Lukas Grounds

“There’s a more glaring giveaway that boxing and wrestling are just recreation: girls and old guys aren’t good at them. As a rule of thumb, performance aberration in a basic skill is a good way to evaluate whether it’s natural to a species. When you spot a giant ability gap between ages and genders, you know you’re looking at nurture, not nature.”
― Christopher McDougall, Natural Born Heroes: Mastering the Lost Secrets of Strength and Endurance

“Heroes aren’t perfect; with a god as one parent and a mortal as the other, they’re perpetually teetering between two destinies. What tips them toward greatness is a sidekick, a human connection who helps turn the spigot on the power of compassion. Empathy, the Greeks believed, was a source of strength, not softness; the more you recognized yourself in others and connected with their distress, the more endurance, wisdom, cunning, and determination you could tap into.”
― Christopher McDougall, Natural Born Heroes: Mastering the Lost Secrets of Strength and Endurance

“Middle-aged women are likewise no strangers to the lead pack in ultramarathons. Pam Reed was forty-one when she outran all the men to win the 135-mile Badwater ultra across Death Valley in 2002; the following year, she returned and did it again. Diana Finkel was just shy of forty when she led for the first ninety miles of the brutally hard Hardrock 100, finishing second overall.”
― Christopher McDougall, Natural Born Heroes: Mastering the Lost Secrets of Strength and Endurance

“Être fort pour être utile,” Hébert declared. “Be fit to be useful.”
― Christopher McDougall, Natural Born Heroes: Mastering the Lost Secrets of Strength and Endurance