49 pages • 1 hour read
Christopher McDougallRunning with Sherman
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 17-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 17 Summary: “It”
Content Warning: This section discusses attempted death by suicide.
McDougall provides Zeke’s backstory, detailing his struggles with depression. Zeke and his sister were both encouraged by their high-performing mother to take on intensive training for swimming before and after school, a task which they appeared to handle with ease. They maintained high grades in school and busy extra-curricular lives. However, in high school, both Zeke and his sister quit swimming, and soon after both struggled with depression. With therapy and medication, both siblings were able to move past their periods of depression.
When Zeke left home to attend his mother’s alma mater, Penn State University, he was initially successful, but felt that his antidepressant medication was not allowing him to think clearly. He stopped taking his regular dosage. A few weeks later, Zeke attempted suicide. This is why he returned home.
McDougall then discusses the danger in the stoppage of high-level athletic activity, as the dopamine drop-off can cause severe depression and even suicidal ideation. Witnessing her son running with Sherman, Zeke’s mother realizes, “‘He’d found someone else who needed healing’” (181).
Chapter 18 Summary: “Plan C”
A few weeks later, Zeke is undeterred by poor weather or physical challenge. He encourages McDougall and Mika out for runs when they would rather stay home, and develops a close relationship with Sherman. Zeke develops a sense of “how much force to put on the rope and where to position himself alongside Sherman” (187).
Buoyed by the regular exercise and his progress with Sherman, Zeke suggests the team attempt a river crossing, but it does not go well. McDougall calls Hal Walter, a fellow burro racer, to enquire about the type of creek crossing in the World Championship and learns that they are vastly harder than he originally thought.
Chapter 19 Summary: “You Rarely Win, But Sometimes You Do”
McDougall visits Hal in Colorado for some research. He meets Hal’s son, who is on the autism spectrum, and reflects upon equine therapy and how it assists neurodiverse people in interacting with the wider world.
Hal realizes that he might be on the autism spectrum as well, and attributes all of his success in working with his son to lessons he learned while burro racing. McDougall goes for a run with Hal, but the altitude in Colorado is too much for him, and he cannot finish even a short run.
Chapter 20 Summary: “Zekipedia”
McDougall, Mika, and Zeke, take the donkeys through “the maze” (208), a complicated trail that wends through dense brush and leads to Tanya’s place. While on the run, McDougall realizes that the donkeys are doing fine, but that he needs to pick up his physical and mental game and be more disciplined as the emerging leader of his motley team of burro racers. When Tanya asks about the World Championship, McDougall states that Zeke is now officially part of their team.
Chapters 17-20 Analysis
Chapter 17 functions much in the same way as Chapter 7, in that it gives McDougall a chance to reveal the scientific fundamentals of one of his main themes. He explores The Therapeutic Aspect of Sport, but also its darker aspect when high-performing athletes withdraw from their sports and experience a loss of purpose and direction. Zeke stands as a model for the dire consequences that McDougall explores, though he is not the only figure in the book that deals with this: Rob Pedretti will later provide another case study.
Zeke’s story is ultimately positive, however. McDougall celebrates Zeke finding running with Sherman as his “purpose” (181), a direct echo of Tanya’s advice at the beginning of the book and another example of The Restorative Power of Connecting with Animals. Zeke and Sherman’s stories also correlate on this point, as athletes becoming depressed once they lack the dopamine from their training is analogous to animals losing a sense of purpose within societies that have turned away from their reliance upon them. At the end of the chapter, Zeke finds his purpose—a communion in healing with Sherman. Running also gives Zeke another form of sport to pursue, once more tying into The Therapeutic Aspect of Sport when pursued in a healthy way.
Team dynamics also shift with the inclusion of Zeke. Zeke’s enthusiasm and unwillingness to take a break goads McDougall and Mika into maintaining their training schedule, ultimately allowing them all to form a close relationship with Sherman. Zeke gives balance and further purpose to the team, and, despite his annoyance at the boy’s persistence, McDougall’s observation of Zeke’s work-ethic strengthens his own will to continue. This is an important step in the narrative, as McDougall moves from looking at training for the burro race as a singular task of his own and instead begins drawing strength from the community that is accruing around Sherman. While watching his team pull together to face adversity in the maze, and ultimately succeeding, McDougall has a moment of introspection. He witnesses the power and support his team now offers, but he also recognizes the need to focus on his role as part of a team, rather than as a pure trainer/trainee relationship. This is him moving closer to Sherman and Zeke—another instance of his Tao-like philosophy emerging and his move away from his own ego.
Chapter 19 is something of a digression, as McDougall leaves the primary narrative on an ostensible research trip to include another important burst of scientific data on The Restorative Power of Connecting with Animals. The focus on equine therapy draws obvious parallels to what is occurring between Zeke and Sherman, and this chapter contextualizes it further. McDougall widens his scope to focus on the ways equine therapy assists neurodiverse populations. He shares the ultimately positive story of Hal Walter, another burro racer, and his son Harrison, who, by the end of the book, benefits greatly from running.
