Quicklet on Christopher McDougall's Born to Run

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Born in 1962, Christopher McDougall is an American author and journalist with a penchant for covering the odd or extreme in the world: Frenchmen who work out in coconut trees, fugitive Mexican pop stars, and endurance running. After graduating from Harvard, McDougall was hired by the Associated Press as their new Lisbon correspondent, despite lacking knowledge of both Portuguese and journalism. After leaving the AP, McDougall wrote for a wide variety of publications, including Men's Health and New York Times Magazine. In their pages, he covered a wide breadth of subjects, from why America hasn't been hit by another terrorist attack since September 11 to "physiological oddities" like the health benefits of old lumberjack saws or the Tarahumara tribe of near superhuman ultrarunners.

First published in 2009, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen became a New York Times bestseller, staying on the list for over four months and selling over 219,000 hardcover copies in its first year. A movie version of the book is reportedly in the works, to be written and directed by Peter Sarsgaard.