Lesson 3 from the Tarahumara

There is the occasion in Born to Run when Caballo Blanco (who had trekked into the Copper Canyons to live among the Tarahumara) goes one morning for a short hike to a natural thermal pool in the woods. He spots a faint trail through the trees he’s not seen before so he takes off running down it and hours later he is still running (page 49).

Sometimes it can be good to be spontaneous, ditch the schedule, ditch the watch, just run and go with the flow.

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Lesson 2 from the Tarahumara: Keep smiling and enjoy

Enjoy running! Well into the 100 miles arduous (understatement!) ultra Leadville race, observer Ken Chlouber was struck by something as he saw two of the Tarahumara at the Twin Lakes aid station.

“As Ken watched Juan and Martimano exit the fire house, he was struck by something else: when they hit the dirt ramp, they hit it laughing. Everybody else walks up that hill Chlouber thought as Juan and Martimano churned up the slope like kids playing in a leaf pile. Everybody. And they sure as hell ain’t laughin’ about it“. (Page 90 Born To Run)

You can be highly competitive and still smile!

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I’ve just finished “Born to Run” by Christopher McDougall, a read I would highly recommend to anyone who hasn’t already read it. In a nutshell its about his ultra adventure when he goes seeking the Mexican Tarahumara Indians, the world’s greatest distance runners. Here is just the first of some thoughts I had when reading it.

Lesson 1 from the Tarahumara: Live lean and build your soul. 

Our lives have a habit of becoming “cluttered” and in the process we get “cluttered” inside of ourselves too. No coincidence that in psychological terms we talk about “getting rid of baggage”.  Deena Castor understood perfectly the holistic ethos of the Tarahumara when she sought to train under Coach Joe Vigil.  Pg 119 “If Deena even wanted to think about training under Vigil, she had better be ready to train like the Tarahumara. That meant living lean and building her soul as much as her strength.” Vigil believed you had to be a strong person before you could become a strong runner.

In the day to day routine when it’s often natural to compartmentalise our lives, lets not forget running is an integral part of who we are and how we define ourselves. It is interconnected to all parts of our existence and each part affects another. We need to work out for ourselves what it means to live lean and how we can become stronger people and runners.

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