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

by Christopher McDougall

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.