Tonight: Join Knopf Author Christopher McDougall for WORD to The Wythe 5K: RUNNING WITH SHERMAN
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Christoper McDougall, author of RUNNING WITH SHERMAN: The Donkey with the Heart of a Hero, published by Knopf earlier this month, is participating in a 5K run and special event tonight, Wednesday, October 30. The run will begin at WORD bookstore in Brooklyn (126 Franklin St.), with runners free to arrive any time between 5:00 and 6:00 pm, when the run starts. The course winds through Williamsburg to the Wythe Hotel @ 80 Wythe Ave., where there will be a post-run author conversation with Knox Robinson, a book signing, prize giveaway, and a party.
To sign up for this run and event via EventBrite, click here.
From the bestselling author of Born to Run, RUNNING WITH SHERMAN is a heartwarming story about training a rescue donkey to run one of the most challenging races in America.
When Chris McDougall agreed to take in a donkey from an animal hoarder, he thought it would be no harder than the rest of the adjustments he and his family had made after moving from Philadelphia to the heart of Pennsylvania Amish country. But when he arrived, Sherman was in such bad shape he could barely move, and his hair was coming out in clumps. Chris decided to undertake a radical rehabilitation program designed not only to heal Sherman’s body but to heal his mind as well. It turns out the best way to soothe a donkey is to give it a job, and so Chris decided to teach Sherman how to run. He’d heard about burro racing–a unique type of race where humans and donkeys run together in a call-back to mining days–and decided he and Sherman would enter the World Championship in Colorado.
Easier said than done. In the course of Sherman’s training, Chris would have to recruit several other runners, both human and equine, and call upon the wisdom of burro racers, goat farmers, Amish running club members, and a group of irrepressible female long-haul truckers. Along the way, he shows us the life-changing power of animals, nature, and community.
Christopher McDougall covered wars in Rwanda and Angola as a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press before writing his bestselling book, Born to Run. His fascination with the limits of human potential led him to create the Outsidemagazine web series, “Art of the Hero.” He currently lives with his wife, two daughters, and a farmyard menagerie in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.