Radiolab - Alone Enough

Episode Date: March 24, 2023

Cat Jaffee didn’t necessarily think of herself as someone who loved being alone. But then, the pandemic hit. And she got diagnosed with cancer. Actually, those two things happened on the exact same day, at the exact same hour. In the shadow of that nightmarish timing, Cat found her way to a sport that celebrated the solitude that was forced on her, and taught her how to not only embrace self-reliance, but to love it.  This sport is called competitive bikepacking. And in these competitions, riders have to bring everything they need to complete epic bike rides totally by themselves. They pack all the supplies they think they’ll need to survive, and have to refuse some of the simplest, subtlest, most intangible boosts that exist in our world. But a leader has emerged in this sport. Her name is Lael Wilcox, and she’s a total rockstar in the world of competitive bikepacking. She’s broken all kinds of records. And also, some rules. Most recently, on this one ride she did across the entire state of Arizona. We set out to find out what it means — for Cat, for Lael, and for any of us — to endure incredibly hard things, totally alone. The answer is on the course, in our bodies, and hidden in that mysterious place between us and the people we care about. Special thanks to Anna Haslock, Nico Sandi, Michael Fryar, Moab Public Radio, Nichole Baker and Payson McElveen for sharing their studio with us, and The Radavist, for letting us use the audio of Lael’s ride across Arizona. You can watch the original video here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HOk0MmgFwE). EPISODE CREDITS This episode was reported by - Cat Jaffee and Rachael CusickProduced by -  Rachael Cusick with help from - Pat WaltersOriginal music and sound design by - Jeremy Bloom with mixing help from - Arianne WackFact-checking by - Emily KriegerEdited by - Pat Walters CITATIONS: Videos: You can watch Lael’s you can watch Lael’s ride across Arizona here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HOk0MmgFwE). And see the next season of racing by following along on TrackLeaders.com (http://trackleaders.com/)Articles:You can find Jim Coan’s study on emotional support here (https://zpr.io/Y2yMXZMgnMKv).Audio:For more on Lael Wilcox, you can check out her interviews with the podcasts Adventure Stache (https://zpr.io/EtkFsW8b6VdS) and Bikes or Death (https://zpr.io/ZSTAECjAifn5). Our newsletter comes out every Wednesday. It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Radiolab is on YouTube! Catch up with new episodes and hear classics from our archive. Plus, find other cool things we did in the past — like miniseries, music videos, short films and animations, behind-the-scenes features, Radiolab live shows, and more. Take a look, explore and subscribe! Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [e-mail]. Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.  

Before we begin, this show contains some graphic language, and it may not be suitable for all listeners. Wait, you're listening? Okay. All right. Okay. All right. You're listening to Radiolab. Radiolab.

From WNYC. See? Yeah. This is Radiolab. I'm Lulu Miller. Lulu. Hello. How's it going?

Good. And I'm Latif Nasser. Latif. Hi. Hi. Hello. And today on Radiolab, we have a story from Kat Jaffe. Kat is a powerhouse of a radio producer, but she's also just a powerhouse in general.

She's an ultra-endurance mountain biker. I mean, I'm also really not. That's the thing that I'm finding out as I did this story. And she came to us with a story that's actually about that very thing, about pushing the limits of what one single individual person can endure emotionally, mentally, and physically totally alone without any help from anyone. Let's see. I can't find them now because I have so many notes about this. There's so much I want to tell you, but man, where are they? Do you need some help? Okay. Thank you, Rachel. And so, in a story about doing things all by yourself, we forced Kat to work with Radio Love producer Rachel Cusick. Yeah, we have a power team right here. This is great. We do.

We do. And so, to kick things off, the story actually started for Kat a couple years back. Yeah, in March of 2020. I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Oh, man. And the day that I was diagnosed, the hour I was diagnosed, was when Colorado was issued a shelter in place. Breaking news, stay at home. That is the order tonight. Kat lives in Colorado. Governor Jared Polis has ordered all Coloradans to stay home. Oh, my God. Cat lives in Colorado. Oh, my God. And so, my whole cancer journey happened in isolation.

People couldn't see me. I did all my doctor's appointments a ghost town. People couldn't see me. I did all my doctor's appointments alone. Wow. Like it was a lonely time to go through cancer. In the weeks and months after the diagnosis, Kat would be sitting at home alone or in the hospital getting chemo treatments alone. And to keep herself from spiraling out on stories about ovarian cancer, Kat just obsessively started researching this sport she'd come across called bikepacking.

Bike, bikepacking? Yeah, so it's like biking and backpacking combined, except instead of carrying all the stuff on your back, you put it on your bike. And you could bring anything with you for an overnight or a two-week trip or a pedal around the world. Hmm. All right. And I had gotten into these bikepacking races. What do those look like? It's a kind of bike racing. I mean, I guess to explain it, think of the most famous bike race there is, the Tour de France.

The world's most grueling cycle race nears the end of its... It goes, of course, all the way across the entire country of France. And all along the way, the whole country is lining the streets, watching. It's coming to their doorstep. They're using the cities... TV crews all over the place. Oh moment is captured and sportscasted. But in addition to being a media circus, it's also sort of a circus of support. There's cars following along with all these people in splats

in case something breaks. Ah, what the heck, it's only a $12,000 or $15,000 bike. I'm going to throw it down. You have masseuse, you have nutritionist, something's going to cook for you. It's really, really not the reason why I cycle. I cycle just to

break away from all this. So, this is Sofiane Saheli. I am 40 already. Oh, that sucks. And I'm a professional ultra endurance cyclist. And he's kind of a big deal in the world of competitive bikepacking,

which more or less started in the early 2000s. And it sort of looks like the antithesis of the Tour de France. You have to take care of everything by yourself. You can't have a friend bring you food or water. You have to carry all your gear. And you're on everything from crowded roads to dirt paths to no trail at all. Like you're just following a GPS track that someone made, hoping you're on the right route. But there's nothing there.

This brutal aloneness and self-reliance. It's our ethic, you know, our ethos. So I had been the kind of person that could throw my body into anything and it would just show up for me. We were like a pretty good pair, you could say. And then the pandemic happened and I was diagnosed with cancer. And all of a sudden, my body, my cells, the things that I was feeling, sudden, my body, my cells, the things that I was feeling, I could no longer trust what was going on inside. Like I didn't feel like we were on the same team anymore. And so then I found this little corner of a sport where you have to trust yourself and the thing that you have is yourself. And I thought that that is just what I needed. And it just became like the center of all my attention. And so when I'm on a table waiting for a doctor to come in, I was like, I'm going to just research bikes and find the perfect bike.

She found the best clothes and socks waiting for surgery to start. I designed my own sleeping bag and had it made in Poland. She'd get her toiletries, even make a couple adjustments. Yeah, the toothbrushes are very long, so like I'll cut off the stem of the toothbrush so that way it fits better. She even thought about entertainment. I play Boggle with myself. Oh my God, you have a board game for one? That's amazing. Actually, it has totally different rules. The more gear I found, the more I could pack for a world where I didn't have to come back. So I didn't have to be attached to infusion machines anymore.

I didn't have to hear the beep, beep, beep of my chemo medication. So during her 200 days of treatment, Kat started to train. Even on the worst days of chemo, she'd get on her bike and she'd ride. And, you know, the first few days I didn't like it. I was like, this is really hard and miserable. But she rode a little bit every day. It's not like I'd be out there, like, shredding the gnar on my bike. Like, I took a lot of naps in fields. And she got stronger and stronger until eventually... From the yurts to the bee boxes to these, like, awesome little trailer cars.

A little over a year after her diagnosis, after surgery, after chemo, after freezing her eggs, I flew to Kyrgyzstan, I brought my bike, and competed in a 1,200 mile race. There's just these carpets of electric green, and the mountains, they look so, oh, I'm going to cry. Oh, it's so magnificent. She was alone, but all of a sudden I was free. Because it didn't just mean like, oh, I get to do this sport.

It meant like, I'm healthy enough to stay out there. That race, really the whole sport of competitive bikepacking, it flipped aloneness from this thing that was so painful into this thing that saved Kat, taught her how to heal herself. Going through cancer with that, like I came out way more independent and kind of individualistic than I went in. Just learning to come to peace with being alone during hard times. But that feeling, it would get a lot more complicated for Kat. And it all started with one particular bike pack racer. Her name's Lael Wilcox. But that feeling, it would get a lot more complicated for Kat. And it all started with one particular bikepack racer.

Her name's Lael Wilcox. She's one of the most popular bikepack racers in the world. And she's also thrown into question everything Kat thought she knew about going through hard things alone. All right, here's a challenge I give you since... So, last July, Rachel and I flew out to Tucson, Arizona. How many different cactus varieties are you

seeing just on this drive? One, two, three, four. We drove into the desert. Oh, like those things with the pink flowers are technically cacti, right? Yes. No, they are. To sit down and talk to Lael. Your destination is on the desert. Oh, like those things with the pink flowers are technically cacti, right? Yes, no, they are. To sit down and talk to Lael. Your destination is on the right.

Oh my gosh, which one? This one? Okay. So we go there, we show up at her house. Nice to meet you, thanks for coming. Yeah, I'm Lael Wilcox and I'm an ultra endurance bike packer. She was super friendly and inviting

and you know, one of those people that just like had an easy laugh. But it's like, it's funny to think about like stuffing hot dogs in a bag is your job. She just kind of has this face that sparkles. Like when she smiles, she kind of like leaves her mouth agape and waits for you to join her in in this smile. And I'm kind of fangirling a little bit because Lael is an absolute badass at this sport. I broke the women's record on the Tour Divide twice. I won the overall Trans Am in 2016, beat all the men.

And she's inspired a lot of women to take on the sport, which has traditionally been super male-dominated. But the reason we were there to talk to her was because of this ride she did on the Arizona Trail back in April 2022. Time trial starts in one minute. We're at the Mexican border and it's a beautiful day, super windy. Yeah, the Arizona Trail is a national scenic trail that goes from the Mexican border to the Utah border, 830 miles about. That's Mexico.

There's nobody there. It's super weird. She's doing this thing called an independent time trial. People just, they do it to see how fast they can go. But like, she's trying to break a record. So it's not a race. There's no one else out there. It's just her against the clock. Or so she thought.

And it's the start of the ride. And I was like, okay, 9.03, here we go. And then she just takes off. I start riding and I felt this overwhelming sense of calm. I've never felt like that in my life. I was just like almost in a daze. You pass through the Snorran Desert, high grasslands, Saguaro cacti. And in the beginning, she felt great. I felt like that for like the first four hours. And then, you know, reality set in.

All of a sudden, there's a cactus in your tire. So sometimes it's totally overgrown with cactus. So you're bushwhacking through cactus. She's cranking out all these miles. You know, I get to like 70 mile point at dark. I'm just staring down this narrow trail, hoping not to crash, hoping that the shadows are not rocks. Going as fast as you can. Just consistently moving forward. The whole thing is about your average speed over time. So it's like, okay, this is my plan. I'll sleep four

hours a night. I will try to sleep at places with water. All along the trail, there are these water caches. Metal case with water jugs for hikers and bikers in like the most remote stretches that are about every 30 miles. They're stocked by people called trail angels. So it's in the rules that if something is already there available to everybody else on the course, you're allowed to take it. But these water caches. Sometimes they're empty because other people drank it. You don't know. It's kind of like a gamble.

Yeah, you don't know. So early in the ride, Leal gets to the first water cache, and there's water. It's good. Now, the audio you've been hearing is actually audio that Leal's wife recollected. My full name is Regula Keladite, and I am a professional photojournalist. I document a lot of Lael's races.

She partners with Lael's sponsors to make these beautiful videos. So when she was filming the AZT... I did it with my friend Sean. He was kind of acting mostly as the driver. What I would do is I would plan on accessing trailheads, parking in the car there, you know, so we'd see her maybe a couple of times a day, just a few seconds. Rue often is hiding in

a bush while I go by. It's better for photos. I don't want to, you know, mess a flail. So, you know, I would see them and be like, oh, they're there. And then that's it. You know, she's not stopping. She would just be cruising. Leia would pedal 100 miles. Then you climb the road up Mount Lemmon. 200. I had slept in the post office because it was like 20 degrees up there. And then you descend down the other side on this heinous trail called Oracle Ridge

where you're just walking. And then you don't see her for a while. You're like up on a mountain. You get a photo of her and you're like, oh, I hope she's doing okay. But then it's like I see Lael when she's sleep deprived. I see her after she's crashed. When she's hungry. Because I'm really calorie deprived.

And then you're just like standing there for a cliff bar and like, oh man, that sucks, sorry. And in those moments, all Rue can really do is watch. Because remember, there's this rule that when you are competing in one of these bikepacking competitions, you can't accept help unless it's available to every other person riding the course. Like, for example, there was this one day when Lael ran into Rue at a trailhead. She'll be like, I haven't had water in four hours. I'm so thirsty. Lael sees one of those water boxes, bends down, and opens up the rusty gate. There was no water. Meanwhile, Rue and their friend Sean are standing right there. Maybe like drinking a gallon, but I couldn't take it. Lael wants that water. Like she needs it. But she also doesn't want to take that

water because the whole ethic of this sport is to be self-reliant. That is why she's out here. And then I'd like acknowledge that. And then I just like put up my camera and take a photo. You're like, you see the person you love most in the world and you're like, just keep going. So Lael keeps riding away from water, away from Rue, away from any sense of comfort. And eventually, in the distance, she sees this outline. I'm like, oh, it's Rue. I hope she's doing okay.

When I get too, too tired, I can't focus my eyes. I hallucinate. And the hallucinations are like, it's like a rock and I think it's a person or it's a cactus and I think it's rue. Like, real objects turn into people. And from that state of tripped-out solitude, no water, no help,

Lael now has to go through one of Arizona's greatest landmarks, a fortress of tourists with selfie sticks, a mall in the desert. The Grand Canyon. Wait, like into it? Like down into it? Yes, down into the canyon, then back up the canyon.

Oh, my God. But you can't actually, so it's a national park, so tires are not allowed to touch the ground. Yeah. So this might be worse. You hike into the canyon and out of the canyon, and your bike has to be on your back the whole time. The bike probably weighed 40 pounds. Keep in mind, this is one of the most popular trails in the U.S. There are, like, so, so many people. People are asking her all these questions. It's like, this is one of the most popular trails in the U.S. There are like so,

so many people. People are asking her all these questions. It's like, what are you doing? What are you doing? You know, like, hey, is there some nice riding down there? And I'm like, nope, I just have to carry it across. Oh my God, just like every single person. And then I'd have to pull over for the mule teams to pass. It's the worst, Lael says. She felt the entire ride. And I was just like, this might be too hard. And after hours of hiking, Lael makes it to the bottom of the canyon, crosses the Colorado River, and then has to start going back up. I start going up, and then I, like, get to the north rim,

pull my bike back together, start riding. But after a little bit, her eyes start losing focus. I start getting paranoid, like, it'll never end. So I'm, like, riding as fast as I can. I'm like, I just want to finish. I just want to finish so bad. I'm listening to pop music. I'm just raging. And then I crashed. Three miles from the finish.

I was like, all right, get it together. Headphones out. All that's left, the vermilion cliffs, beautiful pink rolling mountains, no trees wide open. And that's it. Yeah! Yeah!

So how'd she do? It's an 827 mile route and Lael does it in nine days, eight hours and 23 minutes, which means she breaks the record. I beat the previous record by two hours, 20 minutes. Men's record. And she beats the previous women's record by basically a day and a half. Wow. Good for her. Wow. I know.

I know. That trail is like the hardest thing I've ever done. But it doesn't count. Why? Why? Well, we're going to get to that after the break. All right, Radiolab's back. We are talking about bikes and also what it means to be alone. Right? Latif?

I'm still here. I was just messing with you. That's all right. Aloneness is the job. But anyway, let's bring back reporter Kat Jaffe and Radiolab producer Rachel Cusick. So before the break,

we told you about this woman, Lael Wilcox, who did this incredible competitive bikepacking ride. 830 miles through Arizona, the deserts, the mountains, the forests, down the Grand Canyon, back up the other side. And she did it faster than anyone had before. But then Lael found out, the record didn't count. Yeah, so what happened? Why? Why not? A few hours after Lael finished, the guy who runs the Arizona Trail Race posted on Instagram and

said the reason was that Lael's wife, Rue, and her media team were out on the course the whole ride, and they saw Lael, like, a lot. But wasn't Rue's whole thing that she intentionally did not help her? Yeah, but competitive bikepacking is all about completing these rides self-supported. And the race director said, having people come out and visit you is the kind of support. Wait, so her record doesn't count just because some people watched her break it? Yeah. And like in the sea of things that someone could consider as an advantage,

this seemed like kind of a weird one. Like Layla's gay. She's a woman. She's breaking a lot of records. Like maybe they're just looking for something to pick her off, you know? Yeah. So that was a lot of the feedback.

I have this fragile male ego and I can't stand powerful women. And that's why she got disqualified. So Kat and I, we called up the guy who made that call. John Schilling. I'm the Arizona Trail Race Director. And he told us it was way simpler than that. Like a couple of days into Lael's ride, he starts getting these texts. Bunch of my riding friends like, hey, have you seen Lael's Instagram account? Like, well, no, because I've been out riding. He's also a bikepacker. So of course I go look and I'm like, oh, okay, great. So there's clearly a media crew following her for this event and that's not allowed. And it was also a violation

of our visitation rule. And what's that rule? People can come out and see you. You just can't have the same people over and over and over again at like every trailhead crossing. That's in your list of rules on the website? Yes. Along with the rules that say you can't have someone come bring you food or you can't draft off another person, is this rule that says you can't have someone you love come out and keep you company along the way? In other words, you can't have any emotional support. And so when John found out that Rue and their friend Sean were out there

with Lael. Seeing all that stuff and just like, oh, good grief, you know. Thinks to himself, I'm going to have to disqualify her. But I'm also not that much of an asshole to just instantly throw down a DQ hammer. You know, she's arguably probably the most popular and well-known bike pack racer on the planet. So I go home and I'm like, you know what? I'm going to reach out. I'm going to send Lael a message on Instagram, letting them know that there is a rule. She can have a clean ride, but just stop posting the updates. So I sent that message.

I get a reply from both of them. A real nice reply and everything. And they discussed it and they just said, no, we're going to keep doing our thing. Well, okay. Then you're disqualified. End of story. That's insane to me. Lael Wilcox again. I think the rules are outrageous. I believe what I'm doing is self-supported and I'm not going to like back down just because some guys tell me that I'm getting an emotional boost. Lael says that when she was first told that Rue can't follow her because it's going to be an emotional advantage. I really thought about it. Like, is there something unfair happening?

Should I not be doing this? Should I be respecting this? Lael had done lots of rides in the past without Rue following her, like before they'd even met. She'd broken records, won races. So having Rue somewhere nearby on this ride? Who cares? It just didn't seem like a big deal. Rue's just taking pictures. And for Lael, those pictures were the big deal.

The people who care about the sport, they all say they want more women to participate. And this is a struggle at this point. So having somebody there shooting photos, it changes it. You might inspire some little girl to go ride her bike. And Lael says that whether or not Rue is there, she's doing this thing self-supported. Self-supported means like actual physical help. Yeah, people shouldn't bring you something to

eat. That would change it from self-supported to a supported ride. Like the physical needs are much more important. Absolutely. Yeah, the physical stuff is what you have to take care of is how you're going to get results. People are always like, oh yeah, that endurance stuff, it's all just mental. And I'm like, you try to ride 200 miles in a day and tell me it's all mental. Like she's not super woman because of emotions. Oh yeah. I just got a day and a half faster pretending she's not there with her camera on me. I don't know. You might feel happy if you see me. Lael's wife, Rue, jumped in.

Will that make you go two hours faster than the guy's record? Will that make you go 36 hours faster than the woman's record? That's insane. And if anything, having her out there... I think that's slowing her down. ...might actually make things harder for Lael. She'll see us. She'll talk to the camera. Like, I don't know how that's making her faster.

Like, stopping to chat, you know, talking about, like, what happened the last hundred miles. I don't think how that's making her faster. Like stopping to chat, you know, talking about like what happened the last hundred miles. I don't think that's gonna make you faster. And that made sense to me because if you think about Lael's ride, she's out there, she's in her flow. She's trying to accomplish this ride. She's taking all of her energy and focusing on herself. And then suddenly here's the person that you love the most

and you're wondering like, are they okay? And you're worried about them worried about you. Hmm. So you thought Lael was winning despite her partner being hidden in the bushes? Exactly. One of the things that having cancer during the pandemic taught me was that interacting with people that you love sometimes can make things harder. Sometimes they were trying to make me feel better and they would almost say that like the cancer was my fault or people I trusted to even diagnose me from the beginning misdiagnosed me four times before we found my cancer. I mean, solitude is a shelter. So do you feel that people are more of an emotional drain on average than an emotional

boost? I just don't think that the concept of emotional support is the same for everybody. Yeah. This rule felt totally absurd to me when I first heard about it. But then I took a ride with Cat and Lail on the AZT. We're off in the distance, speeding down this hill. Now, I am not a professional bikepacker. This is what I live for. But I've done a lot of long distance biking.

This was a good choice. And I was shocked at how freaking hard this was. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. It was just up and down and up and down. Oh my God. Fuck this hill. I'm like pumping the brakes. My hands get like super tight from just like holding on for dear life.

I almost just fell off the fucking mountain. I ran out of water. I'm getting really dizzy. I was covered in scratches. Ah, fuck cactus! Ah, fuck cactus! And at one point, we were taking a break, and I heard this very weird sound.

This sound like a sprinkler going off in a bush. What is that sound? And I was like, oh, my God, what a fun sound. I'm going to go collect it. I think that's a rattlesnake. No! Oh my god. Okay, Rachel, just keep moving.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Ah! It's terrifying! Holy shit. It was just shy of 100 degrees out there that day, and eventually there was this moment. I keep thinking I'll turn a corner and see somebody, and I don't. When I was all by myself. And it feels really lonely. Lael and Kat were off in the distance somewhere.

I think this is the way. I have no clue if they're not here. And I just hit this wall. Like, I want to quit. I want to go home. Oh my God. Fuck me. I got off my bike and I just started walking. But then I saw Lael and Kat. You're doing it! You're doing it!

Yay! Look at you! It was almost like some switch was like inside me that got flipped on the minute I saw them. And I got this jolt of energy almost like one of those like sugary gel packs that marathoners eat okay back on my bike and back on my bike I got back on my bike and I kept riding and that's like not nothing I just don't like I don't think that that what Rue and Lael are doing is cheating,

but I do think that there is some physical boost that we get when we are supported by others. Wow, this is fun. This part's fun. Oh my god, oh is fun. This part's fun. Oh my God. Oh my God. Seeing people you know out on course will give an emotional boost for sure. That's bikepacker Esther Harani. I set a record on every bikepacking race that I did. And she and the other competitive bikepackers that we spoke to, they said that is why this rule about emotional support exists.

They said that is why this rule about emotional support exists. When you dig so deep physically for such a long time. Sofiane, to heal you again. You're not drafting physically, but it's something like, you know, mental drafting. We also heard this from... Rebecca Rush. I'm a Mount Mike Gravel hall of famer and a bike packer. And the way they put it is that like so much of this sport is planning and packing and riding as if you are totally alone and you're the only person who can take care of yourself. Okay, this is it. You know, no one else is coming. But if someone who cares about you is there, we make different choices.

Knowing that they're out there, it just, it changes everything. But I want to know what exactly is changing biologically, physiologically. What are our bodies doing when we are going through something hard and someone else is with us? Well, can I go into a little background about the basics of how the body works? Hit us. So Kat and I called up a guy who studies this exact question from the inside out. You've been in a brain scanner? His name is Jim Cohn.

I'm a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. And back in 2005... We brought married couples into the laboratory. He put participants through their own version of a stressful thing, which in this instance wasn't ultra long distance bike racing, but actually an old fave of psychology researchers everywhere. An electric shock. But we're not necessarily interested in the shock itself.

We're interested in how they perceive the threat. And how does having someone they love close by affect that? So Jim takes one of the volunteer participants, let's call her Sarah, puts her in a brain scanner and wraps a little bracelet around her ankle. This is really shocking. Now, inside the scanner, Sarah is laying on her back, looking at a screen kind of like an iPad, and it's got a circle on it.

A blue circle. Now, in that moment, Sarah is breathing a sigh of relief because she's been told blue circle equals no shock. Nothing was going to happen in the next 4 to 12 seconds. Phew. And at that point, Sarah's brain looks relieved, or as much as the brain can look relieved. Point is, the blood in Sarah's brain is...

Relatively evenly distributed. It's calm. Yeah. But then, the blue circle disappears. And in its place... A red X. Pops onto the screen. And this X means it's shock time.

In the next 4 to 12 seconds, they had a 20% chance of getting an electric shock on their ankle. And this... Surprise, surprise. ...stressed Sarah out just like any scary thing would. This X, it stands in for a bunch of hard, stressful things. It could be a rattlesnake. It could be a visit to your doctor.

Or a hard test that you gotta take. Or this exact music you are listening to right now. And when your brain encounters a red X, alert, things get frantic. Blood is moving like crazy all around the brain. Go into your visual cortex. It's like the superior colliculus. Hypothalamus. Telling your body to release hormones.

Cortisol. Which make it dump a bunch of glucose fuel for your muscles. So you can, you know. Scream and tear the stuff off your body and get the hell out of there. And if you want to get technical, hyper-specific, very scientific, you can call this. An oh shit response. So that's what happens when Sarah sees that red X in the scanner and she's all alone. An oh shit response.

But then Jim ran this experiment again. Wait, who is this poor Sarah person? She's imaginary. She had a very bad day. Anyway, but her day was about to get better. Okay. Because in the second round of this experiment, Jim brought Sarah's wife,

let's call her Joyce, Hello! over to the brain scanner, sat her next to it, and asked her to hold Sarah's hand. Then, you fire up the machine, shows Sarah the red X, and... These regions of the brain that are responsible for

enacting emotional responses and releasing stress hormones, all of those things went quiet. It's almost as if the red X wasn't even there when she's holding her wife's hand. It just threw up this force field that protected her from the threat of the red X. Made it feel on some level like it wasn't even really a threat at all. That big hill ahead, that rattlesnake, the doctor's appointment. That hand you love in your hand.

Blocks these things. Wow. But when it comes to Lael and Rue, I don't think they were holding hands or touching each other. Can this just, like, happen if you just see somebody that you care about? Well, my colleague and friend

Denny Prophet did some studies like this, where he had people standing at the front. Jim said, yeah, basically this still happens. Similar studies have shown that if someone you care about is just with you, like standing right next to you, it just makes bad things seem less bad. And the friend is just standing there. Huh. So did Jim dare to enter the debate? debate like did he come down on one side i i have to say the critics of lael are a hundred percent correct like according to the science having someone you love with you during a hard thing it helps yeah however when it comes to the decision to do the thing the way she's doing it, I'm 100% on the side of Lael.

Yeah. Can you say more about that? Well, one of the things we see is that people who are walking through the world with the expectation that if something bad happens, other people are going to take a problem away. other people are going to take a problem away. Those people use more of their metabolic resources for growing hair, repairing tissue, building their immune system, doing all of these things that are associated with longer, healthier, and happier lives. So what Jim is saying, and this is huge,

is that when we believe there's another person there, you can use all this stuff you're storing up because there is a backup person there. Meanwhile, people who believe or do things on their own or feel that other people are not necessarily part of the solution, but they add more work. Those people, and you may be one of them, Kat. I don't know. We'd have to measure it. But those people on average tend to keep a higher concentration of glucose circulating in their bloodstream, sometimes quite a lot more. They store the energy in case something happens. But that's not necessarily a good thing because you can sort of flame out.

Jim, like, comes through the, like, cables of the internet and is just like, Kat Jaffe, like, this is Jim the scientist. You should change the way you've viewed people as a problem because, like, it may not be good for you. You're making it sound like a Christmas carol or something. I know. It took this thing

that I was so proud of, and it said this thing you thought you had landed and nailed as how you're going to get through hard things needs to be revised. So at the beginning you were on team other people are more

trouble than they're worth, and now he comes in and he's like yeah your body thinks otherwise exactly and at first I was like no we need more science like this can't be everything you know like we've got to talk

you're just one scientist with one MRI machine what do you know yeah yeah basically and then I was like well you know? Yeah, yeah, basically. And then I was like, well, you know what? Like, why don't you just try on what it would be like if Jim's right? And so that was the fall until now. And my life has infinitely improved.

What'd you do different? What did you actually change? I took up social dancing. What'd you do different? What did you actually change? I took up social dancing. What kind of dance? Are we tango? Salsa, bachata, cumbia, west coast swing. I do it all. So yeah, I've really fallen in love with dancing. But also like professionally, I have been collaborating with a lot more teams. I just was like, I don't want to have to do every part of everything anymore. Has your feeling about solitude changed? Like, does it feel toxic now in some scary way?

No. I still go bikepacking and when I do, I invite people. But most of the time, I end up going alone and I love it. I mean, it's... I think there's beauty of the loneliness

that can come with being out there all alone. Learning how to deal with tough situations by yourself. I think it makes life a little less scary and you become a little less worried that what all on your own, there is an amount of confidence that cannot be built with other people around who are going to pick you up if you fall down. And it's not to say either is right or wrong. I've done amazing rides. I love riding with people. It's like such a bonding experience. But I also love riding alone because then I really get to know myself. Then I get to know the one person that I'm going to live my whole life with. And that's me. Wait, wait, wait.

But before we go, what about Lael? Like, do you think any of this will change the way she does her rides? Actually, as we were finishing up reporting, we learned that Lael is going to race next season without Rue. Huh. That's exciting. Oh, God, I want to know how she does. Yeah. A lot of us Oh, God, I want to know how she does. Yeah. A lot of us will be watching.

I am. I will be. Me too. But if Rue's not there, how are we even going to watch it? Rach, you want to head back out there with a microphone? No fucking way.

I'm having so much fun on my own. I want to tell somebody. All right, that's a wrap. Time's up. End of race. See ya. And if anyone actually does want to watch Lael's next season of racing, you can actually track her. There's this website called trackleaders.com. You can watch her dot, move along.

Rattlesnakes are sold separately. leaders.com you can watch her dot move along rattlesnakes are sold separately this episode was reported by kat jaffe and rachel cusick and produced by rachel cusick with help from pat walters original music and sound design by jeremy bloom with mixing help from ariane whack and fact checking by emily krieger this episode was edited by Pat Walters, who kept throwing down drafts like they were $15,000 bicycles and he was at the Tour de France. Special thanks to The Rattavist for letting us use the audio

of Lael's ride across Arizona and to Lake Street Dive for letting us use their song How Good It Feels, which you're listening to right now. And special thanks to the folks over at Jump Up Bikes who welded me one of my best friends of the bicycle variety and every person who has let me ask them about how they go through hard things. And an extra huge special thanks to my mom, Melissa Jaffe, who was there

every way she could be during my cancer treatment, as well as the many friends who pushed their way into my fortress of solitude. I am forever grateful. Hi, my name is Eleanor. And I'm David. And we are in beautiful Utah, cycling all the way from Montana down to the Mexico border. With our four-year-old daughter, Aidy. Radiolab was created by Jad Amberrod and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Our hosts are Lachif Nasser and Lulu Miller. Dylan Keefe is the head of sound design. Dylan Keefe is the head of sound design.

Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bressler, Rachel Cusick, Akedi Foster-Keys, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindhu Nyanasanbandhan, Matt Cutie, Annie McEwen, Alex Neeson, Sarah Khari, Anna Rascuet-Pas, Sarah Sandbach, Ariane Wack, Pat Walters, and Molly Webster, with help from Andrew Vinales. Our fact-checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, and Natalie Middleton. Hi, I'm Luis Vera and I'm calling from Mexico City. Leadership support for Radiolab science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, the Simons Foundation Initiative,

and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.