Non-Conventional Horse Race

The setup of the Man Against Horse race is rather simple: the left half of the starting line is folks wearing running shoes, and the right half is folks riding horses. Then someone says “Go!” and the running shoes try not to get trampled by the hooves for the next 25 miles. When Man Against Horse occurred last semester, my competitive nature demanded that I answer one burning question: can I beat a horse in a marathon up Mingus Mountain? 

The first ten miles trotted through the rolling hills northeast of Prescott Valley, and I spent these miles leap-frogging with the last-place horse – a large brown mare named Cassie. (Don’t ask me for the rider’s name, I only cared about his horse). I’d hold my steady jog and pass her when she walked, while she passed me every time she picked up to a run. 

Cassie and her nameless rider were a bit too quick for me at the start of the Mingus incline, and they left me in losing position to all horses, alone to pick my way through the pine forest. For some reason I only brought spicy hummus sandwiches for race food, and by mile 15 my malnutrition started taking its toll. I became dizzy and several times I accidentally meandered into the woods, needing to back-track to the trail. My delirium turned discovering horse poop into a celebratory cause, since it indicated I had rejoined the trail. 

While staggering uphill I was caught by two runners who, after assessing my condition, offered me electrolyte pills. I don’t normally accept pills from strangers, especially when they beckon me to follow them into the woods. But sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, so I took those pills and I ran after those strangers. 

I was instantly given extreme energy, making me want to ask what was really in those pills. But you shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, so I kept quiet. 

We cruised on high spirits over Mingus Mountain and passed 20 miles, when suddenly we came upon two large brown rear-legs draped with diesel hair. Cassie! And her unnamed rider!! The combination of strange pills and excitement caused me to yell out, “I’m beating that damn horse!” as I began sprinting downhill, knowing I had a chance to beat Cassie. 

I kept my lead with two miles to go, when the route sharply turned through a flash-flood wash: a valley four feet wide and ten feet high, covered in sand. The narrow passage suffocated me with its tight corners and tried to trap me with its soft ankle-high sand. The image of Cassie catching me here trampled through my mind, in the same way I imagined Cassie trampling me. Suffocated, stuck, a horse’s breath thundering as its hooves planted me into the sand. 

My fight-or-flight response was stuck in ‘flight’ as I exited the sand trap with a half-mile to go. My legs churned as I sprinted through tall grass when I was suddenly caught by my own horror movie villain: Cassie and the Nameless Horseman. I had gutted it out for 24.5 miles, but had they won the last 0.5. 

I crossed the finish line five minutes after Cassie, having been defeated by every single horse. One of the race organizers tried encouraging me by saying I should simply “run an hour faster next year.” God willing I’ll be graduated and gone by then, but it’s possible that the spirit of revenge – and pills from strangers – will bring me back for the race.