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Penn Museum To Host Special Guest For Exhibit

By Cherri Gregg

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - The Penn Museum's "Run! Super-Athletes of the Sierra Madre" is set to close next weekend, so the museum is hosting a special guest. As KYW's Cherri Gregg reports, it's a chance for avid marathoners to learn the secrets of long-distance endurance running.

Photo-journalist Diana Molina, who has documented the Sirerra Madre in Mexico for years, will spend the afternoon at the Museum. She'll be at Penn Museum to discuss her experience through the years among the greatest ultra-marathon runners in the world.

"They have two names, 'Raramuri,' which in their own language [and] means "the running people," and 'Tarahumara,' which is what they were named by the Spanish when they entered the region," Molina explains.

Molina says the Tarahumara live in Chihuahua, Mexico which has some of the most complex web of gorges in the world. She says the geography means the people of this centuries old culture spend their lives running.

"They run in "huaraches," which are what we call sandals in English," she says. "They are made using old tires, cutting them out and then strapping them on the feet using leather."

Molina says Tarahumara villages, which exist without many modern amenities like electricity, compete is races for prizes like grain. She says the races have become so popular that some of the world's most dedicated distance runners come to compete.

"I've witnessed many, many races where they have many, many laps from day into night," she says, noting that some of the races are hundreds of miles long. "The Raramuri, more than any other culture I have walked among or visited, personifies the strength of the human race."

The exhibit features artifacts and photos. Molina will speak beginning at 2 p.m. For more information visit: www.penn.museum

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