My Coach is a Star!

Back in college, I traveled to Mexico's Copper Canyon with some pals for spring break. We spent a few nights in the tiny town of Creel on the canyon's edge (keep in mind that Copper Canyon is 4x's the size of the Grand Canyon). One day, we went looking for some hot springs rumored to be at the bottom of the canyon. We ended up hiring a 8-year old Tarahumara boy to lead us down the rugged terrain to the springs. We of course were worried about what we were getting ourselves into when we saw that he was wearing tattered flip flops with a flimsy heel strap-we were a pretty darn fit group of youngsters. Well, this kid hiked the living tar out of us! The thing I remember most about him was how he walked; he literally floated up and downhill. There was really no other way to describe it.

So, when I found out that Christopher McDougall's book "Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes and the Greatest Race the World has Never Seen" was recently published, I was intrigued. Not just because I have been to the region but because my coach, Eric Orton, trained McDougall to prepare him for the unique 50-mile ultra race with the Tarahumara in Mexico's Copper Canyon described in the book. Heck, he also went down there and ran with McDougall. The adventure was first written up in Men's Health magazine (scroll down the press page for the link) and is now detailed extensively in this book:

From Amazon.com: Born to Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world’s greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we thought we knew about running is wrong....About the training: Eric’s specialty is tearing endurance sports down to their basic components and looking for transferable skills. He studies rock climbing to find shoulder techniques for kayakers, and applies Nordic skiing’s smooth propulsion to mountain biking. What he’s looking for are basic engineering principles, because he’s convinced that the next big leap forward in fitness won’t come from strength or technology, but plain, simple durability. With some 70% of all runners getting hurt every year, the athlete who can stay healthy and avoid injury will leave the competition behind.

Anyone who has ever witnessed my regular core strength workouts knows that Eric is onto something unique and different. They are always changing, always keeping my body guessing, and therefore making me stronger. Even though I am not a runner I'm sure there's lots of info in the book that I can transfer to my ultra-endurance mountain biking. Maybe the Tarahumara know something that'll help get me through Leadville???