Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Caballo Blanco was born Michael Randall Hickman and later known as Micah True. He is the primary character in Christopher McDougall’s Born to Run. The book begins with McDougall searching for Caballo in Mexico because he had been told that he could provide information about the Tarahumara. In terms of McDougall’s actual narrative, Caballo makes his first appearance at the 1994 Leadville 100 race, where he was known simply as “Shaggy” and helped pace one of the Tarahumara runners during the race. It is later revealed that Shaggy was actually Caballo, and following the 1994 race he left Colorado and went to the Copper Canyons to live among the Tarahumara.

When McDougall finally finds Caballo in Mexico, he is told the story about the Leadville race and how Caballo came to live in the Copper Canyons, and Caballo also reveals that he wants to organize a race in the Copper Canyons that will pit Tarahumara runners against great American ultrarunners. A fuller biography of Caballo does not take shape until the book’s final pages, after his race had taken place, when he tells McDougall and the group of runners that he was a professional boxer at one time but retired and took up running as a means of coping with a failed relationship.

Caballo is painted as an eccentric character in Born to Run, and in later interviews he has admitted that it has been difficult to meet those expectations when he meets fans of the book. Born to Run depicts him as focused solely on the running aspects of the race, but Micah True’s objective was about sharing with the Rarámuri in an act their culture refers to as Korima. The awards in the races include vouchers for important staples like beans, corn flour, and rice, and a nonprofit was set up in his name to continue his work after his death in 2012 (True Messages, “Micah True”)

Arnulfo Quimare is a Tarahumara distance runner, who plays a major role in Born to Run. Part of the famous Quimare family of runners, Arnulfo is widely recognized as one of the top Tarahumara runners of his generation. Arnulfo was the first Tarahumara McDougall met when he ventured into the Copper Canyons the first time. He also is one the six Tarahumara runners who met the American runners in Batopilas before Caballo’s race. In the days before the race, it is revealed by one of the villagers in Urique that Arnulfo had won a local 100-kilometer race three times and thus was the betting favorite to win Caballo’s race (250). In the conclusion of the book, Arnulfo did win the race, narrowly defeating Scott Jurek.

Manuel Luna is a Tarahumara runner featured in Born to Run. He is first mentioned in the book in Chapter 6 when McDougall watches a children’s rarajipari, the ancient Tarahumara ball game. The top performer in the game is Marcelino Luna, Manuel’s son, and it is revealed that Manuel “could beat just about anyone at an all-night rarajipari” (41). Manuel is one of the Tarahumara runners who compete in the 1993 Leadville 100, finishing 5th, and the 1994 Leadville 100, finishing 10th. Later in the book, it is revealed that Marcelino was murdered in the canyons, possibly by drug traffickers and thus may not attend Caballo’s race. However, he does show up to race against the Americans and forms a strong bond with Barefoot Ted.

Rick Fisher was a wilderness photographer from Arizona, who began exploring the Copper Canyons during the 1980s. Fisher is an important character in the long story that Caballo tells concerning the Tarahumara competing in the Leadville Trail 100 during the 1990s. Having become friends with a Tarahumara man, Fisher found a way to exploit the Tarahumara because of their remarkable distance running prowess. He used his friend’s connections to the villages to organize an All-Tarahumara track team and take them to compete in Leadville. Despite the team’s success in Leadville, it turned into a disaster because of Fisher’s brash personality and accusations that he made about the race’s organizers.

Dr. Joe Vigil is a track coach and widely regarded as one of the greatest coaches in the history of distance running. As the coach at Adams State College in Colorado, Vigil won 26 NCAA national titles in 33 years (78). Vigil plays a central role in Born to Run because of his interest in the Tarahumara secrets of endurance running. Vigil is discussed in Chapter 15 when he travels to Leadville to watch the race between the Tarahumara and legendary female runner Ann Trason. Vigil was there because he wanted to understand why women can compete with men in ultrarunning, and particularly 100-mile races, but not at shorter distances like the marathon, and why ultrarunners like the Tarahumara could run incredible distances without suffering the same sorts of injuries that afflicted other runners.

Ann Trason is one of the greatest female ultrarunners in the history of the sport. In Chapter 11, McDougall describes her as a community college teacher from California who had ran track when she was younger but became bored with the oval track, so she began running marathons and eventually ultramarathons. She plays a central role in the story of the Tarahumara’s brief experience of competing in the Unites States. Trason had already established herself as one of the most dominant male or female 100-mile runners in the nation when she competed in the 1994 Leadville 100. She would have been the clear favorite going into that race except for the fact that the Tarahumara runners were returning to compete after their remarkable, record-breaking performance from the year before. This set up a highly-anticipated and hyped “battle of the sexes” match between Trason and the Tarahumara, which McDougall highlights in Chapters 12-14.

Emil Zatopek was a Czech distance runner who is widely regarded as one of the greatest runners in the history of track and field. Born in 1922, Zatopek became an Olympic champion and remains the only runner to win the 5,000 meter event, the 10,000 meter event, and the marathon in the same Olympics, which he did at the 1952 Helsinki Summer Games. Zatopek’s feat was remarkable for many reasons but mainly because the Czechs “had no tradition, no coaching, no native talent, no chance of winning” (95). McDougall first mentions Zatopek in Chapter 15, where he discusses legendary track coach Joe Vigil and the evolution of the sport. He refers to Zatopek as the prototype of the runner Vigil wanted to coach because of his pure love of running.

Scott Jurek is a Minnesota-born ultrarunner who plays a major role in Born to Run. He is introduced in Chapter 17 when Caballo is talking with McDougall about his proposed race. Jurek, Caballo says, is the only American runner he had contacted thus far to invite. At that point, McDougall is surprised because Jurek is a “seven-time Western States champ and three-peat Ultrarunner of the Year” Award winner (113-114). In reality, Jurek had ignored most of Caballo’s emails, but considering the reputation that the Tarahumara had in the ultra community and knowing he would always wonder if he could have beaten them, Jurek reconsiders and decides to compete in the obscure race in the Copper Canyons (131). Jurek enters the race as the clear favorite but finishes second to Arnulfo Quimare.

Jenn Shelton is one of the American ultrarunners who travel with McDougall to compete in Caballo’s race in the Copper Canyons. She is introduced in Chapter 20, along with her partner Billy Barnett, as “a pair of twenty-one-year-old hotshots who’d been electrifying the East Coast ultra circuit” (133). She and Barnett had met while lifeguarding in Virginia Beach as college students. At first, they had mutual interests in literature and partying but later became immersed in running. A few days before the race, Caballo took the whole group of Americans out for a run in the canyons, but she and Barnett got separated from the group and became lost with no water in 100-degree temperature. The pair was eventually found but spent several hours in dire circumstances.