The book starts off as a bit of a travelogue with the author delving into the Copper Canyons (Barrancas del Cobre) of Mexico’s Sierra Madre, where few strangers go and even fewer come back. Two reason for that – getting lost and dying of thirst, and getting found and dying of a drug baron’s bullet.
McDougall risks it in search of the Tarahumara, an indigenous group renowned for their long distance running prowess, first glimpsed in the 1990’s when someone persuaded a small group to travel to the States to compete in an ultra-marathon – the Leadville 100 mile run through mountains at altitude.
But McDougall’s motive is more personal. He has suffered running injuries for years and wants to find out how the Tarahumara can run vast distances, in sandals, in severe conditions, well into their fifties and sixties, without damage.
When he finally makes contact, it is through an American gone native who goes by the name of Caballo Blanco (the white horse). He is as enthusiastic about the Tarahumara as McDougall and shares his dream of putting on a race in the Barrancas between the Tarahumara and the best of the current US ultrarunners.
Interspersed with the narrative are pen portraits of some of those ultrarunners and their incredible feats of running endurance and the crazy events at which they compete. Then there is an investigative theme on the issue of running shoes that concludes, convincingly, they promote rather than prevent injury. The message is barefoot, or as close to it as possible, is best. In addition, history, anthropology, and physiology is delved into to theorise that man’s unique ability to run vast distances without stopping to rest, enabling pursuit hunting, was an evolutionary advantage that proved significant. Man was indeed born to run.
The narrative climaxes with the great race in
the barrancas, and it does not disappoint. Fitting, for a book that gets more
interesting and satisfying, page by page, as the themes develop and combine in
a winning formula.
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