Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

In Chapter 8, McDougall begins detailing one of Caballo’s stories concerning legendary Tarahumara running feats and their experiences with the outside world. He explains that in the early 1990s, Rick Fisher, a famed wilderness photographer from Arizona, began exploring the Copper Canyons and hatched a plan to “assemble an all-Tarahumara track team” to compete in American races (52). During one of his expeditions, Fisher and his fiancée became friends with a Tarahumara man, who offered to take them to see a rarajipari if they supplied some food for his village. Fisher then knew that his new friend would be able to get him runners if he could supply the village with food again. Fisher’s fiancée and her father were both seasoned ultrarunners and had competed in the notorious Leadville Trail 100, a 100-mile ultramarathon held in Leadville, Colorado, so the plan was born to take his Tarahumara running team to Colorado (55).

McDougall explains that Leadville is “hunkered in a valley two miles up in the Colorado Rockies” and is the “highest city in North America and, many days, the coldest” (57).