Running with Sherman

by Christopher McDougall

  “Let’s get ’em, Sherm. Now walk on!” Sherman lurched forward, trotting so briskly that I almost lost the rope again. Flower and Tanya were a few hundred yards away and going strong. I was afraid Sherman would give up when he realized we couldn’t make up the gap, but as long as Flower was in sight, he stayed in pursuit. Only when Flower vanished down a dip in the road did Sherman rebel. He immediately spun for home, but I was ready for him. Before he finished his U-turn to the left, I had my bag-on-a-stick in front of his eye. Just as Tanya predicted, he turned back right. He kept on turning, but the bag was waiting for him that way too.

  Boxed in, Sherman stopped to consider his next move. I took him by the halter, pointed his head down the gravel road, and let him weigh his options. Tanya and Flower hadn’t come back, so it was just the two of us, locked in a stalemate.

  “Walk on,” I ordered, not knowing what else to say but fully aware that I had just as much chance of Sherman obeying if I’d ordered him to sing Happy Birthday.

  Sophie and Sherman help Tanya work on Flower’s water phobia.

  “Walk—” I tried again, and before I’d finished, Sherman was on the move. He took off at a nervous trot, head high as he searched for Flower. I was afraid he’d give up and start fighting toward home if we didn’t find her soon, but we rounded a bend and spotted her ahead. Sherman suddenly veered sideways, as if all he’d wanted was confirmation that Flower was alive before retiring back to the barn, but I had my plastic bag on hair trigger and flicked it up in time to straighten him out.

  Luckily for us, Flower had met her perfect storm: not one but two creeks, one of them gurgling beneath the road and the other cascading into a frothy little waterfall to our right. This was the hill she’d die on, Flower had decided, so Tanya had her hands full as Flower zigzagged and backtracked and stalled. When Tanya saw us coming, she decided to take a break and wait for us to catch up.

  “That’s how, cowboy!” Tanya hollered as we approached. “That’s the way to ground-drive.”

  We all paused beside the waterfall. Tanya wasn’t going to let Flower finish the day without conquering that trouble spot, so she kept working till she’d coaxed her past it. Sherman tromped along contentedly, not bothered by the water as long as it wasn’t directly underfoot and Flower was nearby. He was so relaxed, it took a while before I looked around and processed what he’d just done: the sick, lame donkey marked for death last week had run half a mile.

  “Wow,” I told Tanya. “If we make it home from here, that’s a full mile. Unbelievable.”

  Tanya looked Shermie over, taking in his easy saunter. “I think he’s ready to show us more,” she said. “Let’s push on and see what he’s got.”

  * Or words to that effect. I didn’t catch the exact phrasing of Tanya’s speech, but I certainly remembered the heat. This is a pretty good approximation.

  11

  Wild Thing

  One month later, the four of us were once again stalled in the same spot. “Know what I love about Flower?” I told Tanya. “She still acts like she’s never seen that waterfall before.”

  Day by day, Sherman kept getting stronger because Flower, conveniently, wasn’t getting any braver. Tanya and I had settled into a schedule of three runs a week, and every time, the two donkeys would follow the same pattern: Sherman would futz around at the beginning, testing me with his twists and feints, until he’d suddenly realize Flower was gone and get down to business. He and I would push hard to catch up, usually a little too hard, hammering the gravel road at a clip that was uncomfortably quick for both of us. At about the point when Sherman was losing hope and I was sucking air, there we’d find Flower: pawing and snuffling the ground like a kid peeking over the edge of the high dive, suspiciously sizing up the same patch of road next to the waterfall that, by the end of four weeks, she’d crossed more than fifty times.

  Not even the UPS guy was surprised by us anymore. Over the past month, he’d come across us enough times to know that whenever he was near AK’s Saw Shop, he’d better keep his foot hovering near the brake. “Only down here!” Tanya would holler as he slowed to squeeze between us and the creek. “Only in the Southern End.”

  Personally, I loved Flower’s weird little Rain Man–nerisms, because they gave Sherman and me a chance to regroup and recover before pushing on with the workout. Without those time-outs, Sherman might have quit before the runs really got started. And it wasn’t just water that freaked out Flower; she also sensed the hand of death looming in:

  · tire skid marks

  · cracks in asphalt

  · bridges of any type

  · a scrap of pink survey tape hanging from a tree branch

  · a curve in the road that was too sunny

  · a curve that was too shadowy

  · shadows in general

  · the color yellow, especially in road signs and underground-wire warnings

  · cows (But not dogs. Let a farm cur come raging out of the barn, and Flower will yawn. Let a friendly heifer sidle up to the fence, and Flower bolts.)

  To this day, some Flower triggers remain an utter mystery. Even Sherman would be baffled; we’d all be jogging serenely through the woods, nothing around us but trees, when Flower would freeze so fast that Sherman would run right by before realizing something was supposed to be scaring him. The three of us would stand there, baffled. “Ah, there it is,” Tanya might say, finally spying a hunter’s camouflaged deer stand fifteen feet up in a tree. Otherwise, we’d shrug and move on, chalking it up as a menace detectable only by FlowerVision.

  Sherman’s fixation went the opposite way: instead of fleeing life’s little surprises, he followed them. That sank in one afternoon when Tanya wasn’t available and the girls and I decided to take Sherman out on his own. We’d gotten so used to Sherman’s excitement at chasing Flower the half mile down to the waterfall, we’d forgotten that flying solo might be a very different experience. Sherman started off strong, happy to be sandwiched between me and my daughters as we jogged down the driveway and into the street. We turned onto the gravel road, and only as we were approaching the waterfall did Sherman wake up to the fact that this time Flower wasn’t going to appear. He moped and balked, intent on turning us around for home.

  “How about we give that a try?” I suggested, pointing off-road toward a dirt trail near the waterfall. The trail winds up a steep hill and through the woods, eventually emerging from the trees at a small farm with two big, fiery horses. We’d never tried it with Sherman because the climb is tough and the horses are tougher; true, they’re fenced in, but they love to greet strangers by thundering across the meadow like demon steeds of the Apocalypse and skidding to a stop, nostrils flaring, just inches from the wire. They’re fun to watch, though, and I didn’t think Sherm was really at risk because if we couldn’t persuade him to walk any farther down that flat road, there wasn’t much chance he’d grind all the way up the hill to the farm.

  But something came over Sherm when his hooves touched that dirt. It was an electric reaction, as if power was surging into his body from out of the ground. Sophie and Maya were scrambling ahead of him up the hill, but Sherman’s four-wheel drive blew right past them. I dropped the rope and the girls got out of the way, surrendering the trail to this suddenly inspired donkey who churned around the switchbacks. About halfway to the top, he stopped and looked back, apparently as surprised to find himself out front as we were. For the first time, he could see the world from the head of the pack. He must have liked what he saw because he shook his mane and climbed on, speeding up the rocky trail and disappearing over the crest.

  Uh-oh.

  “Is he coming back?” Maya asked.

  “Um…yeah. Sure!” I lied. This was an entirely new problem. Until that moment, I’d never had to worry about Sherman running too much. He’d been back on his feet for only a month, and during that time he’d nev
er been voluntarily separated from his nearest friend by a distance of more than six inches. Bolting like a runaway racehorse was never a scenario I saw coming. I felt a surge of joy—Run free, buddy!—followed by the heart-clenching fear that for all I knew, Sherman wouldn’t stop galloping until he plunged in front of a car.

  The girls and I hiked up the trail as fast as we could. And there, transfixed, was Sherman.

  He’d come to a stop at the edge of the hilltop farm. Through the fence, he was touching noses with the two big warhorses. All three seemed fascinated; Sherman by these magnificent cousins of his, the magnificent cousins by this scruffy gray creature who’d just erupted from the woods and was now sniffing them over, awed but unafraid. We gave Sherman time to bond with his new heroes, then took him by the rope to head home. As soon as we were back on the trail, his dirt-induced superpower kicked in again. I couldn’t fight him and keep my feet, so I chucked the rope and let him go, watching as he descended the hill like a slalom racer, nimbly picking his way through the rocks and around the trees.

  I slipped and scrambled after him, knowing I’d have to run hard once I hit the gravel to have any chance of catching up with Sherm before he reached the main road. Turned out I didn’t have to worry; when the girls and I made it down, Sherman was right there by the waterfall, waiting.

  * * *

  —

  It was a great day, but a confusing one. Was it just the dirt that got Sherman so fired up? And why did he stop at the bottom when he could have motored all the way back to Lawrence and Chili? I couldn’t figure out what Sherman was thinking until that evening, when a cat spoke up and gave me a clue.

  I was out collecting the eggs from our chicken coop when I heard desperate meowing. I hunted around and found Polly, a calico kitten we’d taken in, being stalked by Sherman. Polly had scampered to the top of the split-rail fence to get away from him, but Sherman wasn’t giving up; he kept nudging her with his nose as Polly tried to tightrope-walk her way to safety. Sherman looked so happy, I’d swear he was actually grinning. I pulled out my phone to take a few pictures, but then I had to jump in and spoil his fun when Polly popped out her claws to julienne his nose. I swooped between them, carrying Polly to the house while Sherman lumbered along behind us.

  Sherman gets the game, while adopted stray Polly gets outta there.

  Inside, I checked my photos. The short sequence showed Polly transitioning from confused, to annoyed, to downright angry. But it was the expression on Sherman’s face that riveted me. Something about it looked oddly familiar—

  And then it clicked. Holy shit, I thought. He gets it. He gets the game.

  In the photos, Sherman has the same delight in his eye that the girls and I had seen when he gazed back at us on the trail. He wasn’t trying to flee; he was trying to play. In Sherman’s mind, I realized, our runs with Flower were a cat-and-mouse game, and he was the cat. It was up to me to give him something to chase, but today, he reached the waterfall and discovered I’d messed up: no mouse.

  So what did Sherman do? He found his own. I don’t know if he detected those horses by their scent in the air or the tracks of hooves but he sallied after them the same way he usually pursued Flower. He’d glanced back on the trail to see why the girls and I weren’t keeping up, but as far as he was concerned, that was our problem. What, was he supposed to wait around forever? There was quarry to be caught! When we got home afterward, Sherman was so keen to keep playing that poor bewildered Polly found herself cast against type, not to mention her will, as the new rodent designate.

  It all made sense. I’d taken a game—the burro race—and turned it into a job; Sherman had taken the job and turned it back into a game.

  Now it was up to us to make him good at it. It didn’t take me long to realize that Sherman’s game had one glitch: the cat and mouse liked each other too much. Whenever Sherman caught up with Flower, they’d be so happy to see each other that when it came time to run again, neither wanted to go first. Tanya and I would be spinning in circles before we could straighten the lovebirds out and get moving. I was glad to discover he was actually having fun, but catching Flower wasn’t going to get Sherman to the finish line of a mountain ultramarathon, not with all that standing around we were doing. We had to figure out a way to keep things playful but add a little urgency and ramp up the running. Compared to our gentle, three-mile jaunts along the creek, the World Championship Pack Burro Race was going to be a far more ferocious beast.

  Tanya and I needed some help, and I had an idea where to look. It was time to call in Vella Shpringa—the world’s only Amish running club.

  12

  The Zipperless Guide to Better Living

  When Amos King gave running a try, it wasn’t as if his legs weren’t already getting blown out every day. He was a twenty-six-year-old roofer, which meant climbing ladders under a hot sun with a stack of asphalt shingles on his shoulder, and because he’s Amish, just getting to work was a workout. Most mornings, Ame was out the door before the sun was up, pushing himself down the road to his shop on a heavy steel scooter that required so much force, he’d soon be panting and switching from right foot to left and back again to relieve his burning quads. He’d end his days the same way: while his non-Amish crewmates were cranking the AC in their pickups and digging in the cooler for a cold one, Ame was scooting on home, powered by his own sweat-propulsion engine.

  Ame is strikingly handsome, with the kind of confident, genuinely friendly appeal that grabs your eye as soon as he enters a room. But back then, one secret fear nagged at his self-esteem. Even though he was at the age when he should be settling down, finding a wife didn’t worry him: he was afraid of what would happen next. “My initial reason for running was to not get fat,” he says. “In Amish culture, as you get older and married, and with all the good cooking, you’re doomed. You’re doomed, brother. I didn’t accept it. You create your own destiny.”

  Ame decided it couldn’t hurt to try a little extra exercise, so when one of his buddies from work mentioned he was signing up for a 5K, Ame asked if he could come along. Race day was freezing cold, and Amos wasn’t sure how heavily to dress or how hard to push. “Some guys who’d run before told me, ‘Don’t go out too fast,’ ” he recalls. “Guess what Amos did?” The leaders shot off at a sub-five-minute-mile pace—and right on their heels came the Amish roofer in long black pants and suspenders, attempting for the first time in his life to run three consecutive miles in a row.

  “It felt easy,” Amos says. “At first. Then my nose was running and my nostrils froze together. I couldn’t breathe. I had to walk. It was hilarious.”

  Nevertheless, he finished in twenty-two minutes, a performance respectable enough to please most recreational runners, but not quite good enough for Ame. He was chatting about running with his insurance agent, who put him in touch with Jim Smucker, a veteran marathoner and third-generation owner of the Bird-in-Hand Family Restaurant & Smorgasbord, an Amish country institution in Lancaster County. Ame was hoping for some tips, but Jim did him one better: he invited Ame to join him and a friend for a speed workout.

  A few evenings later, Ame met up with the two Mennonite marathoners at the Conestoga High School track. They were going to do 800-meter intervals: two laps at top speed, followed by a jogging recovery, repeated over and over until you wish for a merciful death. Jim warned Ame that it was a killer workout, so he shouldn’t worry about keeping up. After nine intervals, though, Ame was still right on the heels of the veteran runners. In fact, he didn’t even seem to be struggling.

  “Don’t be polite,” Jim said. “Why don’t you open ’er up on this last one and see what you have left?” Permission granted, Ame blasted off. He sprinted so hard, he opened up a lead of more than 200 meters and finished ahead by a full thirty seconds. “Their jaws just dropped,” Ame told me. “That’s when they thought, ‘Oh, I think the Amish guy does have some speed.’ ”


  True, Jim was impressed, but he knew he’d never see Ame again. Nothing against Ame, but Smuckers have been in Lancaster for more than a century, and in all Jim’s years, he’d never even heard of an Amish runner before. And for good reason: it all boiled down to a spat that broke out between Jim’s and Ame’s ancestors three hundred years ago.

  Originally, Amish and Mennonites were a single faith led by Menno Simons, a maverick Christian in the Netherlands who believed that infant baptism was bogus. How do you build a committed, worshipful community, Menno asked, when you’re dragooning babies into the ranks who don’t even know what’s happening to them? Menno’s challenge didn’t sit well with the dominant Catholics and Protestants, who felt that perhaps they could bring these strays back into the fold through the warm embrace of torture, murder, and terror. The persecuted Mennonites fled into neighboring countries, like Switzerland, where they did their best to adapt and fit in.

  Fitting in, however, began to rankle Jakob Ammann as much as font-dunking newborns bothered Menno Simons. Ammann was a Swiss tailor who never learned to read or write, but he’d absorbed enough of the Bible and Mennonite teaching to believe that if Jesus stood for anything, it was for not fitting in. Ammann and his followers—the Amish—broke away from the Mennonites, creating a Plain People community which, three centuries later, is fundamentally unchanged. Today, Mennonites in our area drive whatever they want and, while still dressing modestly in long pants and dresses, are fine with jeans for men and pretty patterns for women. But Old Order Amish remain largely frozen in time, wearing the same style straw hats and mortician-like outfits as their great-great-great-grandparents’ and relying on the strength of their own bodies and their kinship with animals to raise the food they need to survive.