By early January, Germán Silva had run halfway across Mexico: 30 miles a day through the Sierra Madre, past befuddled cartel gunmen and bemused road crews, across vast stretches of ranch land where the cows, too, seemed to look at him askance. There were moments when even Silva, one of the best long-distance runners in Mexico’s history, thought he might be nuts. Days when he couldn’t tell whether the greater threat to his four-month, 3,134-mile run was the terrain or his own, failing body.
He was 54. His two New York City Marathon victories were almost three decades behind him. His toenails were falling off. His left calf hurt. And his right hamstring. And basically everything else. He was 1,574 miles into the journey, deep in the mountains of central Mexico, when I joined him last month for a day of running. Silva guessed we’d run 32 miles or so, but he wasn’t sure.
