Recently a lot of people have been asking me why I’ve decided to race a horse. Well, multiple horses actually. It’d be easy to simply quote the line at the end of The Magnificent Seven when Steve McQueen explains why he took the no-win job by saying, “A fella I knew in El Paso one day just took off all of his clothes and jumped into a mess of cactus. And I asked him the same question, ‘Why’?” Eli Wallach presses him, asking, “And?” To which Steve McQueen responds, “Well, he said it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
That sounds about right. But the truth is, there’s more to it than that.
It started with a December 2019 RadioLab episode about the human butt (not joking), called Man Against Horse. The podcast talks about the evolution of the human body and one theory about the roles that the modern butt and nuchal ligament played in enabling persistence hunting, which opened up access to previously unattainable large stores of protein, and led to an explosion in the size and processing power of the brain. The episode then jumps to a race run in the mountains outside Prescott, Arizona, which has been putting this theory to the test for 35 years. Essentially, is it possible for a person to outrun a seemingly invincible animal competitor if you just make the race long enough. In this case, 50 miles. In the desert. Starting at 5,000 feet elevation and going up to almost 8,000 feet. And with a roughly 2,500 foot ascent at the 30 mile marker, just to make it a little more fun for man and horse alike. I was intrigued.
Now it just so happens that the head of VidMob Gives, our foundation that makes free creative for hundreds of charities around the world, is an old friend named Burr Purnell. And Burr, among other things, is an ultra-runner. Years earlier after I just finished the New York marathon, Burr put a worm in my head that never really left when he repeated the Dean Karnazes quote, “If you want to run a mile, run a mile. If you want to experience a different life, run a marathon. If you want to talk to God, run an ultra.” I grew up going to Friends meeting with my parents. And I’ll never forget the countless Sundays where we sat in silence waiting for someone to stand up and speak about how God had somehow impacted them in the prior week. It never happened to me. I was probably ten or eleven, so I doubt I would have spoken anyway. But I was always curious. So, Burr’s words stuck with me over the years, and when I heard about this race, they stood out just a little bit more. I’m not terribly religious in a traditional monotheistic sense, but if some God has something to say about how to be a better leader, build a better company, or leave a more positive impact on the world, your damn straight I plan on listening.
There’s also the experience aspect of things. For years now, I’ve been operating under the assumption that routine is the hidden force that accelerates the passage of time as we get older. When you do the same thing over and over, the brain gets lazy in how it stores that information. This leads to the perception of time passing more quickly. I don’t know about you, but I very clearly line up on the side of “not down with this”, and try to fight it at all costs. If I realize that I always walk on one side of the street, I purposely switch to walk on the other. If someone invites me to do something I’ve never done, there’s a good chance I’m in. And perhaps this goes without saying, but I have never raced a horse.
This pre-existing instinct to look for new experiences has been further enhanced by a decision I made in the wake of the COVID lockdowns. In the depths of NYC’s lockdown, I promised myself that when that phase ended and we were loosed on the world, I was going to commit to a strict policy of ‘yes’. All of the little things I took for granted, and might have even sometimes seen as annoyances, whenever someone asked me if I wanted to join, my answer would always be ‘yes’. Do you want to get lunch sometime? Yes. Do you want to join us for drinks even though you just got back from a long trip and are exhausted? Yes. Do you want to race a horse? Yes.
And finally, I like stories. I like reading them. I like telling them. And I love making them. I feel like a good story is one of those rare things in life that repays 1,000x. I’ve told the story a thousand times about how the first award VidMob ever won, The Instagrammy (name not sanctioned by Facebook) was the victim of an attempted burglary at Cannes, how it evaded the dumbfounded thieves by hiding under Jason’s pillow, but how multiple passports were stolen out of frustration, leading to a night speaking with French police, an instant trip to Marseilles by Jason and Greg Lieber, and me stumbling up on the Facebook stage for my first Cannes talk with literally zero sleep. Jason and Greg got new passports, my talk went well, and the Instagrammy now lives on the shelf in our New York office. Was the story worth the hassle? Absolutely!
I don’t know what stories we’ll encounter in the desert, but I know they’re out there. And the fact that I’m running the race with Burr and Scott Hannan, two of my favorite people, makes me all the more certain that we’ll have something to talk about for years after we cross the finish line – hopefully ahead of at least a few of the horses.
To this last point, just to light a little extra fire under our six feet, we’ve decided to use this experience as a fundraiser to help support Bethany’s Gait, a local non-profit in Prescott, AZ that is dedicated to “Rescuing Horses and Restoring Lives.” The programs at Bethany’s Gait have been created specifically for active duty, reserve and veteran military personnel, first responders, and their families. For every horse we beat, we’re going to donate $1,000. If anyone wants to join us in supporting this worthy group, here’s a link to their donation page. Does this put me in a bit of a moral quandary, essentially going to battle with a far stronger, far better evolved enemy, only to then turn around and offer financial support to that very enemy? I guess so, but these are the kinds of moral dilemmas that we’ll have plenty of time to work through on the way up and down the mountain.
So why am I racing a horse this October? First, because ‘yes’ is my policy. Second, because I’m curious about what I might learn about myself when pushed beyond the limit. Third, because of all the things I’m afraid of, running out of good memories to think about and great stories to tell must be up there close to the top. But mostly, I find myself sympathizing with the fellow in El Paso. It just seemed like a good idea at the time.
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