Out Of Thin Air: Running Wisdom and Magic from Above the Clouds in Ethiopia
Since Abebe Bikila’s heroic barefoot victory in the marathon at the Rome Olympics in 1960 – the first gold medal won by a sub-Saharan African – running has been part of the Ethiopian psyche and a huge source of national pride. However, the Western world knows very little about the lives of those for whom ‘running is life.’ High-performance sport is increasingly about measuring, calculating limits, and disenchantment. In Ethiopia, though, runners believe that mysterious, incalculable forces have a huge part to play in their success.
Michael Crawley (British) spent fifteen months in Ethiopia training alongside runners at all levels of the sport, from night watchmen hoping to change their lives to world-class marathon runners, in order to answer these questions.
By immersing himself in the culture of Ethiopian running, learning Amharic, and following in the footsteps of runners as they zig zag through the high-altitude forests of Addis Ababa, Bekoji, and Gondar, Michael Crawley has written the beautiful Out of Thin Air taking you on a search for ‘special’ air, on midnight runs through the city.
Why does it make sense to Ethiopian runners to get up at 3 am to run up and down a hill? Who would choose to train on almost impossibly steep and rocky terrain, in hyena territory? And how come Ethiopian men hold six of the top ten fastest marathon times ever?
Out of Thin Air is his first book and can be purchased on: Amazon
