Last week, whilst looking through an old guide book, my wife found this sketched map. It shows some trails and landmarks around the Mexican town of Creel that may be of interest to the slightly adventurous tourist.

My wife rediscovered this map of trails around Creel

Back in 2004/2005, my wife and I had been travelling through South and Central America for nine months by the time we reached Creel in the northern state of Chihuahua. It was our penultimate stop-off before we entered the United States. I wasn’t looking forward to the culture shock of crossing the border and hoped to linger as long as possible at this final stage of our Latin American journey.

So we spent several days at Margarita’s Casa de Huespedes, meeting other travellers at breakfast, drinking with them on an evening and spending our days walking or cycling in the surrounding countryside. We used the map to guide us as we explored. It’s not hugely detailed so we’d often get lost. All part of the adventure. I remember one cycle ride that took us to a gully full of strange towering, needle-like rock formations. I also remember being rewarded with huge, wide vistas during hikes through beautiful boulder-strewn, pine woods. And I remember one occasion when we inadvertently stumbled across a settlement of shy cave-dwelling folk …

At the time I hadn’t even heard of the Tarahumara. Obviously, I was unaware of Micah True - Christopher McDougal’s Born to Run hadn’t been published. I wasn’t yet a runner.

It’s crazy now to think we almost certainly passed through the same places Micah True once ran so effortlessly.

When I first read Christopher McDougal’s book, the fact that the story began to unfold in the town of Creel drew me instantly into the story. I could picture it. At the time I had just started to run. The inspirational exploits of Caballo Blanco motivated me to keep running through those tricky first few weeks. His approach to running continues to be a massive influence my own.

 “Think Easy, Light, Smooth, and Fast. You start with easy, because if that’s all you get, that’s not so bad. Then work on light. Make it effortless, like you don’t give a shit how high the hill is or how far you’ve got to go. When you’ve practiced that so long that you forget you’re practicing, you work on making it smooooooth. You won’t have to worry about the last one – you get those three, and you’ll be fast.”Micah True