by Scott Jurek
The Raramuri moved through their world with form that could have come from a textbook. Their gait was fluid and economical. They took short strides, landing almost daintily on their mid-to-forefoot. There was no wasted side-to-side energy, and their posture was open in the shoulders, relaxed.
The Tarahumara were later immortalized in McDougall’s book Born to Run, where he called them “super athletes.” I would quibble with that. I would say they were super efficient. They were just much, much more in tune with their bodies and their surroundings. They knew things we had forgotten, with all of our stopwatches and sports foods and fancy running shoes.
Spending a week with the Indians in Copper Canyon helped crystallize ideas that I had been thinking about since my first week at Team Birkie ski camp as a teenager. After my race against the Tarahumara, “born to run” became a catch phrase and a credo for hundreds of thousands of people. As humans, we were meant to move swiftly over the earth. We knew how to run. If we could just return to that state of instinctive bliss, the theory went, we could re-embrace the form and ease we had abandoned and run free from pain, fatigue, and injury. Getting rid of our modern shoes was the suggested first step in this return to jogging Eden.
It wasn’t barefoot running that made the Tarahumara great runners, though. (They wore huaraches.) Form is what matters in running. Barefoot running can help you develop great form, but it’s merely a means to an end. If you like running without shoes, great. If you prefer something on your feet, that’s great too. I agree that modernity has brought with it a host of bad habits and disastrous unintended consequences, not only in running (an overdependence on heavily cushioned shoes being chief among them, and the sense that running is reserved for only a select few), but in eating, too. Fast foods, mass production, grotesquely large servings—those by themselves have made us sick. Modernity has also brought us electricity, penicillin, and open heart surgery, of course. Altogether, our modern inclination toward sloth, the easy availability of processed food, and the prevalence of life-saving medical treatments have made us a long-lived, unhealthy people.
What I saw in the Tarahumara was a group of people who ran —and ate—the way their ancestors had run and eaten. They depended on food that was grown locally and obtained with some difficulty. They ran with abandon and un-self-consciousness. They ate meat, but they ate it the way generations past ate it—on the rare occasions they could get it. It was a precious commodity, not a staple.
I’m healthier and I can run longer and faster because I eat a plant-based diet. But I don’t preach to my carnivorous friends or lambaste anyone who eats a baked potato slathered with butter and sour cream. Anyone who pays attention to what they eat and how it affects them will naturally move toward plants—and toward health.
Exercise is simpler and more complicated. We need to move. But should training be an intuitive, free-form affair or a structured science? I try to let science steer my training while staying open to the animal joy of running. I take days off when I feel I need them, even if my training plan doesn’t call for it. Ultrarunners need to bring all the knowledge we can bear to our training, but we can’t afford to be rigid. If there’s one thing I can count on in a 100-mile race, it’s that I will encounter things I didn’t count on.
Dealing with physical uncertainty used to be part of life. So did training. We ran toward food and away from predators. We feasted and fasted according to the season. We spent a lot of time walking and napping.
Now we sit. We drive and surf on the Internet and watch television. And, naturally, we suffer. A recent study in the American Journal of Epidemiology followed 123,216 subjects over fourteen years and found that men who spent more than 6 hours a day sitting were 17 percent more likely to die during that time than men who sat for less than 3 hours. For women, the increased risk of death was 34 percent. This increased mortality persisted regardless of whether the participants smoked, were overweight, and—this shocked me—regardless of how much they exercised.
Humans aren’t built to sit all day. Nor are we built for the kinds of repetitive, small movements that so much of today’s specialized work demands. Our bodies crave big, varied movements that originate at the core of our body. Imbalance comes when we spend all day doing small, repetitive actions like typing, scanning groceries, flipping burgers, or operating a computer mouse.
Much of the purpose of structured training, therefore, is compensatory. It’s not so much that we need to learn to run per se, as we need to unlearn bad habits and correct imbalances wrought by the modern lifestyle.
The race in Copper Canyon consisted of a few loops along dry, dusty roads at the bottom of the canyon, up 2,000-foot climbs studded with grapefruit and papaya trees, past towering rock formations. We ran through town three times, past locals drinking and laughing, and through the happy, tinny sounds of a mariachi band.
I hadn’t planned on racing so hard—I was on vacation. I kept up my 7-minute pace. I had trained, but these guys had spent their whole lives training, even though they wouldn’t have called it that. I wanted to blend my running and my diet as seamlessly into my day-to-day life as the Tarahumara did. I also wanted to win this race. And I knew they did, too. A victory for me would be a great honor. For them, it would represent enough corn to feed an entire village for a year.
I increased my pace, and there, around a bend, I caught a flash of electric blue. It was Silvino, in his traditional Tarahumara attire. I closed. I breathed in the sweet scent of flowering cacti. I ran past the thorny ocotillo plants with their garish red buds. At 40 miles I pulled up to Silvino, motioned for him to follow. We didn’t exchange words, but I wanted the two of us to catch Arnulfo. I wanted the three of us to duke it out at the finish line together. Silvino was done, though.
I saw Arnulfo at the last turnaround, and he looked spent. We exchanged a glance, and I could see the fatigue and dehydration in his eyes. I knew the look. But I saw something else, too. I saw the fighter in him. I knew he wasn’t going to let up. We had 5 miles, and he had 7, 8 minutes on me, and I thought I could do it. I made the turn, and pure competitive, animal instinct kicked in. This time it wasn’t enough. Arnulfo had it, too.
He beat me by 6 minutes. Less than a mile.
I didn’t hug him or anything like that. I told him in English (which he didn’t understand) that I was very impressed and that he was very strong. In Spanish I said “muy fuerte” over and over.
Then I bowed to him. Out of respect.
People asked me later if I had let him triumph in the interest of cross-cultural understanding or as a gesture of kindness. Those people didn’t know how important competing was to me. Arnulfo beat me fair and square. But I returned the next year and got him by 18 minutes. I gave the corn and the $750 to the Raramuri.
THE NAKED TRUTH
The beautiful thing about running barefoot or in minimal footwear is that you are working with your body’s natural proprioception, the ability to sense your own position in space. With nothing between you and the ground, you get immediate sensory feedback with every step, which encourages you to stay light on your feet and run with proper form. Some people who are recovering from injuries or who have structural anomalies or who just like their shoes will keep lacing up. But whether you wear shoes or go barefoot, what’s important is that you pay attention to your form. If running barefoot helps with that, it’s beneficial.
You want to try barefoot running? Before you toss the shoes and enter a 10K, remember: slow and easy. When runners do too much too soon, injuries often result.
First, find an area of grass or sand and take easy 5- to 10-minute runs once or twice a week. Remember, easy. Don’t worry about speed at all. You’re working on your running form. As long as it feels good, increase the length of one of the runs until you’re up to a 20- to 45-minute barefoot run once a week. I like to do 2 to 3 miles on the infield of a track or in a park after an easy run day or for a cooldown run after a track workout.
Two important things to rememb
er—other than starting slow and easy—are that you don’t need to run barefoot all the time to get the benefits. And you don’t need to run completely barefoot. Lighter weight, minimal running shoes and racing flats will give you a similar type of feel as running barefoot. It will all help you with form. I have been running most of my long training runs and ultra races in Brooks racing flats for almost a decade, even Badwater and Spartathlon. Racing flats and minimal shoes provide the best of both worlds: comfort and performance.
Holy Moly Guacamole
Avocados are a great source of healthy, monounsaturated fat, and the jalapeño adds a nice jolt of spice (scrape the seeds out before mincing and use half of the pepper if you can’t take the heat). Noble foods on their own, they combine to create one of mankind’s greatest inventions. It’s certainly one of my favorites. I can’t think of many dinners—and not a single Mexican one—that aren’t improved with a serving of guac. Take a spoonful of this mixture and you’ll agree. For a quick and healthy snack, enjoy on warm corn tortillas.
2 ripe avocados
Juice of 2 small limes
1 medium tomato, diced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 jalapeño pepper, seeds left in, minced
10 sprigs fresh cilantro, minced
1 teaspoon sea salt
Halve the avocados and scoop out the flesh into a mixing bowl. Squeeze in the lime juice and add the remaining ingredients. Mash with a potato masher or a spoon until semi-smooth and let rest at room temperature for 10 to 20 minutes.
MAKES 2½ CUPS, 6–8 SERVINGS
16. The Central Governor
WESTERN STATES 100, 2006
All it takes is all you got.
—MARC DAVIS
No one wants to win more than I do. What I’ve learned in ultras, though, is that where I finish is merely an outcome—even though I reach for it with every sinew and tendon and muscle of my being. What matters more than victory is what I do to reach it and how. Have I prepared? Am I focused? Have I have been treating my body with attentiveness, eating healthfully and with care? Have I been training properly? Have I pushed myself as far, and as hard, as possible? Those are the types of questions that have guided me in my career and that can guide anyone who seeks something (which is to say, everyone). You want to get the promotion at work, or the girl, or the guy, or the personal best in the 5K race, of course. But whether you get what you want isn’t what defines you. It’s how you go about your business.
Ultras teach that lesson with unforgiving precision. Never did I see it more clearly than in the Western States 2006. And I wasn’t even competing.
A month before the race, a friend and running partner asked if I would pace him at the event.
I had known Brian Morrison for a year or so. We ran together in the winter and spring of 2006, before I made my trek to Mexico. He was twenty-seven, a manager at Seattle Running Company, and he and I would catch the bus to Green Lake, where we did tempo runs—50 to 60 minutes at 85 percent effort—on the 3-mile loop. We ran the wooded trails at Cougar Mountain, and I showed him the Twelve Peaks and the new 40-mile Rattlesnake-to-Cougar training route I devised. He asked about the Western States canyons, about the heat, about the hill work we should be doing. He asked me everything and I told him everything. I don’t believe in secrets. It’s not a bit of arcane knowledge that will allow me to beat someone or someone to beat me. Winning at an elite level demands technique and strategy, to be sure, but mostly it’s heart. Brian had plenty. He had drive and powerful ambition. In many ways he reminded me of me.
It was strange at the starting line, not screaming, not sprinting to the head of the pack. To keep busy, and because I felt as though I owed so much to the race that had in a way defined me, I handed out race bibs and volunteered the way I had at many ultras I didn’t run. It was weird following the progress of other runners and visiting with aid station volunteers who helped me out over the past seven years. But it was pleasant. That’s a mild word, but compared to the intense highs and lows I experienced during my previous Western States, the extremes to which the event had pushed me, it was exactly right. It was pleasant. What made it more than pleasant was Brian. I had told him before the race that he had what it took to win. For 55 miles I kept track of his progress from different points on the course—pacers weren’t allowed to run until mile 62—and he did nothing to disabuse me of my confidence. He was moving well, in fifth place, looking fresh and relaxed. But at mile 55 things got less pleasant. That’s when Brian started to have a hard time. It was 105 degrees, Western States weather, and I could tell it was affecting him. He was slowing down. I knew that when I joined him we’d have work to do. I knew we’d have to pick up the pace. I had been up since three o’clock in the morning, and I was worried about whether I had it in me. I knew that I could race an ultra myself and win. Being responsible for someone else’s success, though, scared me a little. I hadn’t anticipated the doubt. I would have to deal with that before I took my first step.
I dealt with my anxiety the same way I had dealt with my bum ankle in the 2001 Western States. Four simple steps: First, I let myself worry. Second, I took stock. I would be doing the equivalent of a 38-mile training run with someone who had been running for the better part of a day—not a huge deal. Third, I asked myself what I could do to remedy the situation. That was easy. All I had to do was be a good pacer. The fourth and final step: Separate my negative feelings from the issue at hand. Realizing that my negative feelings had little to do with reality made this step the easiest of all.
When I joined Brian, the announcer blared over the speakers, “Scott Jurek is about to pace!” I was merely there to help someone else, but hearing my name out loud like that unleashed a surge of adrenaline into my blood. Then it was time for business.
At mile 62, Brian was in fourth place. I told him that by the time we got to the Rucky Chucky river crossing—16 miles away—we were going to have passed everyone. I told him we’d be leading then, and we would lead all the way to the finish line.
He turned it on. He became a different runner. He didn’t say anything, because runners don’t talk much. They want to conserve all their energy for the race. But I talked. I turned into Dusty. I became Brian’s second brain, cajoling, sweet-talking, demanding when I needed to demand. Within 12 miles we had passed everyone. By the time we came to the river crossing, he was hooting and hollering. He was super pumped even though we were both boiling. I did what I knew how to do, which was to push him as hard as I could, but making sure it wasn’t too hard. I made him lie down in creeks, and I shoveled water over him. I remember once having to lie down in a puddle that I immediately realized was half horse manure, but I didn’t move. I knew how overheated we both were. I had him drink at aid stations. There was never a point where I thought he wasn’t getting enough water or was getting too much. By mile 78, when we turned to look behind us, there was no one there. We weren’t running scared, but when you’re in front, you want to send a message to your competitors: “Don’t even try.”
I told Brian, “Let’s crank it up. As long as we keep running 8-minute miles, if we throw a 7:30 in every so often, you’ve got this.”
We got to Highway 49, over 93 miles in, and I told Brian’s crew chief (and fiancée), Andrea, that I was going to need someone else to take over. With all my attention to Brian’s drinking enough water and eating, I hadn’t drunk or eaten enough myself. I was sick to my stomach. I was fatigued. I was dehydrated and bonking. I thought I might slow him down. Andrea asked if I could keep going, to stay with him for another 3 miles until No Hands Bridge, which was 3 miles from the finish. At that point, Brian’s victory wouldn’t be in question. I could stop then.
So I dug in, and we ran another 3 miles through choking dust and heat. Brian told me the downhills hurt, but I told him pain was temporary, to get through it. Otherwise, we didn’t say much. There was no need. Three miles from the finish line, I had pushed him as hard as he needed to be pushed, and when another pacer,
Jason Davis, appeared, I told Brian he was in good hands and I’d meet him at Robie Point, a mile from the finish line. I said I’d follow him to his first Western States victory.
Brian and Jason climbed another 2 miles on dirt. I caught a ride and met them on the road in Auburn. Brian hadn’t seen pavement in some time. There were cars and houses and people having parties in their yards, waiting for the top finishers. Physically, he looked fine. As far as I was concerned, this race was over. All we had to do was jog along city streets to the finish line. All Brian had to do was get there. But when he spoke, I knew he wasn’t feeling quite so confident. “How far back are they?” he asked, and he looked over his shoulder. He was scared. I laughed and told him to relax, that he didn’t need to worry. We were running slightly uphill and he was hammering. He was going at an 8-minute-mile pace, and I told him he didn’t have to run that fast, but if he wanted to finish strong, that was cool.
“How far back are they?” he asked again. “How far back?”
I had suffered late race hallucinations myself, and I did my best to not freak out, and especially to make sure he didn’t freak out.
Luis Escobar, my photographer friend, was running with us now, and so was Jason Davis. We were motoring down the last downhill and we could hear the crowd, we could see the lights. Brian was yelling, “Where is it? Where is it?” The race ends in Auburn at the Placerville High School track, and we were all yelling back, “It’s there. You got this! You got this!”
It was ten at night when we rounded a corner and stepped through the small opening in the fence and onto the track. People were cheering, but not as loud as Luis, Jason, and I were yelling, “You did this, Brian! You’re the Western States champion!”