Ben Davis: Navy SEAL Veteran, MTB Racer, Mountaineer + Veteran Outdoor Advocacy Group Exec. Director
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After a decade as a United States Navy SEAL, Ben Davis is now conquering peaks, competing in races and coaching. He is also the executive director of the Veterans Outdoor Advocacy Group (VOAG) - a non-profit that promotes access to outdoor adjunct therapies for all veterans.
Ben joins host Andrew Vontz to share how his experiences in the military and in endurance sports have shaped his understanding of personal achievement, and what he has (and has not) discovered about himself in the process.
In his last few years of service, he completed numerous mountaineering endeavors and has since competed in some of the most challenging mountain bike and ultra running races in the world, including the Leadville 100. He now lives in Colorado's front range and works as a cycling and endurance sports coach for Boundless Coaching, with a specialty is long-distance mountain bike racing.
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Choose the Hard Way is a podcast where guests share stories about how hard things build stronger humans. Sign up for the newsletter to get the story behind these stories updates and more. If you’d like to suggest a guest or say hello, DM @hardwaypod on social or send an email to choosethehardway@gmail.com.
Host Andrew Vontz has spent more than 25 years telling and shaping the stories of the world’s top performers, brands and businesses. He has held executive and senior leadership roles at the social network for athletes Strava and the human performance company TRX. His byline has appeared in outlets like Rolling Stone, Outside magazine, The Los Angeles Times and more.
Today he advises and consults with businesses and nonprofits on high-impact storytelling strategies and coaches leaders to become high-performance communicators. Find him on LinkedIn or reach out to choosethehardway@gmail.com
In This Episode:
Ben Davis Instagram | Substack
Boundless Coaching Website
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Andrew Vontz LinkedIn
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Choose The Hard Way is a Palm Tree Pod Co. production
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Andrew Vontz 0:03
So in yeah, I've, I've listened to a number of podcasts that you've been on, I'm, you know, I'm conversing on what's going on with Vogue, and with your background and everything and
We don't Okay. Yeah.
let you know, as I mentioned in my email, what I always enjoy is, number one, like however you want to show up, whatever you want to share is totally cool. Just be who you are. What I find to be most interesting, and what I think my listeners value the most, is just hearing stories from high performing interesting people. Like we'll definitely we'll talk about vote, we'll talk about the benefits of adjunct outdoor therapies for veterans. You know, if that's something I'm very down with, and would love to support and promote here on the show, I'll also talk about that, in, as you've heard on the show, I do a pre read, I'll give your bio, I'll send, I'll have links in the show notes, all that stuff. But primarily, what I want to talk about is I just want to, you know, talk about you. I'm really interested in your interests in endurance sports, whatever you do, or don't want to share about your service is totally fine. And like I said, in my email, I agree with you, though, like bugs porn is played out. Like, we don't need to do that, man. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's kind of where I'm at. And, and I, you know, it's interesting, my, my family almost moved to, we almost moved to Denver, during the pandemic, and then we decided to come out here to Maine, where my wife's family is from, and then we ended up staying here. And then I decided to leave Strava to focus on this podcast and in on starting, actually starting up a tech business with another executive from Strava. We had an idea we wanted to pursue and decided to do that. So now I'm in main man, and then I'm commuting back to the Bay Area. So periodically, cool. That's a
Ben Davis 2:00
big gravel ride, right?
Andrew Vontz 2:02
Yeah, I enjoy. I enjoy gravel. Yeah, I'm fairly, I'd still get on compete a little like compete is probably maybe not the right word at this point in my athletic trajectory. But yeah, I enjoy gravel I used I grew up racing mountain bikes, road bikes, got really into cyclocross when I lived in the Bay Area, and then got into gravel pretty deep, until I started having AFib from training and racing too much. And then I dialed it back. And now I just kind of train and race at a lower level.
Ben Davis 2:34
No kidding. Yeah, two things. That's like the only place in the US I haven't really explored gravel, but everyone speaks so highly of it, too. We, I guess, is it will this be on the podcast?
Andrew Vontz 2:55
What am I doing? I
Ben Davis 2:57
don't Okay, let's not have this. My wife. My wife has a big runner and is in the midst of a big afib. I think you know, turns out she's gonna, he says myocarditis from COVID from COPD. She had a couple events. She's 34 and had two AFib events mid run. Yeah. And it's been a it's been a really challenging. I mean, it's been a long, long journey to sort of she's had every test and MRI and she ended up having a EP study about a month ago. And it's better now. I think they ablated a bunch of scarring in there. But
Andrew Vontz 3:34
whoa, so she's actually had an ablation.
Ben Davis 3:38
Yeah, yeah, she did. And now she's at like, basically, they told her like, live your life however you want. Do you can do anything. They got about 95% of it out? Wow. Yeah, it was fantastic. It was scary there for for a minute. I mean, no one really knew it was sort of in the time where? I don't, I wouldn't say it was like, politically charged, but to speculate that things were the result of COVID or the vaccine were sort of like fringe. But anyway, yeah, yeah.
Andrew Vontz 4:12
I mean, that's that specific issue in relation to the COVID vaccine. I'm sure you found this out. But that's very well documented. There's a lot of academic literature about it, and it's been studied pretty thoroughly. It's super common among professional cyclists. And, again, I'm not going to put this on the podcast, but we're going to just talk about it. But I co host another podcast beyond the peloton with Spencer Martin, who's actually based in Boulder. It's a very popular Pro Cycling Analysis podcast. So we have a lot of contacts within the world of World Tour and professional cycling. A fair number of athletes like competing at the Tour de France level are actually not vaccinated. And the reason is, because so many endurance athletes competing at that level had such severe comp occasions from vaccination. And I mean, it severely impaired their ability to compete. Because of inflammation of the heart. It was just for whatever reason, it really hits endurance athletes hard. And so that's Yeah, in fact, I was doing a gravel event two weeks ago, and there was a guy there. And he said he'd been sidelined for a year because of, you know, he had inflammation and following the vaccine. I personally I didn't, it definitely, actually, I felt like, I definitely had a reaction and like, really had to dial my training back quite a bit following getting vaccinated. But that was fine. I just I'd had enough friends go through that, that I just was really cautious. And then on the the AFib side of things, the guests I had on the show last week, Chris case, who is based he's from a town north of Boulder. He is the author of a book called The haywire heart. I don't know if you came across it while your wife was going through this. But it's it's probably the current definitive text on electrical heart issues and endurance athletes is I went through it. I actually have a friend that I don't know. Do you know Brian Ferguson? He's also a former seal. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I know of him. Yeah, was okay. So Brian, Brian, he's an amazing human and has like a very vast network. He's kind of in the medical health performance space with his business arena labs. But he connected me to a guy who runs cardiac EP at the Cleveland Clinic. I ended up seeing, you know, networking my way to, I think probably the four very best people in the world, all of whom, I mean, I always like to use the Ray Dalio method and at least triangulate them on like, three very high authority, high credibility sources. And it was wild how divergent the recommendations were based on who I was talking to. Because I had a guy at UCSF, I went in, he like, came in and looked at my charts because I done the Zio patch and everything sat down was like, Okay, let's schedule your, let's schedule your ablation. And I was like, okay, so I did, and then I ended up going to see the head of cardiac EP at Stanford. And he did a really, he just like, it kind of interviewed me for quite a while trying to learn more about lifestyle factors. When I started experiencing it, I had in like, a 10 month period head. Number one, I was probably training 20 to 22 hours a week, I was doing races that lasted six or seven hours, and then I was going into a full cyclocross season, I had just gotten married. For the first time at what I was, think I was 39, or 40, we'd had our first child and I bought a house for the first time in my life. He was like, You know what, I think you might need to try to manage your stress a little and I changed jobs. Yeah. He's like, why don't you try like dial in your stress back? And come back and see me in six months? Which I in a bit, I mean, you know, how it has been, like when you're in any job for anybody, but particularly like high stress tech jobs? It's, that's kind of a tall order to titrate. Your stress, right? Easier said than done? Yeah. But anyway, it's wild. How many friends I have who have similar training histories? who have gone through this whole process where I don't know, did your wife have tachycardia? Or was it just an irregular heartbeat?
Ben Davis 8:33
She did have? Yeah, I did have a instance. She has a like, you know, like a Bluetooth monitor. Now. It's obviously not the name, but they can look at it anytime they want on the internet, basically. Yeah, I wish, you know, yeah. I wish we'd had this conversation. But when that was going on, because at the time we have sort of like, this is
Andrew Vontz 8:53
not so it's so hard to find the information. Yeah.
Ben Davis 8:57
Yeah. You know, the bedside manner that worlds a little like, it's just kind of like, well, yeah, this is really bad. So come back, you know, like, What do you mean?
Andrew Vontz 9:09
Yeah, I felt like, yeah, obviously, it varies by physician. But yeah, I mean, it's kind of like your Oh, my transmission is a little weird. You know, you go to somebody who fixes transmissions. They're like, great. Let's put a new transmission on. Yeah. You know what I mean, right. Totally.
Ben Davis 9:24
Yeah. Totally. Well, cool.
Andrew Vontz 9:30
All right. So we've got the hard stuff out of the way. Yeah, cool. Well, I think one of the things that I'm curious about Ben, so I know that your father was a professor, and you know, I've read your bio, obviously, you grew up, at least in your bio, the activities that are mentioned are like, Hey, I grew up whitewater rafting and climbing. I'm curious if you remember the first time you actually went out and did one of these outdoor activities and what did that feel like for you?
Ben Davis 10:01
Yeah, so I, my dad's brother, half brother. My uncle actually was an alternate in the Atlanta Olympics for whitewater k one. So he was a very accomplished kayaker. It was a lived in Knoxville. And so I bet I was 10 years old and he came up to visit and said, Well, why don't we go? I have to train. I think he would train every day basically. And so I have to go do my workout. Why don't you bend when you just come with me? And so we went. I think it's called Kunal Falls is in south of Fayetteville, West Virginia, like New River Gorge area. And he I got in this boat and with the skirt and the paddle and everything. And basically, it was just like, you know, this is go for it. And so we went down, like this class three rapid or something, and I flipped over and swam and all of this stuff. And I remember watching him, he was probably 30s. And thinking, like, this is really unique. This guy's like, has, you know, he's like, my dad's age. And he's, like, really serious about this. Athletics. You know, I never thought about that. Before. And, you know, he was really fed, and you know, took it really seriously. And yeah, I remember that I was probably nine, eight or nine or 10, or something like that, and thinking like, oh, maybe there's a way, maybe, maybe sport doesn't stop at age 18. You know, and I remember being really scared like this, you know, I mean, kayaking is a, you know, I think it levels out with the rest of outdoor sports, once you've kind of figured it out. But the barrier to entry is pretty steep. I mean, you got to get in there. And, you know, flip over, and you got to learn how to roll in all this stuff. So I remember, like, having a lot of respect for the river and thinking like, oh, man, that's pretty not only is the doesn't require this fitness, but it's kind of scary.
Andrew Vontz 12:06
So yeah, but my wife did. It was scary. Yeah.
Ben Davis 12:09
Yeah, I did. I mean, I remember thinking like, Oh, this is, you know, maybe some connection to like, the natural world, like, you know, you have to have kind of respect for this. The river, basically, you know, or, you know, really, you could die sort of the same. The same, I guess, why people, you know, draw are drawn towards mountaineering. I mean, you kind of have to, it's, you have to have respect, you know, for the mountains. And it's not something that you can you know, if you get too ambitious, or you get you don't manage risk, it's going to bite you. Yeah, I was definitely attracted to that salmon, salmon climbing.
Andrew Vontz 12:53
And at that point, after this first experience, had you gotten the bug, or did it take a while for it to get a toxin you?
Ben Davis 13:00
Well, so from there, I pursued wrestling
Andrew Vontz 13:08
and natural transition into wrestling,
Ben Davis 13:10
man, there's dime a dozen out there. So I Yeah, so I wrestled through middle school and high school of wrestling was a big, big in southwest Virginia. And so it was like, in retrospect, it was almost like it unhealthy dedication, that the wrestlers get to the sport. I mean, it's like, you know, wrestling would be like 90% of life and school would be like, 10. You know, it's like religious almost, and the weight cutting. And so I was like, really, really invested in wrestling. And then I remember of return when I got my driver's license, I returned to outdoor to kayaking is I kind of knew how to do it. And it's pretty popular there in southwest Virginia, Virginia Tech is there and they, I would say of the top at the time, 25 kayakers in the US. Like maybe 30 40% of them will get undergrads at Virginia Tech because of the access to Whitewater. So good there. So I got back into it. And it was like the complete opposite of structured, high school wrestling. It was like the antithesis of it. And that was really, really enjoyable. So I ended up going to UT Chattanooga because the white the Olympic Training Center was there at the Ikoyi UTC if if not Virginia Tech, UT Chattanooga sort of the end UT Knoxville are sort of like the Chi like if you want to maximize your time kayaking, that's where you'd want to go.
Andrew Vontz 14:46
We got to go back to wrestling. So your dad, what kind of what kind of professor was your father and
Ben Davis 14:51
what he is? My dad's a horticulture professor, so he teaches I mean, he's been through it all. On now between forestry and I mean really grass, grass well being, and like, turf and
Andrew Vontz 15:10
amazing. Yeah, yeah, he's
Ben Davis 15:12
a horticulturist. He's a PhD in horticulture and I have a ton of respect for it now. I mean, I think it's really cool. And he's sort of a master of a really niche topic. But at the at 18. You know, I thought like, what this is like,
Andrew Vontz 15:27
well, how much? Yeah, George toma was a hero of mine. I'm not sure if you're familiar with him. But one of the most less Yeah, cool groundskeepers. And in professional sport. I have my own lawn service with my buddy Nick Crump. Growing up the yard Barber, anyone in Kansas City probably remembers our empire. But that's amazing. So your dad's, your dad's a turf expert. And, and you become this wrestling machine. So I feel like there's usually something going on where a parent or an uncle or something is like, let's get this six year old out on the mats and turn him into a gladiator. How did it work for you?
Ben Davis 16:04
Well, so I was not a very disciplined or academic kid, at this age, I got terrible grades. And I was kind of wild. I had been diagnosed with like ADHD and whatnot and wrestling seem to you know, I don't want to put words in my parents mouth. But it was so hard. You know, it was just like, so exhausting. And there was practice before school and after school. And the coaches were sort of like assholes sort of, in a in a, in a loving way. I mean, it was a no nonsense, activity, you know, they didn't tolerate anything, really, I mean, the guys are really in line, and they're, you don't have time really to get in trouble. And you had to have like, a C average. And so I speculate that when I showed interest in it, you know, my parents were probably like, Hey, this is going to keep them sort of focused and on track. So the more the merrier. You know, the alternative would have, I would, I was probably like, sixth grade, but then it went to 12th grade, it went all the way through my senior year, right? And I wasn't, you know, I was like, 10% better, or I really wanted to, like, walk on or something, I probably could have done it in college. But I wasn't really good enough. Maybe some of these guys, man to start in, you know, three or four years old, and they go all 12 months a year, and they go to camps, and they pursue these coaches. I mean, it's incredible how, how serious some people, you know, people take wrestling, and I didn't. So anyway, yeah, they were like you can you can wrestle all you want, because it seems like it's kind of keeping you structured.
Andrew Vontz 17:56
So we're gonna come to the back to this question I'm about to ask later in this conversation, something I'm wondering about this experience with wrestling. So you're in sixth grade. I'd like to hear how you actually got into it. Maybe there was some older kid that inspired you or whatever. But you get out there on the mat. Have to imagine it's a pretty uncomfortable experience. And I'm curious at the outset, to manage that feeling of discomfort? Did you go inside? Or did you go outside? Did you dissociate? Or did you go into the feeling of wow, this is uncomfortable? And did you get present with it?
Ben Davis 18:34
Yeah, that's a great observation about wrestling. Because I think it's you know, it's stays with you for life, I think to have that level of defeat. At that age is a really valuable skill set. And when I was in the Navy, and after that, I think it really paid dividends. I mean, it can be it, it can be humiliating, and you're not able to sort of spread the the loss with you know, with the soccer team or the football team. Defense really, you know, dropped the ball, but we did all right. And, I mean, it's just you and the other guy, and I would go I would go pretty internal. I mean, I think my confidence at that time wasn't great. You know, sort of aware like, okay, these guys are former national runner ups, and then I would lose and think I mean, I had some pretty good perspective on terms of like, well, you're not you can't really be that. Good. And a lot of guys, it takes a while. I mean, they're not. You know, from a from a developmental standpoint, a senior in high school can be night and day from a freshman. And so you have this really wide range of physical maturity. And, you know, to your advantage or disadvantage, but it's a hard pill to swallow. I mean, you got to be out there, the whole school is there, I remember, I remember, you know, girls would come that I was, you know, I had a crush on and you just get your ass kicked and think like, oh my god, this is humiliating, and, you know, or whatever the case, your parents would drive a couple hours to see you, you know, three, you know, across the state, and you'd get pinned and two minutes, you know, it's like, this is awful. And a lot, you know, another thing I think, that I really took away with that is it had a lot of it had a lot of turn, and a lot of quitting. A lot of guys quit, you know, a lot of people wrestled for, like, a couple of months, I thought, though, this isn't for me. And so when I made it to the, you know, when I made it to the end of my senior year and stuck with it, and I was pretty, you know, I was winning, it's sort of taught me like, perseverance, and not giving up, is can pay off in the long run, which obviously is like, probably the only thing you need to know, going into buds is like, you know, the person who has the ability to see the see the process, and like the 10 year period is winter, and the guy who's like can't see past Wednesday, you know, or that or like, two hours from now, is this a big trouble? So? Yeah, I mean, I would credit a lot of I would credit, I mean, a lot of who I am from wrestling, which is something that it's interesting, you asked about that? Because I haven't thought about that in years.
Andrew Vontz 21:50
And when you were in the service, what did you hope to get out of your time, man? At the outset?
Ben Davis 21:58
Um, I hope to well, you know, that was sort of the present conscious answer to that question. And then there was sort of the subconscious, which have, sort of, I'm admitting to now as time goes on, at the time, I was frustrated, and I was sort of over being like a loser, you know, I thought, it's, you know, I've can't graduate from undergrad, and in four years, and I can't really get good grades, and my, I've sort of not been successful at anything, but sports, really anything that, you know, my parents want me to, to succeed at, and, and the military was like, a fresh start, I thought it would be like, I could clean the slate, and I could redefine myself as a success. And certainly, if I could go through, if I could become a seal, it would be like, undeniable that I was incapable of, you know, success and in a hard, something that's, you know, kind of internationally recognized as hard. And, you know, looking back, I think that, you know, once once buds ended and and onto the two deployments and stuff, you know, I think it sort of was like, I wanted to affirm that I could do you know, I could I had what it takes, I think that I was I don't want to get too deep on you. You know, I think a lot of young men see the military as a as a way to find out if they are brave, if they are competent, if they're strong, you know, if they can handle combat. And yeah, I think now looking back, I'd like all those things were true for me. I mean, I didn't it was sort of like an identity pursuit. And then also, I was trying to look at sort of like, what my peers in the, in this southern sort of Greek life and festive undergraduate world, like, what were they planning on sort of doing, you know, what are you like, what contribution are we going to make? To the world that's not like I don't know. You know, things that people that go to the University of Tennessee and are 20 years old I plan to do and I I struggled with that question a lot like what am I? What am I? What is the world telling me to do like get a job and bank Getting your finance or insurance or whatever. And I was like that doesn't, that can't be the you know, that can't be the that can't be the story. And being a seal definitely would be the story like I will at least I'll even if I do it for five years, it's like, oh, at least I did, you know, at least I shot for the stars and like, try to contribute something to something. And so that was a lot of it for me like I have to do, I can't just go on and be a I don't know, we're in business or whatever yet. Maybe I will arrive there and then later in life, but I gotta try something hard. And at the time, seals were like getting a lot of basically, like the war in Afghanistan, Iraq were like, becoming stale in the American public eye. You know, they were like, what we got to get, what are we doing? We're on year, this will be like 2009, we're on your sixth? Like, is this going to end? And sort of the going, one of the going ideas and was getting a lot of momentum was like, Well, what we'll do instead of you know, instead of keeping this trend of mass casualties, and these major losses of an IED deaths was like this precision. We're gonna you know, chop the snake's head off with these like night. Warriors have the darkness. And I was like, Man, that's really interesting. You know, that's really cool. Because my, my previous idea of like, joining the military was like, what, you know what I, like, oh, man, I'll just be in the ranks and then this truck and maybe get blown up and do what my superior tells me, then I was like, oh, maybe there's this sort of more complex sort of surgical way to go about it. And so that, then I was like, oh, that sounds a lot more interesting.
Andrew Vontz 27:07
When you experienced war, how did the reality of it map to your notion of what it might be like?
Ben Davis 27:21
It was underwhelming. It was something that I sought, very, very passionately, it was something that I really, really cared about. When I finally got into the teams, the I had missed sort of this afghan. I was sort of, like 10 minutes late to a generation that had really been been employed heavily for seven, eight years, and had suffered a lot of loss and had really been effective in, in the war on terror. And my generation was sort of like, we were just like, a minute late. It's sort of how I felt. And so it wasn't really guaranteed, like, Oh, we're gonna go and you know, just do mission after mission after mission after mission and, like, things sort of got complex and different strategies. And hey, we want to empower, we want to power more local forces to sort of become autonomous and all of this and so yeah, I was like, Man, this is, you know, I want to play in the game and I'm just like, I've been practicing forever. And I want to play in the game. And then luckily, or maybe, I guess, I shouldn't say luckily, but, um, some opportunities occurred and some combat was seen. And it was, it was just, yeah, it was underwhelming. I mean, I think I placed it on this pedestal of sort of this badge of this, you know, this thing that I had to do to be like a legitimate seal or like to be you know, I'll be in the club after that. And then nothing. Nothing really. You know, and it's, it's a really, combat is a really it's something that I think the mind is going to like, sort of inspect for the rest for a long time. A lot of a lot of decisions are made in like two or three seconds I've been sort of thought about for for 10 years. And so it's a heavy experience, and I think a lot of people do You know, there's been a lot of pain in that, in that process of sort of, should have done this. And I should have done that. And so I tried to sort of now, you know, talking to guys, I try to sort of diffuse that. That sentiment, like all of services, like war, like combat, and like, Were you part of it, and these people don't know what they're talking about the nice people do, because they did this, and this guy did that. And it's just the I don't think that's productive, really, and it causes a lot of people a lot of you no pain and, and whatever.
Andrew Vontz 30:43
And Ben, I want to talk about what you're doing with Vogue, and what Vogue is doing to help people synthesize those feelings and experiences and how you've synthesized it. Before we do that, though, you had this notion of who you would become if you did these things, when you entered the service, when you were actually doing it? What did you think about that idea you had at the outset that you were going to transform and become this other type of human being? Once you've done these certain activities and achieve them? Did you feel like, okay, I've done it now I've transformed? Or did you feel like I'm the same person and I'm in a different context?
Ben Davis 31:27
The latter, you know, I felt like I'm the same person and you know, it's not for nothing, I think one of the benefits of being in a, in a unit like that is that the, the targets and the, the mission sets that the SEAL teams and adjacent similar units are worried about are usually, you know, pretty up to no good for, you know, for lack of better term. So, you know, there is that sense of like, you can connect the dots and sort of purpose and, you know, hey, this is quite obviously, a situation that needs to be addressed. And we addressed it, and there's obviously, you know, a point of pride that comes with that. But for me, personally, it was a little bit, like, now what and sort of, you know, it ended up developing into like, one more horizon line, and once I get there, I will be satisfied. And then, you know, I just need to focus on getting there. And then, from there, I'll see another horizon line, and I'll get there, and sort of you get in this cycle of, like, you know, I know that satisfaction is possible, but I just didn't, you know, in a couple more steps, I'll be there. And that's something that, you know, really didn't, didn't stop post military, and I think is, you know, for a lot of your listeners have noticed that in endurance sports can sort of feel like that, too, like, I'm on the cusp of considering myself a good bike racer, or a good runner. And, um, you know, once I get this done, I'll be able to say, I'll be able to look at myself and say, like, I'm a real, you know, I'm a, I'm gonna accomplish X, Y, or Z. And, you know, for me, I still, I mean, I still, if I'm being honest, like, I still sometimes get in that headspace of like, okay, this year, I'm going to do this, and I'm gonna get this time. And then at that point, I'll know like, I'm up, I'm fast or whatever. And that, that started in that started in the SEAL teams, I think just being in like the, under the impression that, you know, you got to just get to the net to the top of this mountain, and then you'll give yourself you'll acknowledge yourself
Andrew Vontz 34:19
how did endurance sports fit into the mix during your time in the service? And then how did it continue to be a part of your life afterwards? So, you know, you were, you're on the mats from a young age, you had your kayaking phase, during the teams, and then what's going on with endurance sports while you're in and then what happens on the other side?
Ben Davis 34:43
Yeah, so when I was when I was in undergrad, I dislocated my shoulder so I broke my humerus head kayaking.
Andrew Vontz 34:53
And how did that happen? Right? Yeah, I flipped over
Ben Davis 34:57
and I went I was like going over i saw the rock that I was going to hit. And then so I flipped over and I realized, Oh, I'm definitely going to hit my face on this, this rock. And so what I did was like this sort of cover, cover your face with your elbow and shoulder sort of, and then the the way the rock hit my shoulder, it broke my humerus head. So anyway, I had a shoulder repair. And that this is about the time I started getting curious about the military. And when I was recovering, and I was seeing the orthopedist, like every, I don't know, however many weeks. Finally he said, don't do anything with your arms. But if you want to run, or hike, or ride a stationary bike, do that, that's fine. You can exercise and do that. And so I started running a ton. And then it went up from you know, I started just doing longer distances. And then I realized to like, get accepted into the Navy, I would have to be, I had to get in like really good shape. And I was like, Oh, I already like running. And so um, yeah, yeah, yeah, it all kind of worked. It all kind of blended together. And so. So I did a couple of half Iron Man's and whatnot in this in that year that I was waiting to go to the Navy. And I thought that it was it was casual. Yeah, I was into it. I thought it was cool. And I thought it was like two birds with one stone because I was like, if I don't want to race, I just have to do this on my own to get prepared to join the Navy. And so then, so for maybe for the first five years, there was nothing I didn't do any any sort of distance endurance, or anything like that in. Then after my, a couple deployments, I started like really craving anything that was like, the opposite of the beach and, and like seal life. So I mean, I started going on taking trips on the weekends, and mountain biking and pesca and casually Nice. Yeah, it was awesome. It was awesome. I had some friends, you know, that were big mountain bikers and still are and and then that sort of escalated. And I got into I climbed Mount Rainier, with my wife with a guide. And I and I remember thinking like, this is this is awesome. I mean, this is these guys are like the seals of the mountains. And I remember thinking like, I can never again hire a guide. Like I have to learn the skill set myself. And so I was still in the Navy, and I was taking trips out here to Denver, I had a big we did like Long's peak and winter and get our totally got our asses kicked. I mean, we could have been killed. We had no I mean, you got
Andrew Vontz 37:56
to please say more. Don't tell me. You can't just mentioned earlier like, I could go deep, but I'm not gonna bend this is okay. Okay, sure. So all right. So tell me about almost getting killed on long speak.
Ben Davis 38:09
Okay, so I'm like, I do this trip to renew your with. With my wife. It's our honeymoon. And we get these guides from. And it was amazing. It was it was so fun. And I yeah, like I said, I determined that I cannot. I have to learn how to do this on my on my own. And so I sort of gravitate to these other guys in the SEAL teams who knew a little bit about mountaineering. We have you could kind of pursue it if you wanted to. Or sometimes people get tasked with like these Denali trips, or they go over to the Nordic, Iceland, Greenland, and do some sort of winter training. And so some of these guys are pretty savvy on mountain warfare in the in the winter, so I so I like sort of align myself with them. And they, they were into it and we rock climbed around the southeast a bunch of times. And then one trip, I think we were in Nevada, and they said, Oh, we're gonna go to the Yurei Ice Festival. And you're familiar with that where they let the water go over the cliffs and stuff. Yeah. Okay, so we so we got tickets, and we're gonna go to this thing, and I'm super excited. I've never ice climb before. I don't even think I've ever had crampons on. But I'm like, psyched on ALPA albinism, you know, I'm like reading Steve houses, books and stuff like this. And so we're going to go now, thinking back on the stories like insanely irresponsible. So, so we're gonna go and we find out that the parks not going to open in time because it's not cold enough and it sort of opens when it opens. They don't say like, oh, it's going to open at a certain date. So we start, I think we have flights too. at Denver for some reason, and we start thinking about what else could we do sort of similar since we already have this flight plan and everyone's excited. And so my one buddy has done the keyhole route on Long's peak, which is like the summer hiking route before. And he's like, there's this better route. It's called the Keeners route. It's on the on the diamond. It's not really on the diamond sort of, are you familiar better route?
Andrew Vontz 40:29
No. Imagining where this is, man.
Ben Davis 40:31
This is like, it's just long speaking as a whole is a is a has dished out some some ass weapons. And so anyway, we decided like, Okay, let's do it. I mean, we're, like, 25 years old and full of, like, ego, and, you know, like, whatever, how bad could it be? So we go up there and set out. It was the winter solstice, I think it was like, December 9, or something like that. first week of December, like some of the shortest days of the year. And so we go up there, and our mission is like, just to go in one day, which isn't very uncommon, but um, we're gonna go and climb. And so we have all the all the ice axes and everything. And we set out and honestly, the climbing went pretty well. I mean, it wasn't too difficult, but it just the day just went got really, we just ran out of time. And we get up to the summit, and it's sort of dark. And you've got to find these repel this, this repel station to get down. And the guys who had been there before, we're like, Yo, what we've we've done it before, like when we get up there, we'll find it. And you can't really just wander off the summit. I mean, there's like a couple 1000 foot drops on some sides and whatever. And so it's getting dark, and we don't we're not finding the repel bolts. And you know, we're sort of under the impression that we will and like 10 more minutes, but we searched and searched until probably one or 2am probably five or six hours. It's the middle of the night. I can't imagine how cold it is up there. It's like, I don't know, zero. No sleeping bags, no tent, nothing. Water water bottles are frozen. And yeah, we just decide that we're screwed. And we have to wait till till morning. So we took the ropes and basically like, made carpets out of them. You know, you just boil it back and forth like this. And cuddled until the sun came up. And then we found the we found the bolts and we went down and all our buddies and our, my, I guess my wife was probably Yeah, my wife at the time was like, about to call arrange assistance, she was in tears. And months later, well, the next day, you know, my buddy, one of the guys was like, Man, my feet aren't warming back up, and I don't feel them. And we sort of blew it off. And a month later, he had he had said that some of his toes, not the actual toe, but like the pads, all the pads have had him removed. from frostbite, and yeah, it was really serious. I mean, it was like, at the time, it was kind of like, whatever, you know. But then as I got, as I've moved here, and I've gotten more and more knowledgeable, like that's really stupid. I mean, to think that you, you know, just, you know, winter winter mountaineering is fine. It is what it is. People do it all year here, but it's not something to take lightly. And you could have gotten killed. I mean, how do we how would we How was I mean, it's you're just left that it's it was zero that night and not negative 35. And that at that point, you know, or whatever you had to call a helicopter. And then now you're putting the people the aircrew and in danger, and I mean, all kinds of things.
Andrew Vontz 44:18
Yeah, I mean, it sounds like a really heavy situation. Yeah. And probably, we can probably make some jokes about it. Yeah, you were up there. And you're, you're like, Okay, we have to spend the night number one I have to imagine whoever said they knew where the repel point was. I bet that person got a little bit of shit during the course of the night. And I'm wondering, did you have a conversation about who you would eat first?
Ben Davis 44:44
Okay, when we found the rings, there was a lot of sympathy or a lot of grace given because they are not easy to find at all. And they're sort of can be snowy. Alright, and be Fair enough. Fair enough. No, I mean, we never really. I don't really remember admitting defeat really until. Right? until like, a week later, like, and then some other people were sort of like, what? You know, what were you guys thinking? You know? Right? You anyway, you know. So
Andrew Vontz 45:22
from there mountain biking probably seemed like okay, this is probably a better act. You could still does did you continue to mountaineer or did you go deeper into cycling at that point?
Ben Davis 45:32
Yeah, I did I did I that that trip really humbled me and my sort of admiration for mountaineering grew stronger from that. I mean, I definitely took a step back and thought, like, you know, you got to be a little bit smarter. So, any, at this time, all of our vacations from what I had to do for my military job, were all you know, in the West, so I started doing some like, what's more popular now, but like, you know, Teton, Grand Teton runs and stuff. It's sort of like a blend of endurance and, and light mountaineering. And then yes, sort of at the same time, I just started running with a crowd that was into distance endurance sports, doing 50k runs, and long, long mountain bike rides. And there's a race in Asheville called pinbar, which is the Pisco mountain bike adventure race. And it's super cool. They don't, basically everyone lines up at 7am, you got to, it's a part two partners. Well, once you know you and your partner, and everyone's lined up, and they take the sheet off of this mat, basically, and reveal six points in Peskin Eskimo National Forest, and say, Go, and you and your buddy have to go get the, you know, the first person to come back with four of them wins. Or you can get five and subtract one hour from your time. And it's, it's not, it's easy. It's sort of like, knowing the trails or knowing like, Oh, we're gonna go up here and connect over here is like, part of it, you know, so it sort of plays into like, a local scene. And I was doing this race every year, and I would mountain bike like, three times in preparation. But I would never not go and another cool thing about this race is that sort of, like cruel in that it's sometimes like 50 miles and 5000 feet of climbing and then the next year, it'll be like, over it'll be like 100 miles and 10,000 and there's no indicator of like, this year, we're really going to kick your ass and you know or not, so you never really know what you're getting into. And it's such a it's such like, there's such a dynamic between you and your partner and like not arguing Oh, it's so cool. So I was doing that as a
Andrew Vontz 48:20
can use a GPS when you do this. This sounds like an alley cat bike messenger race. I don't know if you've ever done one but it's very similar. You get a list of checkpoints you got to decide how to get there GPS or not.
Ben Davis 48:32
No, there's no orienteering or any sort of like now finding it's very at the intersection of you know, Willow Creek and Fox trail is point one, go there. They're not like out in the woods or anything like that, like some of these orienteering races. So it's a it's a speed race.
Andrew Vontz 48:53
Did you have did you have to ride squirrel gap at all?
Ben Davis 48:56
Yeah, yeah. All the time. All the time. I've,
Andrew Vontz 49:00
I've talked about that on a few podcasts. Because I did the Pisco stage race. I keep talking about this, but I had someone who's a cycling photographer tried to assault me in the middle of the race and kick my handlebars after I actually very generously yielded the trail to him. And then he started yelling at me and then something No kidding, but yeah, but But I love that area. Oh, roll gap is like a very I found it to be a very challenging Yeah, ride. Yeah, I had a very gnarly wreck on it. But I'm just imagining Mountain Biking a handful of times a year. Oh, yeah, ping onto that terrain. It's had to be pretty intense.
Ben Davis 49:41
Yep. So this is the same production company. This the stage race, Pisco productions. Okay. Same groups. And group child. Yep, yeah, okay. Yep. And, okay, so I'm going to this race, but I'm still in the Navy. And I'm like, it's I'm so humbled. You know? Um, like, you know, we're not even getting, we're like in the back 50%. So when I got out of the Navy, I knew I wanted to move to Colorado and I, my wife was pregnant. I had had my first daughter when we moved here. And so I really pursued climbing sort of simultaneously with mountain bikes, but it wasn't really, I wasn't going to get the most bang for my buck, really, with the time that I, you know, could spend. I mean, one nice thing about being a dad and a cyclist is you have the mornings, you know, it's like, if you want to, if you really want to commit, just get up earlier than, you know, whatever, get started at 4:45am. And you can be backed by nine and you know, with a four hour ride, and with climbing, it's really, it's tough, man, it's, it's a, it's an all Saturday thing, and you're kind of dependent on your partner. And then also, you know, it's Let's drive three hours to this place and hike for an hour and then do the climb for an hour and then drive all the way back. And it's, too Anyway, I just wasn't I you know, it's it is what it is. But I just kind of slowly found myself gravitating towards, towards endurance. And I, we came close friends with a guy named Ryan Kroll who owns boundless endurance, which was part of lifetime, but it's since sort of divested, although they still endorse each other. Like if you if you get if you get registered for the Leadville, any of the lead belts, or any of the lifetime series races, really, and it's like do you want to coach or we can help you train boundless is the partner, the training partner of the lifetime series. So I was riding all the time with them riding all the time, and anyway, ended up sort of I ended up getting registered for Leadville. I think this was three years ago, 2020. And again, like totally humbled by the disparity between my, you know, where I was at, and what's possible. I mean, I think that's been sort of a theme in my life is like you know, trying to identify where you are pathetic, relatively, and sort of embracing that. I mean, that's one of the cool things about living here is like, you can go to a coffee shop and get you know, the young lady who's make you know, pours your coffee could be like a total badass world champion. And like, it's not a place to be. I have a joke, like, my wife's from Nashville. And I can play the guitar like a little bit, but like, I would tell her like, Don't ever tell anyone, when we're in Nashville that I can play the guitar like, and that's sort of how mountain bikes and running is here. And golden is like, Sure, don't you know, there's a lot of unassuming folks here that will really humble you out. So yeah, by this point, once I once I'm sort of privy to like, how fit in how, you know what's possible in that world, I was like, I was totally hooked and still am. And so yeah, off I was in, in the endurance world.
Andrew Vontz 53:43
So Ben, as you go deeper into the endurance world, what are you getting out of doing it? What is this bringing to you is, I mean, they're the physical benefits, obviously, everyone's familiar with, although, at a certain point, you're definitely hitting the point of diminishing returns and getting on the other side of it probably being healthy. But existentially mentally, what were you getting out of this as a human being as a person? And where was it taking you?
Ben Davis 54:11
Yes, so I think a lot of that's changed for me in the last 18 months, you know, I, at first it was sort of a continuation of what we were talking about earlier of, like, this validation drive, like, you know, let me let, once I get to this horizon line, or once I get this race result, or, you know, I used to be into these, like, I used to sort of daydream about these like crazy. Things that would be on Strava. You know, if I'm, if I'm being totally honest, like, I want to do the Kokopelli Trail on one day, and that'll just be like, so epic, you know, or right
and then you No, I would have to answer your question. I think in the military
you know, even though you sort of swear at it, while it's happening, structure and sort of the day's plan for tomorrow, and the next day, and the purpose is really become sort of habitual, and then and then once it's gone, it's really it can be sort of make you feel lost, like, What am I, no one's gonna tell me what to do tomorrow, and whatnot. And so in bike racing, I, you can sort of recoup that, you know, you get your schedule, and you're like, cool, this is my plan, I got my race date, I'm gonna get in shape. I'm going to do all these workouts, and it's very, it feels very, like it did. In the SEAL teams, you know, this is sort of the structure and the plan, and whatnot. And it was like, you know, an opportunity for personal growth. I mean, I think I I've always sort of had a, like an aversion to slipping in the, you know, in the other direction, you know, like, going up, but then, like, I don't want to think that my best performing days are behind me. In retrospect, I can, I feel like a lot of my that's what I was getting at a bike racing, like, Oh, I'm a little bit better than last year, I'm a little bit better than last year. But when my second daughter was born, I had a big, you know, my wife was like, eight months pregnant, or maybe seven and a half or whatever. And she had sort of endorsed this big, like, backcountry ski trip. And it was going to be like, sort of this the last thing to do, and then we're gonna have the baby, and then you know, you need to be around for a couple of weeks, or months.
Andrew Vontz 56:56
That's what I hear. Yeah.
Ben Davis 56:58
Yeah. Are you expecting? No, no, I
Andrew Vontz 57:01
just, I've got kids too, I think yeah, to be
Ben Davis 57:04
around. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I want her to watch my words, I don't want anybody to message me. Like, anyway, so basically, my wife, you know, like, the pregnancy was going well, and I'm like, I don't want to do this thing. And it was in COVID. And the logistics of this ski trip, got, like, my buddy's flights, or something, or the place, we're going to stay got just destroyed. And so I didn't go, and then we had the baby. And then I was home, I didn't do anything for a couple months afterward. And I really, it was really an eye opening experience, because I found myself sort of unhappy, and just like, it became obvious to me that my ego and my being was being propped up by these events. You know, and like, I'm just a person who's skipping along from Epic bike ride to mountain climb to and then, you know, like, I'm the doing the act of of accomplishment is just sustaining the, the interim, until the next accomplishment and the, in the interim is painful. And it was a hard time, it was a really hard time. And it really opened my eyes to maybe we need to focus on the being, you know, the being needs to be more enjoyable, and maybe it's the process than not the, the race day or the whatever. And, yes, so it's it wasn't, you know, that's not something you can snap your fingers and be, like, absolved of that but that's now, you know, I try not to get, I try not to romanticize and sort of put on a pedestal like these epic you know, kick your ass days and just think like, it's the it's the process of it's, it's the life spent in the sport is more than it is the the accomplishment and I think I've had to really invest in my interest in some things that are not sport and are not physical or wouldn't really don't go on Strava just sort of ironic that I'm thinking through this with you. But yeah, I mean, there's a lot of things in life that are hard, you know, that aren't physical. Relationships are hard and writing profound ideas and it's hard and tons of stuff, tons of stuff that I never, you know, probably, you know, coming out of the military, which was just so like cognitive accomplishments weren't really favored in the way that physical ones were. And, yeah, that that all sort of came to head, I think when my second daughter was born, I sort of like, Man, I, what am I 12 years old, like, I'm just a, my whole, you know, just like, skipping along from mountain bike ride to mountain bike ride.
Andrew Vontz 1:00:44
Now that really resonates Ben, I have a couple of words that I jotted down as you're talking, because they really what you're describing really resonates with me. There are a lot of different ways to look at sporting pursuits or physical activity, one way to look at it. And I think what a lot of people experience is this lens of going for like bigger, longer, placing higher. And I think within all achievement, there's this tension or dichotomy between wanting to do your very best, and having to have a positive mindset and being highly organized and discipline to do that coupled with, you do have to have some level of dissatisfaction with the status quo and aspiration to do better, or you just be sitting on the couch eating potato chips, or whatever. Right. And similar to what you've described, something that's happened for me over time, and I think a lot of it has to do with with having children. And for me personally, realizing the area where I needed to develop the most as a human was my ability to be present, and undistracted on distractible and it's to compartmentalize things that don't really matter, and to focus on the things that matter the most. And what happened for me over time was sport. And, you know, I was never a professional athlete or anything, but it's been an important part of my life for 30 plus years. And, to me, it became about what happened while I was doing it, and everything disappearing and being fully present to the moment. And, and providing that organizing mechanism. Because when I think about it, even if I'm doing a really brutal interval session, or I'm going and doing a race, that's actually been, that's the easiest part of my day, that I do is way harder, because I know, if I follow it, like you described, if I follow the training, if I do what my coach tells me to do, it's going to work, I'm gonna get faster, I'm going to be able to have a good performance, if I can manage some other factors. Almost nothing else in life is like that. And I think that's why sporting activities, physical performance, and particularly endurance sports, it's really seductive. But if you get sucked too far in that direction, then it actually I think, becomes kind of counterproductive if it just becomes about chasing status or validation. Because, as you know, you've been in some of the highest consequence highest stress environments a human can be in. And it's also the case in professional sports or any domain of life, if you just like look around a little bit, and you spend some time with the people who are the very best in the world, which I've had the opportunity to do, and I know you have as well, you start to have a little bit of perspective on where you're at. And for those people, they've got other domains of their life where they're, you know, they're not the very best, right. So it's all Yeah,
Ben Davis 1:03:41
I think I think it's such a, it's such an important message for, you know, it's not it's not saying don't do the 350 mile version at unbound this weekend, or don't run 100 miles or whatever. But it's more of like, ask yourself, if you're gonna run 100 miles, like, are you just gonna want to run 200 miles? You know, what's the is there? You know, what's the reason it is there? Is it just because it's hard? You know, is that really the whole reason I was listening to Ben Delaney and yourself and the way he talked about, you know, this sort of feeling vulnerable with his YouTube videos and stuff and the opportunity for people to get on and comment and just, you know, somebody's going to rip me up and thinking of you, that's hard, you know, you could ride your bike as much as you want. And, you know, you're like you said, I mean, almost, almost not totally. But bike racing is a sort of a bunch of inputs and it produces an output and as long as you know what the inputs are and you're have the discipline to put them in there. Within reason, you know, there are two You know, genetics and different body types, but you're gonna get the same output. But like that's, that's, you know, becoming what he's doing or you know, what a lot of people are doing in, in life that aren't, you know, ultra distance is really hard. And I don't, I'm not saying, you know, I just think it's healthy, it's been healthy for me to recognize both, and not put my whole self worth in, like whatever FTPS and super long distances and stuff like that
Andrew Vontz 1:05:35
had been when you if you could talk a bit about the work that you're doing with Vogue? And what are the benefits that getting outdoors being in these environments being in a team? What does that bring to people who have left the service? And what do you hope to achieve with this work? And what does the team hope to achieve?
Ben Davis 1:05:56
Yeah, so we we Vogue is the veterans outdoor advocacy group is a 501 C three that is focused on expanding the optionality that veterans have in their mental health implementation options through the VA or otherwise. So you know, our our focus is you're a veteran, you're you're going through, whatever, whatever you have to do to, you know, whatever mental health treatment you're going through at the VA, and that care provider has a more diverse list of options than they currently do today. We focus on the outdoor recreation therapy side of it, but we were not implying that that's it, you know, said these are anything. And anything that would expand the many different options that that that veteran would have, and that care provider could provide. You know, we promote so about, let's see, it's been about five years ago, there was an idea of you know, that the VA should fund outdoor recreation for veterans through the VA, in part of, you know, as a mental health implementation, and that, that gained a lot of traction. And Vogue was founded as more or less a lobbying organization to push that to lobby for that. And we were successful, in large part in that the compact Act was, which was passed in 2020, established a task force that would further examine the efficacy of veterans in the outdoors. So that's going on now. We're Vokes. It's on that task force that which is going to run until the end of 24. And so, yeah, we're basically, you know, in a successful end state for us is, you know, a young man or woman is seeing their care provider. And that person is able to say, hey, look, we, there's these options for you, obviously, Pharmaceuticals is probably always going to be on that list, talk therapy, always going to be on that list. And that one day, paid for outdoor, outdoor recreation therapy will be on that list. And the way it's looking now that we're on track. So there's 1000s, of what we call VSOs veteran service organizations who actually facilitate outdoor therapy in America. So you're, you know, these are the folks that are actually taking veterans hunting, fishing, skiing, you know, you name it, everything. I mean, you'd be surprised at how diverse some of these outings are. But um, yeah, we want to empower them and sort of break this break the status quo that is in place now, which is all all of this, you know, primarily is private generosity, donations, grants, and, you know, giving, basically that funds all of this, and we are determined to see that, that the VA, you know, endorse it, and that it becomes systemic. And, yeah, that's sort of the mission. And then, you know, to answer your question, I think sort of, you know, in line with what we've talked about today, outdoors, outdoor ventures require a lot of planning and functions that are present in, in military operations. So you think about small teams think about being responsible for the say the well being of the people that you go on the trip with, think about risk, managing risk, think about planning, logistics, purpose, I mean, no one really just pulls over and walks through the woods aimlessly, you know, you always sort of have a, whether it's to catch fish, or it's to climb a 14 or whatever, same on a, you know, a military operation. And then, you know, that's, and then I think there's some physiological benefits as well, I mean, just the, you know, like we talked about in the same way that, you know, endurance is, has helped me, or, you know, whatever, to train for something, to have a goal to form a relationship with other people based on a common goal. These are all things that I think people who are recently separated or, you know, I shouldn't even say that, I mean, it could be decades separated from the military sort of, miss, and they by by participating in that, they can, you know, it's cathartic. And they, it's helpful, you know, it's not, we're not of the impression that, you know, people with different psychological you know, issues are going to be, you know, this is some healing mechanism, and that they can hike their way to, you know, to remedy every each and every issue, but we do, you know, we we've seen firsthand now, how viable it is, and there's no reason with, you know, there's no reason why they should veterans shouldn't have access, and have some, some support, and in participating and stuff like that.
Andrew Vontz 1:11:55
And Ben, for you, being involved in this organization, and helping to bring this together, move things forward on the policy side, and then the actual direct action and work with people who have served, what do you get out of it?
Ben Davis 1:12:10
I would say, vote being part of exploiting the one of the biggest, you know, probably the largest blessing of my my entire life. I think that that's it, like jumble up all the words, but like, it gives me purpose, to enable other veterans to find their purpose, sort of, we're not sort of I mean, that's it really. So yeah, for me, I mean, I think I think that we're sort of in the midst of an or maybe awakening is not the right word, but I think in five years, we will know, will be a lot more aware of sort of the secondary and tertiary effects that the, that she was had, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and sort of some of the five byproducts of, of participating in those wars had on those veterans, and I think, you know, to be narrow in our approach to it, and sort of sort of maintain the status quo and these traditional approaches to, to helping these people is not is is not smart. I mean, I think it's now more than ever, I think people are acknowledging that good mental health is very complex. And it's, you know, there's not anyone who tells you like, oh, I drink two gallons of water a day now, and I feel better. I took this supplement or whatever. I mean, it's all you know, it's a massive it's a massive mix up of different components and every, every instance of PTSD or what have you is unique to to another person. And we're sort of on our on a, you know, in chapter one or two of realizing that it's a big part of the response to that has been an enormous blessing. I mean, it's super, it's super enjoyable. I wish it was something that I could spend all you know, 100% of my time on.
Andrew Vontz 1:14:25
And then what's next for you with Vogue? And do you have an event on the horizon that you're training for?
Ben Davis 1:14:32
I am running the silver rush 50 miler in five or six weeks, I went to I went about three years strictly mountain bikes with you know, just over and over again and then coming out of last year, I was like, Maybe I should try. I'm gonna try one of these running events and see See, and I'll be honest, I soon as this race is over, I'll be back on my bike. It's, I don't know, maybe I shouldn't say that till the race comes. I'll tell you, Ronnie, the the the instantaneous spontaneity of just putting your shoes on. And running is really enjoyable. But that's it. I think it's
Andrew Vontz 1:15:27
a little bit of wearing a little bit of wear and tear Ben
Ben Davis 1:15:30
Yeah, there is wear and tear. And I just noticed, like dynamically interesting, you know, I think there's just so many ways to get better at mountain biking, from climbing to descending to all different types, where running just seems very much more like you know, who can set the set the cruise control at the right point, for the longest. Anyway, yeah, so I'm going to do this run race and then go from there. And Vogue is working is in the midst of establishing and developing what we're calling the vote coalition. So this is a group of, it's open, you know, anyone can join that sort of meets the criteria of a veteran service service organization, these are groups that are really the lifeblood of the movement that really are invested, you know, they're taking folks out and delivering the outdoor therapy on a daily basis. So what we want to do is sort of aggregate their pain points, issues, problems, and leverage some of the relationships we made in DC. So that we can sort of speak for the, for the whole, and, you know, enable them to be as effective as they can. And then also, you know, it's, it's obvious that once this change happens, and the VA is open to financially supporting these trips, they're not just going to write checks to whoever, you know, they're gonna want some sort of accreditation, and some sort of validation that they're sending this patient to, you know, quality for quality experiences. And so working, you know, with the coalition to sort of establish what that looks like best practices. And so that once this change happens, sort of the the industry if you will, is ready to receive, you know, ready to go. So that's what we're focused on now.
Andrew Vontz 1:17:41
Awesome, and all you have to do is get through this 50 miler injury free, and then you can do the rest of it. So if people want to learn more about Ben, you want to learn more about Voc. We'll have links in the show notes so you can go deeper. Ben, thanks so much for being here today and for sharing these sharing these stories. Really appreciate it, man.