I spend an enormous amount of time in the car — and I mean an enormous amount. As proof of this, I purchased a new car in February and when I was coming back from my second 5,000 mile oil change from my local garage, the odometer now toping 16,000, I received an e-mail from the dealer telling me that according to the calendar, I may be getting close to my 2,500 mile checkup and should soon bring the car in. And although I have a cell phone and blue tooth and all the toys to stay productive, there is still down time in the car. So I listen to books-on-tape — lots and lots of them.

I love books-on-tape and I get them from the library three at a time — this is not only so I’m not caught short without one, but although I can watch a bad movie, I cannot read a bad book and a certain percentage of them don’t make the cut.

With a traditional book I can somewhat control this failure rate by what editors call ‘the first page test’. I can tell within the first page of the book — often within the first paragraph — if a book is written well — it doesn’t matter what the subject matter is, if it’s not written well, what’s the point? But with a book-on-tape you have only the back jacket marketing blurb and can’t experience the writing until you press the CD into the slot.

So I always take three hopefuls out at a time.

Last week I had several meetings in Buffalo, NY and from my home in Delaware that meant that I would have at least 14 hours of windshield time on my hands. So I went to the library and got my three books-on-tape.

The first two were excessively painful and were quickly abandoned but the third, was a keeper.

The book was entitled, Born To Run – A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen.

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Now a good book is a good book. Whether it’s about cooking or boxing or The Civil War or taxidermy — well, maybe taxidermy might be a stretch — and this is a good book.

Born to Run starts out with this fitness writer trying to determine why he can only run a few miles without experiencing pain, but ultra-runners can travel fifty, even a hundred miles with no pain at all. The book bounces around and is part essay, part term paper and part narrative, but by the time you get to the halfway point — to this secret race in The Copper Canyon in Mexico — it is a serious page turner.

Born To Run focuses on the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico, who run hundreds of miles in homemade sandals without rest or injury. It describes the ultra-running sport, the cast of characters and the science behind it, but ends in a secret race where America’s top ultra-runners travel to the Copper Canyons for a 50 mile desert foot race — over the world’s least hospitable terrain — against the tribe.

The books main point is that human beings are literally born to run — and he delves into the research to support this. He covers the jogging movement and takes a few swings at Nike — but comes back to one great question.

When we were kids we were always told to slow down. Stop running. Then as adults we state that we hate running.

How did that happen?

Born to Run shows what can happen when running recovers that childlike joy again and is more game than chore.

A sign of a great book is when it’s over, when you’ve turned the last page or listened to the last CD, you go through a period of separation — after all, the people you have just spent countless hours with and have learned to care about are now gone. Poof.

And when this happened here, I went rushing online to research the real life characters of the book: Jenn and the Bonehead, Barefoot Ted and Micah True, just so I could extend the experience a little longer. Just to say goodbye.

And although I rolled my eyes at the lengthy evolution ‘science’ descriptions – which were a little high-handed — I really did enjoy this book. And when I had finished it, many of the things I thought were impossible in my life, I began to rethink.

Born to Run shows just what us humans can do if there are no limits.

If you need a lift, encouragement, or inspiration — and what man doesn’t — read this book.