When journalist Christopher McDougall wrote the book that kicked off the barefoot running movement, he got to thinking about what makes a hero. He joins us to explore how people can develop their natural skills to be ready in a crisis. This episode picked by producer Benjamin Bombard.
Christopher McDougall is the journalist who wrote the book that kicked off the barefoot running movement. While he was writing, McDougall came across the story of a Greek foot messenger who accomplished remarkable athletic feats during World War II. That got him thinking about what makes a hero. He learned that it isn’t chance that creates heroes, and you don’t have to be superhuman either. McDougall joins us to explore how normal people can develop their natural skills to be ready in a crisis.
Producer Benjamin Bombard's thoughts on the episode:
We’re obsessed with stories at RadioWest. And a good story sucks you in immediately. It establishes an emotional connection, and that connection provokes an intimate, personal response. You start to care. You become curious. You want to know more; you need to know more. And the writer Christopher McDougall is a great storyteller. He’s interested in how humans move and how we’re naturally built to move. Which is interesting, but without that human connection, it might not be any more than that. So when he wrote a book about parkour, the limits of endurance, and how you fuel that kind of effort, McDougall did it with a story.
