Running the inner Grand Canyon: John Annerino's quest
John Annerino. Running Wild, An Extraordinary Adventure of the Human Spirit. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1992, 1998. Thirty years ago, John Annerino--avid climber, runner, and sometime instructor at a community college in southern Arizona--ran the length of the Grand Canyon. He did so three times during the early 1980s, each attempt following a path more remote and arduous than the previous. Running away and running toward Annerino's motivations for undertaking these unprecedented journeys on foot were at the outset unclear even to himself. Never reticent about dramatizing the private, he recounts a colorfully failed engagement (probably for the best), a climbing injury that nearly kills him and then nearly takes his legs, and a vague disaffection with modern culture, including the "running boom," still in its early stages, being hyped in ever larger and more commercial venues. Ultrarunners often begin by running away from as much...