The Tarahumara would party like this all night, then rouse themselves the next morning to face off in a running race that could last not two miles, not two hours, but two full days. According to the Mexican historian Francisco Almada, a Tarahumara champion once ran 435 miles, the equivalent of setting out for a jog in New York City and not stopping till you were closing in on Detroit.

Pentru ca noi am reusit sa ne creem chiar aici, pe pamant, un clopot de sticla cu gravitatie zero. Am eliminat sarcinile pentru care corpul nostru a fost creat, iar acum platim pentru asta. Toti marii ucigasi ai lumii occidentale - bolile de inima, atacul cerebral, diabetul, hipertensiunea si nenumaratele forme de cancer - erau complet necunoscute stramosilor nostri. Nu aveau acces la medicina, dar cunoasteau cateva pasiente magice care o inlocuiau cu succes.

We say the rarajipari is the game of life, Angel said. You never know how hard it will be. You never know when it will end. You can't control it. You can only adjust.

You ran to eat and to avoid being eaten; you ran to find a mate and impress her, and with her you ran off to start a new life together. You had to love running or you wouldn't live to love anything else.

Don't fight the trail, take what it gives you. If you have a choice between one step or two between rocks, take three.

If you can run six miles on a summer day then you, my friend, are a lethal weapon in the animal kingdom. We can dump heat on the run, but animals can't pant while they gallop.

Think Easy, Light, Smooth, and Fast. You start with easy, because if that's all you get, that's not so bad. Then work on light. Make it efforthless, like you don't give a shit how high the hill is or how far you've got to go. When you've practiced that so long, that you forget you're practicing, you work on making it smooooooth. You won't have to worry about the last one - you get those three, and you'll be fast.

Strictly by accident, Scott stumbled upon the most advanced weapon in the ultrarunner's arsenal: instead of cringing from fatigue, you embrace it. You refuse to let it go. You get know it so well, you're not afraid of it anymore[...]You can't hate the Beast and expect to beat it; the only way to truly conquer something, as every great philosopher and geneticist will tell you, is to love it.

The reason we race isn't so much to beat each other, he understood, but to be with each other.