, reporter, and author of Born to Run, on the show to discuss his wide-ranging life experience. His concept of the hero is that they are responsible for others, that we humans are designed to be cooperative, that we are at our best when we are thoughtful and caring. In it all, it is important that we seek out fun. From learning from Mexico’s Rarámuri ultrarunners, to training a mistreated donkey to join him in competing in the 29-mile Pack Burro race in the Rockies, Chris’ life has been anything but average. Now living on Oahu, Hawaii, the 61 year-old continues to push himself to uncover stories, pick up new hobbies, and reflect on how his past informs his present day outlook on health, wellness, and keys to longevity.
What kind of SuperAger are you? Check the SuperAge Quiz and find out! (visit: ageist.com/quiz)
Thanks to our sponsors:
InsideTracker – the dashboard to your Inner Health. Listeners get 20% off on all products at InsideTracker.com/AGEIST.
SRW Labs – Science Research Wellness — improve your cellular health. Listeners receive 20% of all products with code AGEIST20 at SRW.co.
DIVI – Take back control of your hair and scalp health, and do it with Divi's clean, science-backed ingredients. Listeners get 20% off your first Divi order at diviofficial.com/AGEIST or enter code "AGEIST" at checkout.
Key Moments
“I think what bothers me the most–and this applies in every aspect of our lives–is this sad human arrogance that we can outthink two million years of evolution. Natural selection has created this unbelievably complex self-healing device.”
“I spent a lot of time on the Greek island of Crete looking at World War II resistance fighters. Crete was one place that had a sensational story about average citizens who rose up to resist the German occupation. Again, these are not trained soldiers, these are just citizens who overnight, literally from one week to the next, went from being citizens into being military operatives against the most formidable army on the planet. And so my question was well, how do you do that physically? How do you turn yourself into a super soldier? And one of the things I looked at was diet.”
“You know one thing when you look at the human animal, there are two things that we are really good at. We are extraordinarily adaptive–we're very creative and ingenious. But secondly, we're extraordinarily cooperative. What is the internet all about? It's about trading stuff, trading images, trading thoughts, trading ideas. We are probably the most cooperative animal on the planet and we tend to forget that sometimes because, particularly in America and particularly in this era in America, we've come across this very sad notion. You know you gotta be tough. You know you gotta close the borders, you gotta be strong, you gotta crush this guy, you gotta win, win, win. That's not who human animals are. You know human animals throughout history have coexisted and have shared and cooperated. And if you look at most ancestral cultures, they were not about accumulation and acquisition and conquering. They were about coexistence, cooperation and learning from each other.“
Connect with Chris
Born to Run
Website
Contact
This week, we host Chris McDougall, runner, reporter, and author of Born to Run, on the show to discuss his wide-ranging life experience. His concept of the hero is that they are responsible for others, that we humans are designed to be cooperative, that we are at our best when we are thoughtful and caring. In it all, it is important that we seek out fun. From learning from Mexico’s Rarámuri ultrarunners, to training a mistreated donkey to join him in competing in the 29-mile Pack Burro race in the Rockies, Chris’ life has been anything but average. Now living on Oahu, Hawaii, the 61 year-old continues to push himself to uncover stories, pick up new hobbies, and reflect on how his past informs his present day outlook on health, wellness, and keys to longevity.
What kind of SuperAger are you? Check the SuperAge Quiz and find out! (visit: ageist.com/quiz)
Thanks to our sponsors:
InsideTracker – the dashboard to your Inner Health. Listeners get 20% off on all products at InsideTracker.com/AGEIST.
SRW Labs – Science Research Wellness — improve your cellular health. Listeners receive 20% of all products with code AGEIST20 at SRW.co.
DIVI – Take back control of your hair and scalp health, and do it with Divi's clean, science-backed ingredients. Listeners get 20% off your first Divi order at diviofficial.com/AGEIST or enter code "AGEIST" at checkout.
Key Moments
“I think what bothers me the most–and this applies in every aspect of our lives–is this sad human arrogance that we can outthink two million years of evolution. Natural selection has created this unbelievably complex self-healing device.”
“I spent a lot of time on the Greek island of Crete looking at World War II resistance fighters. Crete was one place that had a sensational story about average citizens who rose up to resist the German occupation. Again, these are not trained soldiers, these are just citizens who overnight, literally from one week to the next, went from being citizens into being military operatives against the most formidable army on the planet. And so my question was well, how do you do that physically? How do you turn yourself into a super soldier? And one of the things I looked at was diet.”
“You know one thing when you look at the human animal, there are two things that we are really good at. We are extraordinarily adaptive–we're very creative and ingenious. But secondly, we're extraordinarily cooperative. What is the internet all about? It's about trading stuff, trading images, trading thoughts, trading ideas. We are probably the most cooperative animal on the planet and we tend to forget that sometimes because, particularly in America and particularly in this era in America, we've come across this very sad notion. You know you gotta be tough. You know you gotta close the borders, you gotta be strong, you gotta crush this guy, you gotta win, win, win. That's not who human animals are. You know human animals throughout history have coexisted and have shared and cooperated. And if you look at most ancestral cultures, they were not about accumulation and acquisition and conquering. They were about coexistence, cooperation and learning from each other.“
Connect with Chris
Born to Run
Website
Contact
What kind of super-ager are you? Go to agistcom slash quiz. Take the super-ager quiz and we'll send you directed, personalized information to help you super-age the best that you can. Welcome to super-age. My name is David Stewart. I am the founder of Agist and your host on the super-age show. We talk about how to live healthier, how to live longer and how to be happier. Who doesn't want that? Today's show is brought to you by Inside Tracker, the dashboard to your inner health. Go to inside trackercom. Slash agist save 20% on all their products. Today's show is also brought to you by SRW. Aging is inevitable, but how we age is chiefly a matter of our choices. If you go to SRWco, you can save 20% on all their products by using the code Agist 20 at checkout. Today's show is also brought to you by Divi hair care products specifically designed for men and women who are concerned with hair loss and scalp health. Go to DiviOfficialcom. Slash ages save 20% off your first order.
Speaker 1:Hey everyone, welcome to episode 160 of the SuperAge podcast. It is great to have you with us. This will be dropping on November, the 15th 2023. Today's show we've got multi-talented author Chris McDougall on the show and we're gonna talk about his thoughts on what it means to be a hero, how to support community. We're gonna talk about running. We're gonna talk about food and diet and we're gonna touch on a donkey named Sherman and how he rescued this donkey and brought it back to life. Amazing conversation in just a moment.
Speaker 1:This week, the big news around here is so I got a birthday coming up, whoo-hoo. I'm gonna turn 65 in like two weeks and I have to say turning 50 was like nothing. Turning 60 was like whatever 65 is. That is somehow, I don't know. It seems more real to me and it may be because, guess what, I have Medicare now, oh my god. All right, so I'm gonna tell you a quick history of my, my Medicare thing. So your eligible for Medicare in the month of your 65th birthday. So my birthday is number 28. I was eligible on the first and you can start like the whole process amount of like six weeks ahead of time.
Speaker 1:So I did, and figuring that you know this would take a little longer than expected, and it did because there were a couple of screw-ups on my part and you know, like Medicare, there's this whole alphabet soup to the thing that you know. I sort of read through all the stuff and I tried to understand it. And then I just hired somebody, I just hired this consultant, and I said, listen, like this is my circumstance, what do I do? And she was great. She's like, oh, here, this is how you do A and B and you know the other sort of supplemental thing I think I've got part G or something and then she said this is the drug coverage you want. And boom, done. And let's talk about the financials on this. My previous health insurance through United Health Care was a little over $1,200 a month with a $6,000 max out of pocket which I went through because of my knee surgery so it was a little expensive.
Speaker 1:Now with Medicare I have like the gold plated Medicare because I don't.
Speaker 1:I'm just like tired of dealing with the 80-20 ductable, all this. I don't want to hear it. I just want to go in, take care of me and whatever. So all in on that $560 a month. So what's that? That's about a $700 a month savings and then the max out of pocket. I'd figure exactly what it is, but it's like it's like under a thousand dollars. So, yeah, go Medicare. I had no idea. I just didn't know anything about it. I thought, oh, my god, this is gonna be horrible, but so far it's fine. And you know, I checked with all my docs. They're like, yeah, yeah, we take Medicare, it's cool. And the drug stuff, yeah, yeah, it's all the same, it's fine. I haven't used it yet.
Speaker 1:But everything I can tell the government has been great, super easy to deal with the insurance company, incredibly responsive, very different than United Healthcare, and I think the reason is, you know the government's got him by the throat and said, like you know, hey, don't mess with old people with his Medicare stuff. You got to do good because they are just like the best customer service I think I've ever experienced from any kind of huge entity like this. So I guess where I'm going with this is you know a lot of us feel bad about the government and you know they do bad things, they're difficult and all that stuff, but this is something they seem to do really, really well. I guess they operate. This is a loss. I don't really know the financials on their end, but on my end it's like I'll go love it.
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Speaker 1:I'm a big believer in getting blood tests taken because it's simply the only way to get in-depth data about your metabolic factors, your hormones and the things that inform your immediate and long-term health. There are also excellent DNA tests that can further inform you about your immediate and long-term health. The problem is the most blood tests out there is. You get a lot of information back and you get a lot of numbers and they're not really to tell you what to do about it. In addition, they can be very confusing what all the factors are, what they mean. Inside Tracker has a dashboard in a platform that simplifies all of that. I get food first, supplements second, recommendations about how to optimize my inner health, for instance. I just got my test back and I saw that my calcium levels were a little low, which were surprising to me. But I have suggestions now about how to correct that. I would not have known that had I not done an inside tracker blood test.
Speaker 1:Go to inside tracker dot com. Slash ages, save 20% on all their products today. We're gonna get to my conversation with the remarkable Chris in just a moment. Quick reminder hey, stay tuned after that conversation for just try this, that little tidbit, then hopefully we make your life a little easier, a little happier, a little more joyful. We're gonna get with that right after my conversation with Chris McDougall. Hey, chris, how are you today?
Speaker 2:I am terrific good night's sleep, fresh cup of coffee, sunrise on the beach. You know, every box ticked off. Where does this podcast find you? Today finds me on the windward side of a wahoo in Hawaii windward.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm not a sailor, which?
Speaker 2:sorry. I reason it's fresh in my mind is we have the trade winds coming in, so we have these like howling 25 mile an hour winds, so you are very aware of what side of the island you rock. So we're on the east side.
Speaker 1:Okay, mountains from Honolulu gotcha and there's a insane. It's called Sandy's. Sandy's Beach. Oh yeah, with that crazy wave that like jacks right up and like smashes you into the sand, aka breakneck beach, yeah, exactly yeah, yeah, pretty close to Sandy's yeah, so what's your attraction to Hawaii?
Speaker 2:my wife is my big attraction, hawaii, so she's from here. She grew up here in Hawaii and we met in Philadelphia more than 25 years ago where she only expected to spend nine months and I never expected to spend any time in Hawaii because my concept of Hawaii was, you know, I've never been here, but I figured, you know Waikiki resorts big old like adult Disneyland was not interested at all. She was not really interested in Pennsylvania, so somehow our compromise was that she spent 25 years there and then we moved here about three years ago.
Speaker 1:I love, love, love Hawaii. I try to go there like two or three weeks every year. In Hawaii. It's my favorite place and now I used to go to like Hawaii and I used to Maui, but now it's all about a while. I just love a while yeah, why is that?
Speaker 2:you just like exploring a while, or is our particular attraction like you want to be north shore or something like that well, it's the variety.
Speaker 1:So I love Honolulu. I mean people don't like it when I say this, but it's an Asian city. It happens to be part of America, but it's like an Asian city in the middle of nowhere in this like center of the Pacific, but it's very cosmopolitan place and then you drive ten minutes and you're in a jungle, or you go up to the north shore and that's where the wild people live up there. Like, like, I won't go in, I surf, but like, in the winter, there's no way on earth I'm going to that water. That's just crazy up there.
Speaker 2:I think you nailed exactly the attraction for me as well. So the first time my wife brought me here, I was resisting like crazy, like ah, you know why don't you go, I'll see when you get back. And we finally came and she was smart enough to take me over the mountain into where she were about, to Kaneohe Kailua. You leave the airport and within ten minutes you're in the middle of a mountain and it's rainforest on either side and you're on the top of the mountain. They're coming back down over Kaneohe Bay and again, in less than the space of a half an hour, you feel like you're in a completely different planet, and that's that's what attracted me. And then, the same thing I can, I can actually have on a moped. I got a little electric moped and there's a beach called Makapuku that I can reach in 20 minutes. It feels wild, savage, like undiscovered, and I can get there from my like suburban home and less time than it takes me to go to the supermarket to, you know, pick up groceries.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if I was a billionaire I'd have a house there. I just go there all the time on my jet, but I don't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I ain't, but somehow we figured it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, there's so much I want to talk to you about. We share a pet peeve about cushioned running shoes. Yes, I just think they're plague. But I understand you share this opinion.
Speaker 2:What's worse than a plague? I think a plague is it's being too kind, too kind in a running shoes. Oh, okay, yeah, worse than a plague, yeah, it's fine. Well, my own evolution in that thinking, I feel, should be universal, because I came in from it from perspective of like more is better, more cushioning is better, right and sad thing was I was a writer for Runners World.
Speaker 2:I was a freelance writer, but one of my sort of go-to's was Runners World. I wrote for them pretty regularly and I had absorbed that whole ideology from the running magazines that you know, rotate your shoes every 300 miles. You know, go to the specialty running shoe store and make sure that the specialist looks at your unique gate and gives you just the shoes for you. And then you walk into these stores and is a bewildering wall of footwear like, oh, I don't know which one I need. So naturally your your eye gravitates toward.
Speaker 2:Well, what's this big thing? You know, this thing looks well armored to protect me and there is this massive deception that more cushioning and more control and more support is better and it is absolutely awful. And the worst thing about it is the science irrefutably backs that up. If you talk to any biomechanists about this. They're like, yeah, an arch support does nothing but weaken your arch. If you have an arch on a building, a basic structure of architecture is an arch. Why? An arch is a load supporting design. It loads from the top down. You put something underneath an arch, it weakens the arch.
Speaker 2:I could spend I could do an entire TED talk right now with a whiteboard about this, but from my perspective I was a freelance writer, did a lot of work for Runner's World, was on assignment for Runner's World in Mexico where I spent time with the Tadumari Indians who run in homemade sandals, and I'm meeting guys in their 70s and 80s, men and women, who were just flying up and down these steep canyon climbs in a thin pair of rubber tied onto their foot. And that was my question was how are these guys still moving in 80 without busting up knees and hips and arthritis in these crappy old shoes? And then I realized they are moving in their 80s because of the crappy old shoes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. I find we tend to deal with people over 50. And there's this insanity out there about as you get older, you want more cushion your shoes. Phil Knight launched a shoe partially involved with which I can't say that too loud because it'll cut my head off called the Cruiser One, this huge cushiony thing and it's like putting mittens on your feet. It just knocks out all the sensations about your foot. And as you get older, balance is a really big thing. Well, what's the main input of balance is the nerves about your feet, and if you put those to sleep, we've got these big cushiony things. So, yeah, I started like when I'm in the gym, everything I do is barefoot. I'm barefoot in my house. I do wear shoes outside, but I try and wear like the least cushy, hardest thing I can find. That just works for me.
Speaker 2:I think it works for everyone. And what's the first thing everyone does when they get home? They take their shoes off and go. Ah, I'm so glad these things are off my feet. And, like you said, I think what bothers me the most and this is kind of always applies in every aspect of our lives is this sad human arrogance that we can outthink.
Speaker 2:Two million years of evolution, that natural selection has created an unbelievably complex self-healing device. Like the other day I cut myself on the side of my hand. A couple days later I'm like no, it's gone already. Like that's unbelievable, that's like a superpower. Like my skin will reform magically. It's like if you were watching like X-Men, that's like Wolverine does, and my hand does it. So we had this body which has evolved over more than two million years, and yet someone in a shoe lab is smarter than that Like no, okay, evolution is good, but my brand new idea that I thought this morning is better than that, and that's my problem with shoes. We have feet which have adapted as our first early warning signals of everything on the ground about posture and sensation, and yet somehow you know some guy in a shoe lab who's got to come up with a new design because it's sale season is smarter than that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, people tell me their back hurts or their shoulders hurt. I just say, like I have somebody, look at your feet, because my guess is that's where the problem starts.
Speaker 2:I would say, actually, don't have someone look at your feet, because it's funny. So you know I'm a full on evangelist creature about natural movement and natural foot health. And my wife was having a little difficulty. She was having something a little bit tendinosis in her foot and she actually went to see a podiatrist and she walks through the door and on the wall is an entire array of devices you know, art supports and pushing in souls that they're selling, and as the first thing the doctors started talking about was about orthotics and pushing this and pushing that, and she came up and came home Actually seriously disappointed, because what she was hoping for were exercises and movements and what she got were devices and crutches. And she's like, yeah, it's as bad as I thought it was. And so I was kind of like, yeah, well, that's what's going on out there, I know you talk a lot about food too.
Speaker 1:I want to get your thoughts on something here that I thought I'd go back and forth on protein. What are your thoughts on how much protein, what kind of protein? There seems to be a wide array of opinion on this.
Speaker 2:It's a fascinating topic and I really wrestle with it because my first book, born to Run, was based upon the Tarumara in the deep copper canyons of Mexico, and they are essentially or largely vegetarian. They live on, basically, you know, chia and sort of heritage, corn product, pinole and wherever kind of vegetables and root products they can scavenge or harvest down copper canyons. It's very hostile environments and they live on a minimalist, almost exclusively vegetarian diet, with the occasional, you know, goat sacrifice on a sort of regular basis, you know, for holidays hey, there's a goat, let's have a goat barbecue. And they are sensationally healthy, fantastic endurance athletes with great quality of life deep into old age. But then the next book I did was called Natural Born Heroes, where I spent a lot of time on the Greek island of Crete and was looking at World War II resistance fighters. Crete was one place that had a sensational story about average citizens who rose up to resist the German occupation. Again, these are not trained soldiers, these are just citizens who overnight, you know, literally from one week to the next, went from being citizens into being military operatives against the most formidable army on the planet. And so my question was well, how do you do that Physically, how do you turn yourself into a super soldier? And one of the things I looked at was diet, and they're essentially on the Mediterranean diet, which has a substantial amount of animal protein at its base. You know, you start talking about that, that that fist size chunk of protein which should be at the center of a meal. So I'm trying to make these two things exist in my brain. We'll have to get a thorough motto great athletes vegetarian, and the Cretans great athletes who have a Mediterranean diet and have.
Speaker 2:One thing that was important for me about both of these cultures is that these were ancestral diets. It's not something like fad. They did for 20 years. This has been going on for hundreds and thousands of years, and where I ultimately landed was essentially where Michael Pollan has been for years, which is eat real food, mostly vegetables, not too much, and that, to me, in those nine words, he sort of summarized what it's all about.
Speaker 2:We, as humans, are lucky to be the sort of the great bottom feeders of the planet. The reason why we can exist anywhere on planet Earth and beyond is we can do pretty well on anything. You know, if you stick you up in Alaska with the Inuit and you got to eat blubber for a couple of years, you'll be fine, you know. You put you down the copper canyon and you're eating heritage corn, you'll be fine. So I think the thing is we have an extraordinarily adaptable digestive system, but for me where it lands is a mindful approach to eating.
Speaker 2:I personally land on that fist size of protein that becomes, for me personally, the basis of my diet. My wife genetically comes from diabetic and hypertension heritage in her family, and so she's cut out meat almost entirely. A little bit of fish on occasion, that's it, and I feel like we're both thriving. So that's basically where I landed on it. I think it comes down to that question. I think you cannot really defend meat eating on a moral basis at all. It is essentially, if you want to be crude about it, like cannibalism. It is as offensive a moral shortcoming for us as humans as can be. At the same time, on a day to day, practical basis, I still indulge myself in a chunk of some kind of flesh, usually fish. I haven't swapped it out for a substitute. So that was a pretty lengthy answer to your question, but I think the mindfulness and the reduction of the meat intake is worth it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of the things that comes to mind is you're speaking about these two different cultures is their genetics. So in the microbiomes they very well be optimized for the food that they're eating. I was in Nepal once and I remember the Sherpa who was leading my thing. They would eat a dalbat, which is like lentils and rice, and they would occasionally have a chunk of yak or something, but rarely and he was telling me he'd come to America for a little while and he just couldn't manage the food and he also couldn't manage the temperatures. Anything over about 70 degrees for a Nepali is just intolerable.
Speaker 1:But I sort of feel like these diets the sort of blue zone stuff and all that there, as you said, their heritage diets and the population, the diets are optimized for their genetics and for their biomes. I sort of wonder about these things, about when people say, like you know, you should eat the XYZ diet. I think in general I'm sort of a Mediterranean diet guy, but I know people who are incredible athletes that consume maybe 60 grams of protein a day and they're vegetarians and like I can't do that, I'm not optimized for that.
Speaker 2:You know I think, David too instead, where the big misconception comes is there's a lot of focus on protein and maybe not as much on the high glycemic foods, and to me that's like the real issue. Oh yeah, you know high glycemic foods, so you know where you're following the protein question, whether animal protein or a tofu, a plant-based protein.
Speaker 2:I think it's an interesting question but to me it's really secondary, like have you gotten your blood sugar under control? You know we recommend a thing called the 2-E Test, developed by a guy named Phil Moffatone. You might be familiar with it and to me that was the big revelation because you know Phil Moffatone is kind of a 70s kind of hippie in temperament and but he's trained some of the greatest endurance athletes of his generation and beyond. And he goes like you know I don't want to argue with people, I don't want to scream and yell this, you know, vegetarian, that protein. So he goes do the 2-E Test. Remove all the high glycemic foods from your diet for two weeks. At the end of two weeks, reintroduce them and see how you feel. So at the end of two weeks, you know, have a half a bagel, do you suddenly feel sluggish and sleepy?
Speaker 2:Maybe you shouldn't be in the bagel, but what I love about it is it's that factory reset, because we have so many calories splashing around in our system we don't really know what's causing what. If I'm sleeping in the afternoon, is it because I didn't get enough sleep, or is it because of the donut, or what is it? But you remove the high glycemic foods for two weeks and then you can see what's actually optimizing your sensations and your performance. We're in total alignment like that.
Speaker 1:That's when everybody asks me about foods. It's like that's immediately where I go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, figure out your sugars first and then, where you know, stop with the high glycemic?
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, exactly, that's because let's let's get rid of the stuff that's hurting you before we start adding the stuff that may give benefit.
Speaker 2:I think that's what ties into like cushioning shoes. You know, before you go to a maximum cushion, let's just see how your foot performs and then you add protection as necessary. Don't go to the nuclear response first, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's right. I want to go to this idea of the hero, which is something that's really prominent in a lot of your work. What is a hero to you?
Speaker 2:That was a question that I had to sit on for some time when I was researching Born to Run. I kind of threw out a pretty wide research net to grab all the books about running I can lay my hands on, and this was back in 2004 and the bookshelf was actually pretty thin. There were not many books about running available and the books you got were all the same kind of archaic. You know, practical advice like you know, make sure you vaseline your nipples so you don't get chafed. You know, go to the specialty running shoe store. So there really was not much material available in print, but there are a lot of books available out of print. So I was going on Abe Books, which was an online resource for out of print books, and anything that seemed to be cool about running I could grab. I did it, and so I was finding all kinds of really interesting books about the guy named Percy Serity, who was this you know, wacky New Zealand trainer who actually trained the best Olympians of his time, Arthur Littier. And I came up a book across, a book called the Cretan Runner, and there wasn't much of a description, so I just bought it and it was, like, you know, four or five bucks. And when the book came I realized, oh, this isn't actually about running at all, it was about foot messenger during World War II. So I kind of pushed it aside.
Speaker 2:I wrote Born to Run and then, when I started cleaning up my research library afterwards, I came across this book which I hadn't read. And then, before getting rid of it, I read it for the first time. And that's when I discovered this whole crazy story about these Greek civilians who became these resistance fighters. And one guy in particular was a guy named George Seacondakis who would run these like 100 miles across the mountains. Deliver a message to the resistance, get the reply run 100 miles back and I go. How the hell are you doing this, man? That's 200 miles through Nazi occupied territory without like aid stations.
Speaker 2:And so I started to dig into it and what became apparent was in Greece, but especially in Crete, there was something known as the art of the hero. This is something that people are actually educated in, and the idea was and again it was so blindingly apparent when I put myself into their shoes was on Crete, there was like no police force, there was no fire department, there was no standing army. Everybody was responsible for everyone else. So if your house is on fire, if your neighbor didn't help, your house is gone. If someone's stealing your donkey and your neighbor doesn't help, the donkey is gone. So everyone has to have both the moral and personal responsibility, but also the physical capability of responding to a crisis.
Speaker 2:And on Crete so Crete being an isolated island which had been under assault by Italians and Cyprians and Europeans forever Everyone's always trying to invade Crete, and so the Cretans had developed this art of the hero where they were physically and morally capable of stepping up for each other. And this is something that young people are trained in from the time they're little kids. There is actually the word on Crete for citizen in the Cretan dialect is actually runner. A person who can actually run to someone else's aid is a citizen, and it's called the Dermato groi, which is citizen, and before that you're anti-Dermamoid, which is not quite a citizen yet. So everyone is under like, 16 years old, You're not a runner, yet kid, but when you're 17, 18 years old, you are capable of stepping up.
Speaker 2:So that became fascinating to me, and where it left me in the end was I wrote that book, Natural Born Heroes, and what I was looking at was where this tradition of educating people to be responsible for each other, where else it springs up in the world. And to me it comes down to three things there's a physical side, there's a mental side and there's basically a spiritual side or a soulful side. You have to be physically capable, physically fit, you have to be skillful, you have to be adaptive and smart and, lastly, you have to be compassionate and wanting to make this assistance. And if you go back through Greek mythology you know we have a sense of Hercules being super strong. No, Hercules was cunning as hell.
Speaker 2:You know, most of the time when Hercules had a challenge, he was outsmarting his opposition. Also, Hercules was extraordinarily compassionate. And so when you look at Greek mythology, you don't see the big old. Like you know, Dwayne Johnson's the Rocks Actually I'll take that back. Dwayne Johnson is a pretty good example. The guy in his film image is very smart, very strong and very compassionate. I have no idea if the guy is like that in real life, but he embodies essentially what the Greek ideal of the hero was.
Speaker 1:Fascinating. It sounds like what you're where you're going with this. Is this mission for something greater than yourself? That it's about the others?
Speaker 2:That's completely right. You know one thing when you look at the human animal, there are two things that we are really good at. We are extraordinarily adaptive, you know we're very creative and ingenious. But secondly, we're extraordinarily cooperative. You know we are there. What is the internet all about? It's about trading stuff, trading images, trading thoughts, trading ideas.
Speaker 2:We are probably the most cooperative animal on the planet and we tend to forget that sometimes because, particularly in America and particularly in this era in America, we've come across this very sad notion. You know, you got to be tough. You know, got to close the borders. You got to be strong, you got to crush this guy, you got to win, win, win. That's not who human animals are. You know human animals throughout history have coexisted and have shared and cooperated. And if you look at most ancestral cultures, they were not about accumulation and acquisition and conquering. They were about coexistence, cooperation and learning from each other.
Speaker 2:And that, to me, is what that mission is all about. If you can, if you look at the real foundation you know not the distortions of religion that we have sort of clung to today but if you look at the actual foundations and the actual original teachings of every major religion. What's it all about? Don't be an asshole, be nice, be nice, you know I mean I love that whole parable. You know that that was at the root of Christianity. You know that when the Pharisees come to Jesus and they go which of the 10 commandments you know is number one to try and trick him, he's like actually none of the above Golden rule Treat everyone else the way you want to be treated Like. That's it. The entire Bible can be summed up in about 17 words. So the idea of mission, I think you can think spirituality, it put on a very non spiritual basis, on an evolutionary basis, which is humans do best when they are caring and thoughtful for each other and they do the worst when they are domineering and antagonistic.
Speaker 1:So, which brings me to the idea of something probably you and I both identify with when do you know when to stop? You know you're describing these people running 100 miles each way, doing these amazing things. When do you know when? Okay, that's enough, we can. We need to stop now.
Speaker 2:I think the question is asking yourself what caused you to start, and that's the real question. You know what is your motivation, and I see it a lot too. I got into the ultra marathoning world and if you start to talk to ultra marathoners, there's a lot of divorces in the ultra marathon world and I see a lot, too, from people who are doing charity runs. You know, I'm going to run a marathon a day for 50 days so I can create exposure for neurological disease. I'm going to run around America to raise awareness of diabetes and go. Are you really? Are you really trying to raise awareness of diabetes, or are you just really enjoying running around America? You know, and so that's my question, it's not when this person should stop, it's what's causing them to start in the first place. Are you escaping something else? Are you neglecting something else? And that's that's my thing. If you have created that balance in your life where you are not imposing your egotism on those around you in order to pursue your hobby, you're good to go. But if other people have to sacrifice so you can run you know, 100 mile a week, every week, throughout the year maybe it's time to dial it back on a physical basis. I don't think there's any reason to stop If you enjoy it. Well, let me back it up a second. So I just stopped something very recently. I stopped playing pick up basketball this year and I thought I would never stop. I thought I thought they had to wheel me off the court in a stretcher.
Speaker 2:And the reason I stopped and maybe this is the better answer to the question is because I realized I was on. I plateaued on the learning curve Like I realized oh, you know what, I'm not getting better and I'm never going to get better Like I. I've, I've peaked and I am as good as I'm ever going to get. And I kind of didn't like it, because there's a pickup game that I love here. It's every Sunday morning, 7 am. I would be there at 6.30, warming up. When you go 7 am on a Sunday, I'm ready to go hard.
Speaker 2:What I realized is, if I'm missing this shot, I'm like, oh, okay, next week I'll be back. That shot's back on. And it's not back on. Like you know, that lefty hook, I'm not getting it and consistently not getting it. And I realized, eh, that's it. I'll probably never get that lefty hook, as good as I want it to be, and that was kind of a downer. So I decided to stop playing pick up ball and my wife was like startled. I just came out and go. You know what I'm done. She's like sure you are. That was it, and I think what I decided to do was substitute another activity where I could beat the bottom end of the learning slope. I'd rather start and learn rather than just kind of cruise along, you know being not as good as I want to be.
Speaker 1:What do I identify with that? That's how I did with surfing. I surfed like every day for five years and then it was like, okay, that's it, I'm done. So I'll load my surfboards and you know I did that with like skating and a lot of it. My current fixation is master ski racing, which I started last year, and there's a lot of curve ahead on that. But I know that day is going to happen where I just come in and my wife is like used to it. She's just like yep, one day you're going to walk in and it's going to be all done, it's all stuff, we're going to do something else.
Speaker 2:That's the important thing is you got something in the other chamber ready, you know, locked and loaded. Something else is catching your eye.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which brings me to this idea of thinking about doing hard things, so thinking about a thing that's easy to fall into as one gets a little older, which is this idea of like total comfort. So we're sort of it sort of goes with the sneaker thing right Like softer, more comfortable. How can I have less stress, take on less things and you know which is the very softest chair that I can sit in, because that's defined as like the best when in fact this is not so great. Talk to me a little bit about taking on hard things.
Speaker 2:I was at a conference once at Harvard and I was going to be on a panel with Dan Lieberman, who's a evolutionary biologist, and a guy named Dr John Rady, who is an evolutionary psychiatrist, and me and we had a little green room gathering with, like, the president of Harvard and some other people before we went on stage and while we were there, this guy, dr Rady, whom I'd never met before, kind of puts this consoling hand on my shoulder and he goes yeah, I imagine academic environments are probably pretty stressful for you because of your ADHD. And I look at him and go I'm not ADHD. And he goes yeah, you are. And I go wow, I was pretty offensive, you know, like thinking to myself, and he just kind of broke it down for me. He's like I watch you, you barrel through the door, you're 10 minutes late, your back's covered in sweat, you grab like two sandwiches. You almost knocked over the president of Harvard. You didn't even see her. You've met four people in three minutes. And I'm like, oh yeah, suddenly in my life it makes perfect sense now. I thank you, doctor.
Speaker 2:But I think what caught my eye about that was that it was this glimmer of something else, like, oh hey, if I'm in the car, I'm always looking at the window. Look at that like mountain it wouldn't be cool to go up that mountain Just to check it out. Or look at that surf break Like wouldn't it be cool just to swim out just to check it out. And to me, I think that the do hard things comes camouflaged in a do fun stuff you haven't tried before. That's where it is to me. So you know, if you point me to something like 40 pound kettlebell, it's okay. You know, do a hundred deadlifts with a 40 pound kettlebell and then they're done. They kind of know what it is already.
Speaker 2:If I can count it, I don't really want to do it, but if I've never tried it before, suddenly that's what gives me juiced up. So I think I found the mechanism to keep me on that upward learning curve of just whatever tingles my ADHD and like hey man, let me get out of this chair and go run after that. Where it's put me, though, in a practical sense, is that your eye just starts to then seek out those opportunities. So it's not like I'm seeking hard things, I'm seeking new things, I'm seeking like exploratory things, and that's it Basically. That's. You know, it's beautiful as sugar with the medicine, like I don't think it was being hard, I think it was being like kind of cool, cool and interesting and new.
Speaker 1:That's such an interesting take on. This is what you're describing as sort of ongoing beginner's mindset, and then, once a certain level of mastery is brought, then it's like well, my learning curve is not what it was and I really get off on the learning curve. It's that, it's that right.
Speaker 2:And a big part of the learning curve is once you've done it, though it takes a long time before you feel mastery. So so here's an example. So what Dov tailed with my abandonment of pick a basketball was a beginning of body surfing. So when we first came to Hawaii, I remember telling my wife like oh, you know what I'm gonna like this, I'm a really good body surfer. And she's like you have no idea what you're talking about because I came from like Jersey shore. Oh, she's getting background of like body surfing. It was like you know, a waist high wave and you plank out and you just slide into the sand. I mean, I'm really good at that. And she's like you're in for an eye opener, my friend. So she took me to Sandy's breakneck beach and I'm watching dudes dive into double overhead barrels and there's like no water underneath them. Like what are they doing? And you know, my eyes shot up like that's cool.
Speaker 2:So I started to get into body surfing and actually where I met Drew, our mutual acquaintance who brought us together, was at a place called Point Panic Like the name alone basically tells the story. And Point Panic is a body surfing only break on the Wahoo and yeah, it is massive waves which rockets straight toward a stone jetty. And the first time you go out there, like does anybody actually survive this? Like what's the mortality rate on this thing? And that became my fascination.
Speaker 2:So now that I've been in body surfing, I'll look at a wave and I go cool, I wanna try it Now. Once I've tried it, though, the first thing I think of is 15 things I could have done better. You know if I've only done this, this and this, so I wanna get back on that wave. Now there's like 20 things I could have done better. So the more knowledgeable you get about the challenge, the more you realize how you're underperforming. So that's me. That's where that learning slope can go on. It's Himalayan, you know, and it's vice, because the better you get, the more the better you could be.
Speaker 1:Boy, do I identify with that? Yeah, as you sort of go up that curve from novice to beginner to some level of skill, to expert, to master, to virtuoso, you still realize like, even if your skill level is awesome, that upper level is where you get to sort of riff on the thing of whatever you're doing and that's endless. Yeah, I really enjoy that. I can't say I'm like a particular.
Speaker 2:I'm good with the camera.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm like in that realm, I'm one of those people. But with the physical stuff, no, not yet.
Speaker 2:Well that brings. One last aspect too is that at the point of my career where I feel like I'm pretty skilled as a writer, my tool set is pretty solid for what I do, and now what I really actually enjoy is sharing that with other people. So you know, one of the things I like the most is when kids have got to write their college admissions essays friends of my own kids. It's kind of a horrible situation they're put into because suddenly here you go. This is all the eggs, all the chips are on the table. Describe yourself in 650 words Like what the hell? That's an impossible challenge for a 17 year old.
Speaker 2:And so I really enjoy telling kids here's how you break it down. You know, here's your beginning, middle and end. Here are the things about your life. So once you get to that point, I'm not gonna say I'm quite virtuoso. You know I haven't gotten that 10,000 hours of writing where I feel I'm a virtuoso, but I feel like my skillset, my carpentry skills, are solid enough that I can teach other people how to use the tools. You know, here's how you let the hammer do the work for you. You know, don't push the saw. And so with writing, which I feel is probably my strongest asset. That's something that I also get a pleasure out of now sharing that.
Speaker 1:Absolutely the mentoring thing, 100%. Let's talk a little bit about you did work coverage, conflict journalism. Yeah, more for the Associated Press for a bunch of years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what motivated you to do that? So it's a good question and it sort of makes me throw my mind back into my 20s and 30s, where primarily it was the latter. Like this is what you do next. So if you are a journalist, you wanna be a foreign correspondent, because those were the cool guys, and if you're a foreign correspondent, you wanna be a conflict reporter, because those are even cooler guys. So I was able to get a job as an Associated Press correspondent in Spain and then took over as the head correspondent in Portugal. And while Portugal, wars broke out in the former Portuguese colonies in Africa and Angola and Mozambique. So I had the opportunity hey, you want to parachute in and cover the Angola and Mozambican civil wars? So your response is absolutely, because that's career promotion, it's extraordinary independence, because when you're on the ground, that's it.
Speaker 2:Back then this was in the 90s you didn't have cell phones available, so barely had satellite telephones. Almost all of your communication was through a satellite, telex, which is one way I would write a report and send it one way, by telex back to New York, and there was no return information. So you're out in the field on your own. So that's a really intoxicating offer for a 23 year old writer. You go off, you find the stories, you are the ultimate expert because nobody else is out there. And for your profession, david, as photographers, as reporters, we were like, oh man, as photographers are really out there because you guys had to get the image. I could always circle back, talk to people, get the story, but the photographers had to be on the spears tip, where it's actually happening, to get the image. And so as reporters, we used to always be like man. As photographers, they really got it rough because we were always a quarter mile behind you guys.
Speaker 2:But what attracted me to it, I think, was largely ignorance. I did not know what it meant Because I was in that world. It became pride and self importance because you start to think there's not many of us out here doing this for a reason, and I think the reason is not what we think, it is In my pride. Back then I thought, well, hey, the reason I'm here is because I'm braver, I'm more adaptable, I'm more knowledgeable, I can survive in this environment and figure things out and give good news reports. But I didn't realize is because of the price you really pay that you only find out about later, and only now are really people starting to talk about what happens to people who are absorbing a lot of shared human misery, and it's an interesting environment. We're now where people can actually see this online, where you couldn't see it before, but if you were in the field, you're seeing this, you're taking it in and you're paying a price for it that you didn't realize when you signed on.
Speaker 1:I just want to level set here. I was a photographer at a really high level for a long time. I did not do conflicts, I did pretty people on magazine covers. The conflict people were just a whole different animal. I was not wired that way. Just to be clear on that.
Speaker 2:I think the wired, though, is also eagerness. It's not so much that I think a lot of people as people who stay in the profession they might be wired that way. A lot of people first get into it because, oh, that's the cool thing, off I go, and then it's very hard to let it go. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:I want to touch on Sherman, which is an entirely different thing. Who's Sherman? So Sherman is my daughter's rescue, donkey At the time nine-year-old daughter's rescue donkey, Tell me I know there's a whole book out there, but briefly, what was your attraction to Sherman? What was Sherman's condition when you met Sherman and Sherman's transition?
Speaker 2:This to me was one of the most fascinating assignments I've ever had, because I didn't know it was a writing assignment at the time. It only became a writing assignment when an editor that I worked with at the New York Times called me up one day and she was kind of canvassing for fresh story ideas and a fresh column. And I happened to be on my way to the dentist and I actually pulled over to talk to Tara and just told her what was going on in my life and she's like, oh yeah, that's going to be a good book. It's not a book, tara. This is actually something. I'm not even sure if it's going to last another week.
Speaker 2:And the situation was that where we lived was a very rural pocket of Pennsylvania called Peach Bottom, and Peach Bottom is an Amish community in the middle of nowhere and all of our neighbors were Amish and Mennonite. We had just kind of stumbled into this community by accident. My wife and I were moving out of Philly and we thought we can live anywhere and we just found this cool log cabin in the middle of nowhere and jumped in with both feet before we realized, oh, this is a real departure, but we really liked it. We spent 20 years on that little farm and one year when my daughter was nine, we were out on a hike through the woods and this woman comes bursting out of the woods riding a donkey which none of us had ever seen before. Donkeys are not an east coast animal, they're like a rocky mountain west coast animal. It's not east coast and it's like a cool, sturdy little miniature horse. It's like a kid-sized horse. So we all were kind of enchanted by this woman and her riding donkey with the saddle and we all forgot about it, except for my daughter who's nine and it kind of lodged in her brain like that's be the coolest thing in the world. So for her 10th birthday we're like hey, what do you want? She was like a donkey.
Speaker 2:My first thought was like dude, you're not getting no donkey. But then I thought yeah, why not? We got the acreage, we got the fences. So we started asking around and one of our neighbors, a men and a farmer, said actually we've got somebody we know that has a donkey and we got to get it out of his hands. He was a hoarder. So I thought, oh, perfect, free donkey dynamite.
Speaker 2:And then we went to look at it. This was not the charming little galloping, clip-clopping donkey that my daughter was envisioning. This was a desperately sick, neglected animal who'd been locked in a stall for years with hooves that were so like, monstrously overgrown, that they looked like downhill skis and matted fur and sort of a dead glaze in its eyes. And it was living in a dark, muddy stall. And my first thought was like man, we don't. I don't think this thing's going to survive. But we ended up taking insurance.
Speaker 2:My second thought was we're not leaving here, so we take in Sherman and that same woman that we met on the trail. I tracked her down because you're the only person I know that has a donkey. I found this woman, tanya, and I said what do we do? And that's what she said. You know, this donkey needs a job. It's got to have a reason to walk out the door and move every day. And I don't have no job or no donkey. I don't know what I'm going to do with this thing.
Speaker 2:And then I thought well, I run every day. If I can get this donkey to run next to me and meet my running partner, then maybe we can get it moving again. And that began the whole evolution Like can we turn Sherman into my running partner and it's anybody who's got any familiarity with donkeys knows and that's not many of you, but you know that the best way to solve a problem with a donkey is throw more donkeys at the problem, because they're herd animals. So if you want one donkey to do something, we'll get two others and together they'll all do it. So we ended up creating this little three donkey running pack with me and my wife Mika, and our friend Zeke, who was taking time off from school for some mental health issues, and the six of us three donkeys and three horrifically unprepared humans became this little running pack.
Speaker 1:I love that story. Chris, is there anything you want to leave my people with today?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I love the conversation, I love the preparation you've done and I think maybe the takeaway, if there's one little nugget to glean, is, you know, seeking out fun.
Speaker 2:And I think, you know, maybe in our health and longevity quest we look at it as a burden and a job as opposed to fun and excitement. And I think if there's a through line for everything I've done in my life, it's like hey, what's the most amount of fun I can get out of this? I think when most people look at exercise, it becomes a downward spiral like I ought to, and then I overdid it, and now I'm sore, and now I don't want to do it, and now I didn't do it enough. And it's a downward spiral of self doubt and self-recrimination as opposed to hey, that was pretty good, I could probably do more than that, I can't wait till tomorrow, and then I was really fun. Maybe you run a little more slowly, maybe you run with a friend who's slower than you, maybe you run a little bit shorter than you wanted to. That becomes an upward spiral, like can't wait to do more, as opposed to a downward spiral like ah, I did too much.
Speaker 1:I think that is so well said. One of my personal bug bears is sort of fitness shaming and I think that, yeah, we all like to optimize ourselves, but can we have some fun here?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you know something, my man, you're kind of guilty that yourself too. Well, I am?
Speaker 1:I'm one of those people. All right, I can speak with authority on this topic.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, let you use without sin. Right, exactly, yeah, that's the cool thing about it is maybe the caveat of that is you enjoyed so much it's hard to stop Exactly.
Speaker 1:Chris, if somebody wants to get in touch with you, what would they do?
Speaker 2:Look, online chrismcdougallcom. Chrismcdougall. Author on social media. I'm out there. Not that hard to find Two L's in McDougall. That's the trick.
Speaker 1:Gosh, this has been so fun talking to you. Drew told me hey, I met this really cool guy, you should talk to him, and I said yeah, this Chris seems really awesome, let's bring him on.
Speaker 2:I'm glad you felt that way. Thank you, yeah, cool thing about body surfing you get a chance to meet people on the line. So that's how we met and it's been really fun.
Speaker 1:So, guys, I just got to say I'm a board surfer and the body surfers were always like what's wrong with those guys? You're absolutely right.
Speaker 2:What is wrong with those guys that?
Speaker 1:was cool, david, thank you. Great Thank you for your time today, chris. No-transcript. That was a great conversation with Chris, a remarkable guy. He's got a new book out called Running with Sherman. Courage. Everyone to check it out.
Speaker 1:I love animal rescue stories. I'm just a total sucker for that and one of the things that perhaps wasn't clear in my conversation with Chris is that he's like the guy who started this whole movement about very long distance running, barefoot running, by studying these tribes in Mexico, and I know people who do this sort of activity. You will never catch me doing it, but all of them it's like as soon as I mentioned his name, they're like, oh my gosh, like that's. You know, chris, he's like the OG on this, so we're really lucky to have him on the show. I hope you guys enjoyed that conversation we're gonna get with. Just try this.
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Speaker 1:I got a really simple one Apple cider vinegar, two tablespoons before you have a meal or just first thing in the morning. And I first heard about this maybe four years ago from Dr Kien Vu, who've had on the show a number of times. And why do we wanna take this? Because it helps with blood sugar modulation, and I found this a little odd. I found drinking apple cider vinegar a little odd, but now I do it every morning. And I found he's not the only one who's talking about this. I looked at the science of it and there seems to be actually some pretty good science about this. He's knowing it, brian Johnson does it, laird does it, a lot of people do it and until I really looked into it, I didn't really get it. So this is my suggestion for the day Apple cider vinegar. So you can be hardcore like me. Truthfully, I just have a swig out of the bottle in the morning, but for other people that's a bit much. So you can just take like two tablespoons, put it in a big glass of water and drink. It has the same effect. What it'll do is it's gonna help modulate your blood sugar and we talk all the time on this show about how damaging blood sugar spikes can be and this will really help. So this week, apple cider vinegar, a couple tablespoons in the morning or before you have your meal, check it out.
Speaker 1:Hey, have you guys left us a review? Have you left us a comment? Oh my God, that would be so great for us. It is not hard to do and you're all clever people. I know you can figure it out. Go to Apple or wherever you're listening to this. Just please leave us a review. It really helps us and I know if I was like super slick, I would ask for this upfront in the podcast. But I feel like I gotta give you something first before you do something for me. So that's why I do it at the end of the podcast. If you can leave us a review and maybe pass on this podcast to somebody you think could use it. That's the only way we grow, and the more of us there are, the more powerful and influential we become. Until next week, everyone, have a wonderful week and we'll see you then. Take care now.