The Lost Art of Running: A Journey to Rediscover the Forgotten Essence of Human Movement

if I was going to be in a wheelchair then I’d make the best of it. Having accepted it, I started to consider the alternative. This time, though, I did it in increments without the level of pressure or expectation that I’d had before. I supposed that if I could just stand up then I wouldn’t necessarily have to be confined to a wheelchair. And if I c

If you run, you already have a deeper connection with yourself – a deeper connection with the world – than those who don’t. You have already experienced moments of utter childish, joy-evoking freedom, moving forwards powered only by the gifts that nature has given you. In those moments, you have been stripped back. Away from a constant connection t

I was cool eating meals with sand in. I was fine with the smell of elephant shit. I was OK with not sleeping well. I knew that I could suffer. I knew that I could go to some very dark places – right to the bottom of the barrel – and somehow climb back out again.’

His experience in the army had also taught him that if you make a body that is conditioned to perform, you can transfer that performance into any scenario,

beautiful movement is not all about power. Balance and symmetry win every time.

If you run, you already understand what it’s like to crave that feeling over and over again. To want to get back in touch with that version of yourself. The one you relate to more than any other.

Headley Court (a rehabilitation centre for injured members of the British Armed Forces)

Concentrating on something so intensely increases our perception of effort.

Fundamentally, I was not only concerned about whether we in the Western world could still run like those East Africans but whether, in two generations’ time, East Africans would be running like us! What we had fallen for, they were falling for.