Tarahumara race

Those who know me, know that I LOVE running. I run whenever I get a chance to. Mornings or nights, rain or shine, I put on a pair of fancy running shoes, sweat absorbing shorts and shirts and input my calculated distance on my iPhone and set it to cycle through my playlist that I specifically arranged to help propel me through the streets. I also read up on the latest and greatest running techniques and running related news. I buy expensive protein powders and gels, not even knowing if I really do need them. Yet I always end up injured. No matter how many gadgets I strap on to myself, I still think that I’m an inefficient runner. I’m just coming out from a bad iliotibial band injury that was nagging me for the past 5-6 months.

All the carefully measured cups of whey protein powder as well as the vast array of gadgets that I have; they all can’t really help me run 26.2 miles. The length of a marathon. Yet in the northern parts of Mexico, there exists a group of native people called the Tarahumara. These people, young and old, are known to run up to 200 miles. Barefoot. In the mountains.

The Tarahumara retreated into the mountains when the Spaniards arrived in Mexico in the 16th century. Their lifestyles drastically changed when hunting became an event which could take them dozens of miles away from their homes. The Tarahumara practice persistence hunting. A way of running their prey to death by chasing it for miles and miles at top speeds. Smart people.

How can they run 30 miles and not even show signs of muscle fatigue or cramping? Even if they did show any signs, it doesn’t stop them. The Tarahumara need to travel such distances in order to relay messages from village to village. It’s part of their survival in the Copper Canyon of Mexico.

So why can these people run at superhuman distances without any assistance from technology? Do they posses some efficient biomechanical skeletal structure that is millions of years more evolved than the rest of us?

William Shatner’s ‘Weird or What?‘ attempts to answer the question.