By running dozens and dozens of kilometers daily through the Mexican cliffs of the Barrancas del Cobre, a canyon much larger than the Grand, the one in Arizona, the Tarahumaras gained the reputation of being the greatest runners among the original peoples of the Americas and perhaps the entire world.
American journalist Christopher McDougall is even more superlative. For him, as he writes in the first pages of his best-seller “Born to Run”, from 2009, these are “super athletes”, “the greatest runners of all time”.
The book was a huge success and generated hype around the barefoot, or minimalist, running that the Rarámuris (something like “light-footed”), as the Tarahumaras are also known, practice, wearing a type of rustic espadrille. Even when running competitive ultramarathons, in their own region or elsewhere, they ignore running shoes.
McDougall had already traveled to the Barrancas del Cobre, sent by Runner’s World magazine, and his book takes many sides. It’s less about the Tarahumaras than perhaps about his own aspect as a frustrated amateur runner, with a history of limiting injuries (“it felt like an invisible sliver of ice was embedded in the sole of my foot”) and the doctor’s verdict that, with his measurements, 1.93 m and 104 kg, he should swap gravel for basketball.
But eager to run an ultramarathon with the Tarahumaras, he decided to do everything the indigenous people did: eating mainly vegetarian, with an emphasis on chia, beans and a type of corn flour, pinole; large volume of frequent runs; use of sneakers without cushioning, which would soon become dominant in the industry, precisely because of the success of the book.
Digression: the wave would not last long, and the many models born there would soon die, when manufacturers managed to remove the weight and rigidity of their “structured” products, finally making it possible for lightness and cushioning to coexist.
Here is a story that branding theorists may enshrine in the future: how, at some point in the century, Nike, Adidas, New Balance, etc. They managed to convince consumers to pay (well) for something whose state of the art was, at the limit, nothing – or, come on, a rubber cover to protect the feet and a leather to wrap them.
I’m a pescetarian and an enthusiast of minimalist sneakers, which I rediscovered a few weeks ago on the recommendation of a reader of this column, manufactured by a company from Rio Grande do Sul, Fiber, which I mentioned here, but I’ve never progressed beyond the 42.2 km of the marathon, as the Tarahumaras do every day.
But I believe there is another point of contact with them that I think is also useful for anyone thinking of submitting themselves, at least once, to that fetish of fetishes that is the marathon. The Tarahumara view the race in a way that is, one might say, paradoxical: at the same time as it is a mode of transport, that is, it demands pragmatic resignation from them, it is an instrument of spiritual elevation.
Put another way: they don’t run to show someone they run; they do not run a certain race once or twice in their lives to achieve a new status in the eyes of a community; They don’t rush to feel free to register on a social network, LinkedIn, say, a phrase like this: “I’m a marathon runner”.
LINK PRESENT: Did you like this text? Subscribers can access seven free accesses from any link per day. Just click the blue F below.
