I woke up yesterday morning to the message below. It was a message from my friend Gregory Horlacher letting me know he'd registered to run the 50-mile Georgia Jewel Trail Race. My heart raced - is the race really still 9 months away?
Wait, I've never run 50 miles before. Is the race ONLY 9 months away!?! 😲 My friend Greg has never run 50 miles before either. He's also never run a trail race. I met Greg when we worked together at a residential wilderness camp a couple of decades ago. Greg is one of the greatest examples in my life that opposites attract. Our opposites start with Greg is Atheist and I am not. Yet, it's that difference that's probably challenged my faith, and in many ways who I am, as much or more than any similarities I share with anyone else. Greg has taught me that as a Christian I don't have a monopoly on fighting for the widows and the orphans and the oppressed. And many days, he's quietly - and sometimes not so quietly - forced me to examine whether I practice what I preach in that area at all. With his message, I was relieved to confirm that the influence sometimes goes both ways. Over the years Greg has accused me of spreading running propaganda. I've watched Greg go from a casual runner to a guy who last week messaged me about his running shoes collection and the 4 marathons he's signed up for next year. What?!?! I was still processing the magnitude of that "holy cow I've created a monster" when his message came through about the Georgia Jewel race. The funny thing is, what put him over the edge on the Georgia Jewel race wasn't MY propaganda, but instead the heart and soul of the same person that put ME over the edge about the Georgia Jewel - Jenny Baker. Several years ago I was fortunate enough to have an hour and a half phone conversation with Jenny. She barely mentioned that she was the race director of the Georgia Jewel - but she did mention it. And by the time I was done talking to her, and had discovered just how much she loved and fought for people - when I discovered just how much she saw running as an avenue to loving people more and better, running that Georgia Jewel became the MAIN thing I took away from our chat. Greg told me what sealed the deal for him about the Georgia Jewel was reading a recent article Jenny wrote about closing the gender gap in the ultrarunning world. Last year Jenny and her co-director and husband, Franklin, offered crazy incentives as a way to invite more women to their race. In Jenny's words: "Fervently pursuing inclusion is a hill we’ll die on Every. Single. Day. We don’t always get it right, but we won’t let perfection prevent progress." Those words were important to my friend, just like Jenny's words were important to me many years ago. You can read the article here: https://ultrarunning.com/.../georgia-jewel-closes-the.../ I've been reflecting on Greg's message to me. Not just the "hey, I've registered for the craziest race of my life" message - and be sure pal - this IS your craziest. Not that message, though, but the bigger message. The message that we are all propaganda. We are, with the things we say and the way we live - we are all spreading a message with our stories and with our lives. And people are watching and listening and reading. There is a lot of propaganda out there that wants to promote how differently we all believe. Beneath the noise of all that, though, there are a lot of people who believe quite differently who are living some beautiful similarities. Similarities often powerful enough to bridge the divides in our beliefs. And I don't know, but I think running 50 miles together might be another way to discover a few more of those similarities. One of which is discovering crazy isn't a belief, it's something you do!! A new year is coming, and with it, another year of counting down the days until the Georgia Jewel.
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Robert "Keith" CartwrightI am a friend of God, a dad, a runner who never wins, but is always searching for beauty in the race. Archives
February 2025
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