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LONGLISTED FOR THE RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE 2021
'Inspiring'The Guardian
'Excellent'Runner's World
'Fascinating'Publishers Weekly
'Brilliant'Ed Vaizey
'Through reading this book you will come to understand that the heart and soul of running are to be found in Ethiopia.' Haile Gebrselassie
'Engaging, warm and humane... A delight' TLS'Full of wonderful insights and lessons from a world where the ability to run is viewed as something almost mysterious and magical.' Adharanand Finn, author of
Running with the Kenyans'
Ethiopia is a place where I have been told that energy is controlled by angels and demons and where witchdoctors can help you to acquire another runner's power. It is a place where an anonymous runner in the forest told me, miming an imaginary scoreboard and with a completely straight face, that he had dreamt that he would run 10km in 25 minutes. It is a place where they tell me that the air at Mount Entoto will transform me into a 2.08 marathon runner. It is a place, in short, of wisdom and magic, where dreaming is still very much alive.'
Why does it make sense to Ethiopian runners to get up at 3am to run up and down a hill? Who would choose to train on almost impossibly steep and rocky terrain, in hyena territory? And how come Ethiopian men hold six of the top ten fastest marathon times ever?
Michael Crawley spent fifteen months in Ethiopia training alongside (and sometimes a fair way behind) runners at all levels of the sport, from night watchmen hoping to change their lives to world class marathon runners, in order to answer these questions. Follow him into the forest as he attempts to keep up and get to the heart of their success.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
1 Special Air
2 I Could Have Been a Mesinko Player
3 Following Each Other's Feet
4 So Good, So Far
5 Field of Dreams
6 Zigzagging to the Top
7 Crazy is Good
8 To Win in Rome Would be Like Winning 1,000 times
9 Why It Makes Sense to Run Up and Down a Hill at 3 a.m.
10 Where Does Energy Come From?
11 Th e Game is Worth the Candle
12 Taking the Air
13 Of Course They Are Trying to Kill Each Other
14 Running is Life
Acknowledgements
Index
Über den Autor / die Autorin
Michael Crawley
