This is an illuminating saga of a group of ultraunners in their journey through the 2017 Bigfoot 200 race. The book does a.great job of weaving together the challenges that runners, along with their families and friends, face in preparing and competing in one of the world's toughest ultramarathons. We learn about what happens on the journey, seen through the lens of winners, finishers, and those who arrived and failed. The author expresses this best: "Life is not about the finish; life is not about the endgame. Life is about the journey."

The framework of the book is in four major sections. First, the runners discuss decision to run a 200 mile race along with their training and mindset. Also, along with the runners, there are insights from one of the runners crew. Second, the majority of the book takes the reader along the Bigfoot 2017, as each runner describes their run from aid station to aid station. While this run is competitive, the runners each express an underlying theme of ultrarunning: it's a community of runners, crew, pacers, aid station volunteers, radio operators, medical staff, race director, and associated staff. No one runs the race on their own.

The third section is the wrap up. Here's an amazing thing about the race , the top make and female finishers stay until the last person finishes... two days after they finished. The author has captured the community of underpinning very well. The final section consists of short biographical sects about each of the characters in the book along with a couple of other interesting Bigfoot 200 characters.

I'd recommend this book for current and aspiring ultrarunners, their family and friends that wonder what makes them tick and anyone that's interested in a tale of grit and epic adventure. ( )