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

by Christopher McDougall

Hills are more a test of shrewdness than stamina;

All of the studies dissected different parts of the Wim Hof puzzle, but their results essentially pointed to the same conclusion: if you want to burn fat, relieve depression, get stronger, increase mobility, and stay healthier, you might want to start with blue lips.

the three specific steps of Wim Hof’s breathing drills (thirty to forty power breaths; deep exhale and hold; deep inhale and hold; repeat for three more rounds).

The study’s blockbuster news was the idea that a few minutes in a cold shower could be a remedy for such a deadly and baffling disease,

“This is called ‘cross-adaptation,’ where one form of stress adapts the body for another.”

Krissy Moehl, the champion ultrarunner who began beating men after she stopped thinking like them.

We were more afraid of looking soft than we were of falling short, so instead of following her lead and playing it shrewd, we insisted on brute-forcing our way into trouble.

One of the great things about running, even with a donkey, is the way your mind travels to places it never goes at any other time.

When two of you want the same thing, your own desire doesn’t matter anymore. You’re desire-less!”

“Animals don’t do things out of spite. They’re not trying to teach you a lesson. That’s the biggest mistake people make with animals, getting this idea that what they do has something to do with you. You gotta get yourself out of the picture, and then you’ll understand what’s really going on.”

All right, be polite, I told myself. They are your hosts. And we are in a Cracker Barrel.

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

You’re damn right, I thought as I lay back down in the sun. What’s more punk than burro racing?

It sounds benign as a bellyache, unless you know that altitude sickness is actually shorthand for “High Altitude Pulmonary and Cerebral Edema.”

‘Fear that thing, do that thing.’

Donkeys may not look like ballroom dancers, but if you watch closely, everything they do has a tempo. They trot and breathe to the beat of a waltz, and that’s what allows them to keep going, lightly and easily, for miles and miles across sun-scorched canyons.

One of the scary things about altitude sickness is the way it fogs your mind before it kills you; just when red flags are going up that you’re in trouble, your brain is too oxygen-starved to recognize them.

“If you go anaerobic in this race—” “THREE…TWO…” “Your race is over!” BLAM!