Tower and Town, September 2020

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The Rise of the Ultrarunners: a Journey to the Edge of Human Endurance, by Adharanand Finn

Lockdown has been a challenge for everyone and we all found different ways to cope: gardening, reading, TV box sets, making scrubs for frontline workers, taking up running. Many of those who opted for the latter followed the Couch to 5K programme - a gentle build-up over several weeks, culminating in a 5-kilometre run. Good effort. Now imagine it had been Couch to 500K…

Ultrarunning has taken off. Once the preserve of a dedicated few, the sport, in which competitors cover dozens and sometimes hundreds of miles, often over inhospitable terrain, has gone mainstream, with events taking place all over the world and selling out almost as soon as they are announced. Once a marathon was the definitive mark of a long-distance run. No longer.

In The Rise of the Ultrarunners, shortlisted for the 2019 William Hill Sports Book of the Year, Adharanand Finn gets to the heart of the matter: why do people put themselves through almost unimaginable pain just for the sake of - well, for the sake of what? "The call of the wild," was Finn's response in a newspaper article. He went on: "To cross a vast stretch of barely charted land, with only myself and a backpack of energy bars to keep me going, was a thrilling prospect."

Over two years, Finn ran ten ultra marathons. He began by focusing on the outcome, the cathartic moment when he would cross the finishing line and bask in the achievement. "The process, however, kept breaking me. In every single race, I reached a moment of crisis, where I sat down on the side of the trail and wanted to give up, where I asked myself why I was in this stupid race." 

And so begins a philosophical quest, a journey into the terrain of the mind: "Yes, in the oblivion, deep in the pain cave, if we dig deep enough, if we push on through, we come to a place where it is strangely peaceful, where everything else melts away… And there, out in the mountains, or even on a city running track, we find ourselves fully present in the moment."

It's time to dig out your Lycra.

Ben Tarring