The Gal's Got Grinta*.Terri Schneider's "Dirty Inspirations" is an ambitious book, consisting of three strands: first, the evolution and life-cycle of a top female ultra-endurance athlete; secondly, she describes several different kinds of ultra-endurance events as well as what it's like to participate in them; lastly, she offers her thoughts and introspections about the mental life necessary for accomplishing such events, as well as the lessons she learned from such endeavors.Although she blends the three strands, each is worth considering separately in this review.1. She mentions being a woman athlete mostly tangentially, although, as a pioneer, one suspects it wasn't as easy or problem-free as her account gives the impression it could be. Her life and evolution as an ultra-endurance athlete are, for the most part, implicit as she describes her adventures in chronological order. The requisite physical exertions come at a price: inevitable wear and tear, let alone accidents; fittingly, her first chapter starts with her having to deal with an injury, and her active career as a professional athlete ends similarly. Both are heartbreaking, but using, and illustrative of, her psychological insights she lands on her feet both times -- she finishes well at her IronMan world championship race, and, at the end, pursues other paths, including consulting to the Bhutan Olympic Committee.2. Her adventure descriptions are developed, fascinating as well as varied, including multi-day eco-challenges (with activities such as riding horses, mountain biking, rappelling, rafting and running as a partial list), multi-day races across the Sahara, mountaineering. She not only describes the activities, her reactions, interactions with team-mates and fellow competitors, but also incorporates her vivid appreciation of the terrain. This reviewer's favorite was the Western States 100, a grueling, mountainous 100 mile run, which she undertakes in less-than-optimal shape (recovering from an injury). After running through day and night, she's told one mile from the end that she's nine minutes away from making it under 24 hours - and thus qualifying for a prized belt buckle. Incredibly, she does it. After 99 miles, huge elevation gains, exhausted and in pain, she does it. Talk about mind over body...the gal's got grinta! Thereby erasing any question that she knows what she's talking about in examining the mental side of ultra-endurance adventures, the main thrust of her book.3. While one might continuously parse aspects of ultra-endurance participation, TS focuses on a few questions, such as what does it take to participate successfully, and what are the effects, i.e., what does one get from such activities -- which subsumes the question of what motivates such efforts. From this non ultra-endurance reviewer's perspective, the last question is a good way to approach all three. While the answers surely vary somewhat with the individual athletes, my guess is a common, central component is to be found in the deep, human need for "competence," especially when allied with a challenge. Presumably most if not all parents are familiar with my son's mantra when he was two years old, namely, "I do it myself!" Such an urge, becoming an irresistible psychological itch, has propelled people through history to find satisfaction to the burning question, "Well,...can you?" Indeed, a repeated theme to TS' is seeking to transcend limits: physical, mental and cultural. What better laboratory in which to explore the interplay between beliefs and body? To think that sports is all about physical abilities is simply mistaken, as in "90% of the game is half mental," as Yogi Berra famously put it. Illustratively, her initial chapter details psychological means she successfully used to deal with a serious injury prior to racing an IronMan. She goes on to examine how self-confidence, fear, attitude towards risk, commitment, one's relationship to pain and adversity, as well as team dynamics all powerfully influence one's performance. In short, adventure racing is a microcosm of life. And thus, since one's sense of self is transactional, it can be, and probably will be, influenced by one's powerful (i.e., intense) experiences. What better way to expand your sense of self, that is, to "expand your horizons"?How well she accomplishes all this inevitably varies at times throughout the book. Sometimes her descriptions and writing are wonderfully compelling and succinct, e.g., when she's describing her fear of rappelling and says, "The morbid fascination with my own potential demise sucked me in, as if fear was seducing me over to the dark side of my mind" -- who hasn't felt this way on occasion? At other times her psychologizing sounds too obvious, even while valid and useful; perhaps a by-product of our over-psychologized culture. Her book's principal strengths include her honesty which is a hallmark of her inquiries, her breadth of extraordinary adventures, her marshaling of insights and quotes; to summarize, it is a carefully articulated book well worth reading carefully and thoughtfully.* "grinta" - a Spanish term used in bicycle racing, meaning determination, grit, iron will...