“When I woke up that morning after the dinner party, I was very disconcerted. And I still don’t know why I typed this, Joe, but I typed into Google, What are the hardest things you can do? And one of the algorithmic search answers that came up was another question, which was What are the hardest physical things you can do? And Spartan Racing and obstacle course racing were among them. For me at that point, having never been a competitive athlete, someone who was a last picked kid for teams, spent a lot of time sitting on the bench, passing out water to my friends, this was so far out of the realm of anything I thought I could do.”

On Tapping Into Information As We Age

“But fortunately, I had made a young mentor, an elite racer in the sport, a young woman who reached out to me via email. And instead of letting me wallow in my misery and commiserate, she was just very quick to say, Yeah, that happens. And it happens when you are not prepared. And here’s what you do need to be prepared. You need these gloves, and you need to use this technique and you need to wear these pants. And she really, Joe, and I think this is important for anybody in any activity they want to want to embrace, she made me understand that it’s not all about strength and speed, but it was about getting smarter and information. And that led me to understand that in any discipline, any activity we take up, we can find our edges and equalizers as we age by tapping into information. So that race sticks with me as a particularly critical one because I could have quit and I didn’t, and it was a turning point.”

On Movement – and Trying Something New

“And to get ourselves out of this inertia and potentially a rut of chronic boredom. And chronic boredom has been associated with all sorts of health risks from anxiety to depression to even the risk of making mistakes. So finding something new that you can engage in and to get out of that cycle, something that will make you wake up every day excited to try something new that forces you to learn, to unlearn, to relearn, this is this doesn’t have to be obstacle course racing or sports, as you said, it can be anything. I do think there’s a real benefit to having movement be part of our life as we age. Over and over again, you’ll hear that, you know, the research shows that we can get profound changes for our bodies and our minds just by starting to move more regularly, even in middle age and beyond. And those statistics are incredibly powerful. And so I think no matter what you choose, building movement into your day, more regular movement. I just wrote about this for my newsletter today is so important, not just again, for the physical side of being able to do what you love with the people you love, but also for the protective n