Sunday, March 4, 2012 was just another beautiful day in the deep canyon country of la Sierra Madre. Wednesday they began to come; a whole bunch of international runners met at the Rancho Del Oso hotel near Cerocahui and hiked together 8 hours over the mountains and down into the 6,200 foot deep Urique canyon and arrived at the town of Urique where we encountered all of the other international runn...ers, numbering over 80, and about 350 Raramuri [Tarahumara Indian runners]. There were another 70 or so locals, numbering almost 500 total by the race start.We celebrated together with food and festivity for a few days until the Sunday race, then ran all day through the beauty of the Urique canyon, distances of 22, 40 and 50+ miles. We ran in peace together, dancing in rythm to the lovely heartbeat of our Mother Earth; the heartbeat of freedom.
ALL were winners. The first finisher of the 50 mile "main event", and winning the great prize money of almost $3,000 dollars [35,000 pesos] and a ton of corn [food value] was a Tarahumara runner named Miguel Lara, from the mountain village of Porochi, Urique. Seond place was the Czech Republic star Danel Oralek, and third place was the legendary German Silva of Mexico. ALL 3 broke the previous course record of 7:04 set by Miguel in 2011! Miguel won the 2012 race in a time of 6:40. Danel came in in 6:46 and German in 6:51.
It was an incredible day and performance by ALL that participated in any way, shape or form.
The top 10 men and women finishers received cash prize money and maize [food vales] with the top 5 each winning a ton [literally] of food per runner along with cash prizes of almost $3,000, $2,000, $1,500, $800 and $400 dollars [in pesos] awarded the top 5 men and women. The 6th-10th place runners [men and women] received 1/2 ton of food and about $250. ALL finishers [180 of them] of the 50 mile ultra won 5 50 kg sacks of maize [food] payed in vales to purchase whatever is needed, at community Diconsa markets. Korima [sharing] amongst their communities.
ALL finishers of the shorter distances also received corn/food prizes of 50/100 kg sacks of corn/food.
On this day, yet another time, peace was created in the deep canyon country of la Sierra Madre. Run Free!
Caballo Blanco
