Messengers from Sweden

We want to thank our friends in Sweden for their ongoing support. For several year now they have conducted a Caballo Blanco Memorial Run in honor of Micah and the Raramuri peoples, and raised funds for the Run of the Caballitos (kid’s races) at the Ultra Caballo weekend. We greatly appreciate the support and love the passion. Thanks for the Korima amigos!

Following is shared by event organizer and Mas Loco Chister.

In 2009, the book "Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen" was published. I, like so many runners, read the book and was fascinated by the first part, about Caballo Blanco and the Raramuri.

By chance I found Caballo on Facebook and saw that he was touring in the US, talking about the background of what McDougall wrote about in the book. Soon I asked him if he would like to come and do that in Sweden too but he thought it was too far away.

Later I saw that some English people had persuaded him to come so I immediately started to talk with them and Micah, and we agreed that Micah would take a short break in the British tour, fly to Sweden and make a couple of appearances here.

I lived in the countryside then but there was an annual big race (Lidingöloppet) just outside Stockholm at that time of year so I arranged a meeting the day before the race (and a place in the race but Micah didn't feel alright in a calf so he skipped it in the last minute). There were 250 runners listening to him there.

The day after we went to my home where he stayed for a couple of days and made another "Talking Horse Show" as he called it. We also ran together an 11k track that I used to run - he wanted to check if the calf was alright.

Then he went back to England and my life went back to normal. This was at the end of September 2011.

Then at the end of March I received the tragic news. I felt that something must be done. An idea of an annual memorial run came up. The idea was a race on the same 11k paths we ran together the year before. So since 2012 we've been doing this, always at the end of September/beginning of October.

A couple of years ago I started another race - 50 miles - on another path, but the same day. The races have always been on a small scale - between 40 and 60 participants. This year there were 20 persons running 50 miles and 40 running one, two or 4 laps on the 11k track.

One part of the entrance is marked as support for the raramuris, and the last years we've been supporting the Carrera de los Caballitos much because the children are their future.

/Christer