Running with Sherman: How a Rescue Donkey Inspired a Rag-tag Gang of Runners to Enter the Craziest Race in America

by Christopher McDougall

To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time. —LEONARD BERNSTEIN

We had to tackle the hind hooves next, and Scott told me that no donkey in the world likes someone getting behind him. “That’s their biggest primal fear,” Scott said. Out in the wild, donkeys are pretty tough to kill. They’re herd animals and stick super-tight to the group, so any predator hoping for a donkey dinner has to weigh its chances of coming out alive against a mob of kicking, biting, 700-pound beasts who’ve been known to stomp lions to death. But donkeys are still vulnerable to sneak attacks; any straggler who lingers a bit to graze can suddenly find wild dogs leaping on its back and taking out its throat. This little gray donkey was weak and sick, but deep inside its DNA was a 10,000-year-old survival instinct as sharp as any Army Ranger’s, always alert to cover its six and kick for its life against anything it couldn’t see.

I was so obsessed with My Side of the Mountain that I ran away from home at age nine with only a Wham-O boomerang, fully intending to live in a hollow tree in the woods and hunt with a hawk like Sam Gribley did. Around one o’clock in the morning, the state police found me six miles from home in a patch of woods near Springfield Mall and hauled me back for a parental smackdown that was epic enough to put an end to any future walkabouts.

(ask me sometime how to repair vintage fountain pens),

That request opened my eyes to a terrific little loophole in local Amish code of conduct. Every Amish community sets its own laws: some allow foot scooters but not bicycles; others allow cars but only if they’re gray or black. Down in the Southern End, the Amish are mostly Old Order, which means they can’t drive cars but they can be driven. Way before Uber was a gleam in Garrett Camp’s eye, our non-Amish neighbors had created a nice little cash economy by hiring themselves out as taxi drivers for Old Order families who needed a lift to places they couldn’t reach by horse and buggy.

Hold on now, Edna demanded of the miners and muckers. Why can’t women run? The miners and muckers looked at one another and shrugged. Who said they can’t? Well, how about the International Olympic Committee, the Amateur Athletic Union, and the American Medical Association? For decades after 1949, physicians were still spouting the theory that too much exertion would make a woman’s uterus and ovaries shake loose. Or explode: As recently as 2010, the president of the International Ski Federation was explaining that ski jumping was “not appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view” because, of course, it was well known that the uterus could “burst” upon landing. Naturally, the ladies couldn’t be trusted to take care of their own organs, so men stepped in. Until 1980, women were banned from any Olympic track event longer than 800 meters: not a 10K, not a 5K, but a 0.8K—less than half a mile. Meanwhile, in Boston, Running While Female was literally a crime: any woman who dared attempt the Boston Marathon in the 1960s was subject to arrest by the cops or, if your dad was in charge, a beating. “If that girl were my daughter, I would spank her,” race director Will Cloney famously snarled after Kathrine Switzer finagled her way onto the course in 1967.

Movement is big medicine; it’s the signal to every cell in our bodies that no matter what kind of damage we’ve suffered, we’re ready to rebuild and move away from death and back toward life. Rest too long after an injury and your system powers down, preparing you for a peaceful exit. Fight your way back to your feet, however, and you trigger that magical ON switch that speeds healing hormones to everything you need to get stronger: your bones, brain, organs, ligaments, immune system, even the digestive bacteria in your belly, all get a molecular upgrade from exercise.

Today, movement-as-medicine is a biological truth for survivors of cancer, surgery, strokes, heart attacks, diabetes, brain injuries, depression, you name it.

Dogs are even more comforting than your guy, at least at night; in 2018, animal behaviorists at Canisius College researched the sleeping habits of people who shared their beds with a pet and found that out of nearly 1,000 women, the majority had “better, more restful sleep” when they cuddled with a dog rather than with their husbands. And not just because the pups are better about sharing the good pillow and turning off their phones: “Their dogs were less disruptive than their human partners,” the study found, “and were associated with stronger feelings of comfort and security.”

Somewhere in the hinterlands of Ohio, a warden up to his eyeballs in assaults and escape attempts decides to take a gamble and introduce some unwanted barnyard animals to the most dangerous men on earth. That gamble could have blown up in his face, but instead of hurting the animals—or one another—the most dangerous men on earth became half as dangerous. Guards and civilians are now safer because Earl isn’t holding shanks to their throats, and Earl doesn’t need to be pharmaceutically restrained into a drug-induced stupor anymore. Lives are saved and healing is accelerated, all because of that medical miracle worker, Friendly the Goat.

Normally, up to 75 percent of all prisoners who are released will be arrested again within five years. But among prisoners who’ve worked with animals, the recidivism rate tends to be as low as 10 percent.

The result: “Contact with companion animals resulted in greater improvement of ADHD symptoms, better learning, and superior school performance when compared with the outdoor experience,” the scientists found. But that was just the beginning. “The companion animal experience also provided greater speech gains, better nonverbal behavior, improved attentiveness, and an increased ability to control impulse behavior.” Moreover, these differences were still evident six months after the program ended. The italics are mine, because holy moly, that’s some long-lasting wonder drug.

The real question isn’t what we get from animals. It’s what we lose without them.

When I first met Mika and went Tao-style, I genuinely put myself aside. Mika loved African music and didn’t want some stranger creeping on her, so I loaned her my Bonga and Cesária Évora CDs and made myself scarce. Whatever happened next was completely up to her. If I’d expected anything in return, there’s no way the Tao would have worked. I’d have been anxious or resentful or pushy, calculating all my actions against her reactions, radiating a hey-what-about-me vibe that sooner or later would have ruined everything. Done right, on the other hand, the Tao of Steve makes you forget the future and focus on the moment. You’re not playing a trick; you’re putting your mensch foot forward.

Nancy Sweigart was standing on the sidelines that day. She’d always been a horse person—and if she had a second favorite animal, it would definitely be dogs—but once you see your daughter’s math teacher sprinting her heart out alongside a two-year-old pygmy goat to steal a photo finish from a fifty-three-year-old, four-term state representative who’s lunging so hard he nearly eats asphalt and finishes with his chest heaving like a fireplace bellows but still kneels after the loss and immediately, although he can barely breathe, pets his spotted Boer goat and pants, It’s not your fault, Bobo, it’s not your fault, well…how can you resist?

Sam’s uncle knew that happiness, health, and security come from devoting yourself to two things—your family and your friends—and anything that doesn’t bring you closer to both is pulling you in the wrong direction.

the five words that define Amish life: Slow down. Savor your world.

Patience and kindness don’t show up on demand; they’re disciplines that require constant practice, and there is no better boot camp for learning those skills than hitching your survival to your ability to discern—and respect—the needs of another creature.

Three years after that horrible day, Jim Smucker enlisted the Amish community to help create the Bird-in-Hand Half Marathon. By modern race standards, it’s primitive. There’s no big expo full of merchandise, just a registration tent in a hayfield. There’s no get-fired-up! music, only a Mennonite family on their front porch at Mile 2 singing gospel. But Bird-in-Hand is now ranked as one of the best and most memorable races in the country, partly because of the sheer beauty of the Valley of No Wires, but mostly because of the warmth and friendliness of the Amish hosts. All the aid stations are at Amish farms, with rows of children holding out cups and chanting “Vater, vater, vater, Powerade, Powerade…” All the food for the post-race picnic—the mountains of barbecued chicken and home-baked beans, the cider doughnuts and schnitz pies—is donated and served by Amish families. Every one of the finishers’ medals is a real horseshoe that’s been hand-burnished and laced by a Vella Shpringa volunteer. Everyone goes home with a race tee reminding them of the Vella Shpringa motto, “The joy of running in community.” And every penny that’s raised is donated by the Amish community to their friends in the Bird-in-Hand Volunteer Fire Company.

When researchers dig into the mental health histories of athletes, that’s exactly what they discover: the most perilous moment is when athletes face “injuries, career termination, decline in performance, or a catastrophic performance.” There’s always been a dim awareness of a post-glory-days slump, but it was written off as nothing more than an ego bruise, an overdue dose of humble pie for sports heroes now facing life as mere mortals. Instead, it could be something far deadlier: a dangerous chemical imbalance caused by a sudden drop in dopamine.

No matter what you try, Amy learned, no matter how excellent the care, depression is a black wave that can surge when you least expect it and sweep your loved ones away.

“Whatever you’re hiding inside, a burro will sniff it out,” Curtis Imrie always says. “You can’t be a bully or a blowhard, and if that sounds more like one gender to you than another, you’ll understand why men can struggle at this sport and women excel.”

if you want to burn fat, relieve depression, get stronger, increase mobility, and stay healthier, you might want to start with blue lips.

Krissy Moehl runs into the same thing all the time. During races, she’ll catch up to slower guys on a narrow trail and try to pass. Race etiquette dictates they should move aside, but instead, they’ll speed up, so worried about “getting chicked” that they’ll match her, surge for surge, until—inevitably—the wheels come off and Krissy is free to blast past. If these guys were smart, they’d step aside immediately and draft from behind—but testosterone ain’t smart.

If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. —Gnostic Gospel of St. Thomas