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The Book of the Week is “Out of Thin Air, Running Wisdom and Magic From Above the Clouds in Ethiopia” by Michael Crawley, published in 2020. The author documented his experiences training for long-distance running-races, with an Ethiopian club.
Most of the time, the mostly-male runners worked out, one to two hours at the crack of dawn, and again in the evening, but sometimes, they ran at 3am. There are races going on all over the world all the time, but only a tiny percentage of runners win sufficient money to make a short few years’ career of it. Some Ethiopians have enough to retire after winning prize money from one race. They have a culture of running together, because they feel they inspire one another to do better, but of course, in actual events, there is cutthroat competition for big money, that can be won or lost by a fraction of a second.
The Ethiopians also vary the places they practice, because the change of scenery is good for the brain. They might go on a few hours’ bus ride to the mountains to train at an altitude of a few thousand feet. The author ran with the Amhara tribe, who are Orthodox Christians. They believe God will reward them for hard work and clean living, and they don’t get too cocky because pride goeth before a fall.
The runner might have a day-job laboring in a field, as a security guard or herding cattle. They might have to scare away oxen, donkeys or hyenas on their runs. The runners are goal-oriented compare to angry young men who are poverty-stricken and hopeless in Addis Ababa (the capital of Ethiopia). The latter don’t want to work at dead-end, menial jobs.
Read the book to learn about: terms and conditions of agents or business managers who act on the runners’ behalf, their belief in witchcraft, how the runners can be exploited, the runners’ diet, why they are tempted to move to a major city or to foreign running clubs, etc.