“Running with the bulls.” A centuries-old tradition embedded in an even older celebration – the festival of San Fermin – now nearly 700 years old and counting.

We’ve all seen the images: muscular charging bulls with massive sharp horns parting a red and white sea of young men sprinting in terror down narrow cobblestone streets. Inevitably, the media highlight reel ends with a trainwreck of sprawling bodies, trampling, and the occasional life-threatening goring.

Each year the festival of San Fermin draws nearly 1,000,000 visitors to the small, normally tranquil village of Pamplona in the Basque region of Northwest Spain. The central spectacle of the festival is the “encierro,” or running of the bulls, which takes place each morning at 8 a.m. for a week. Six bulls and six steers arrive in the early morning to a corral at the base of a hill in town. Then, they run uphill approximately 850m to the “plaza del toros” (bullring). The run takes somewhere between 3 and 5 minutes, but no individual person runs with them the entire route – the bulls run too fast, so you must stake out a position for a short sprint. Each of the six bulls faces nearly certain death later in the day in the “corrida” or bullfights that take place in the afternoon. Essentially each of these bulls, bred to be aggressive, mean, and fast, is running away from life toward their inevitable death at the hands of a matador who risks his own life to take theirs. Cruel? Inhumane? Yes. Dramatic? Romantic? Yes. Is the inevitable death of an animal at the sword of a matador worse than the plight of the average farm cow bred for slaughter via the food industry? I don’t think so: at least each of these bulls has a fighting chance at survival and a pre-corrida life where they eat, drink, rut and fight as opposed to standing in a pen full of dung, and chewing their cud, about to die unceremoniously.

I’ve been drawn to the running of the bulls ever since I first saw it as a teenager. The thrumming of the hooves as the dust rises, the chanting of the crowds, the anticipation of the appearance of the flanks and horns in a high-speed chase, the danger, the exhilaration, and the long-standing traditional rituals involved have always evoked a romantic notion of risk-taking, fear, physical prowess, and courage. Not to mention the visual spectacle of an event where hundreds of thousands throughout a picturesque village all bother to care enough for tradition to wear the exact same garb of white and red – women, babies, children, the elderly, locals, and tourists alike. Also, deep down, I have always believed that I possessed the requisite skills to navigate such an event safely and with aplomb - the parallels to bike racing and short track speedskating are striking: a high-speed chase on a narrow slippery course with tight corners that requires speed, agility, balance, the ability to read the patterns of movements of the bulls and avoid hundreds of people trying to kill me. This was something I had essentially been doing my whole life. I was not afraid.

Finally, I wanted to create a new life chapter – literally in this case – by documenting the experience through the lens of “chronoception” or perceptual time. I wanted to test my own horological hypothesis: to prove that the combination of the thrill, the beauty, the physical and emotional intensity, and the danger-induced “flow state” would stop time and turn seconds into hours, even months in memory.

"Because flow de-activates large parts of the neocortex, a number of these areas are offline - thus distorting our ability to compute time." David Eagleman

On the morning of the run, my old friend, and neuroscientist John Wesseling and I made our way to our starting point, threading through throngs of revelers. One fact became quickly clear as we traversed the streets - almost none of the actual festival participants actually join the encierro due to the real and perceived peril. Everyone we had spoken to the night before seemed amazed I would actually run. But, in all reality, there have been relatively few significant serious incidents over the years, and the actual danger of death may be less than a regular commute to work. That said, the nature of the danger is real and visceral: six 1300+ lb bulls bred to kill with razor-sharp horns and another six giant 1700+ lb steers stampeding full tilt down a narrow lane filled with more than two thousand intoxicated people sprinting forward while looking backward, zigzagging haphazardly to the left and right - one misstep and those horns could easily part flesh and bone - this, and the added threat that the horns often carry a form of bacteria that cause the wounds to suppurate and quickly become life-threatening. As I entered the course I looked around me and wondered – the drunk chubby young men, the gaunt older men, and some wide-eyed young women as well – I wondered how were they going to survive this mayhem. Me, I was pretty confident I would know what to do, intuitively. Only later did I realize most “runners” just line the course and get the hell out of the way. Few actually run WITH the bulls. But I had grander plans. I wanted to live “all the way up.”

From The Sun Also Rises: “I can't stand it to think my life is going so fast and I'm not really living it.” “Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bullfighters.” Hemingway

The encierro (running) and subsequent corrida (bullfight), the associated danger, fear, ugly brutality, and elegant artistry underpin arguably one of the greatest books by one of the greatest authors of the 20th century. Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises” encapsulates, romanticizes, and relates the elements of the festival of San Fermin in a way that has enchanted generations. The prose also covers a very real element of the festival – the role of wine, beer, and other forms of alcohol in the proceedings. San Fermin is a drinking event that puts Summerfest, Octoberfest, and any other similar festival to shame for its bacchanalian extravagance. Like all the other elements of the festival, it has its shades of romantic elegance and brutal ugliness. Picturesque mid-afternoon picnics with families on white linen with chilled local wines and short siestas under the trees as children play on centuries-old walls eventually morph into throngs of 20-somethings from around the world swilling Kalimotxo - 32-ounce plastic cups of cheap wine mixed with Coca Cola available for about $1. The town fills throughout the day and somewhere near sunset most of those over 35 and under 18 leave. Then the garbage piles up, the noise and crowds expand, and without proper sanitation rivulets of urine begin to run through the streets and fill the nooks in the plaza cobbles.

Navigating late at night the evening before to scout out the course through the throngs with my great friend, neuroscientist and local inhabitant, John Wesseling, I was amazed to ascertain he had never actually attended the festival despite living in walking distance from town for more than a decade. “Too much mayhem – we always leave town once San Fermin starts.” He said. He served as my guide through the increasingly crowded streets, and as we rounded yet another corner of a plaza where every patch of grass was crowded with young people from around the world staggering like zombies, vomiting or passed out, I began to understand his point of view. Perhaps it was the proximity to death’s hand hanging heavy in the air.

Entire plazas looked and smelled like garbage-filled port-o-potties. The streets had become so crowded with inebriated people that it became a game of drunk people “bumper-cars” just to exit the city center. By 1:30 a.m. it was nearly impossible to move and we couldn’t wait to leave, but the 20 minutes it had taken to get to Plaza Castillo earlier in the evening now took more than an hour to navigate, ping-ponging aggressively through the throng on the way out. My whites were now stained with splashes of wine and Kalimotxo. I was “official.” After the bus ride and the walk to John’s house, we finally made it home at 3:00 a.m., exactly as Hemingway would have had it.

Wakeup was 6:00 a.m. In order to arrive at the course in time to stake a position in the encierro. We were told we should be there by 6:30 a.m. for the 8:00 a.m. start. Such little sleep was daunting in and of itself, but for me, it was compounded by the fact that I had only arrived in the country one day prior, and it had been a packed agenda - we had hiked for hours in the morning on the beaches and cliffs of the gorgeous home village of John’s wife Isabel – Zumaia, then drove to San Sebastian and walked for hours through the lovely old town and its cobblestone streets while carrying all our bags, and then traveled by bus to Pamplona where John and I immediately went for an intense bike ride at 8:00 p.m. into the mountains – 2.5 hours of hard riding including a 7km climb to the top of a mountain. We had returned from the ride at 10:30 p.m. in the darkening gloaming of dusk and had only then headed into town for the pandemonium described above. Needless to say, I was pretty exhausted.

During our visit to Zumaia the day prior, John’s extended family ganged up on me at lunch. There were eight of them. After the appetizers, John indicated that the family had some advice for me for the pending encierro. One by one they spoke in broken English or translated by Isabel or Alba (John’s wife and daughter). First a cousin and then an aunt. First up, “you should not run, too dangerous.” Then “don’t run, you’ll get hurt” and so on. All around the table they one-by-one told me in broken English or translated Spanish that I shouldn’t run… but afterward quickly asked if I was going to anyway – all with a strange twinkle in their eyes. I knew that deep down they wanted me to run. I declared I was running. There were murmurs. A mixture of worry and pride floated around the table. Then John’s 13-year-old daughter, Alba, looked me straight in the eyes and ranted with a serious face in Spanish for a full minute. I didn’t follow. Isabel translated “You should not run. Don’t run. Please do not run. It is too dangerous. People get hurt. Last year there were five gorings, several were American…. Then there was a long pause… “But…, but” and her face changed to a smile, “but if you do run, you must wear something of a different color so I can see you on TV! – I watch every morning and I want to find you!”

After the initial inquisition, I was ushered over to sit next to Miguel, John’s brother-in-law and an aficionado of the encierro for decades who knew the ins and outs of the course and its dangers. He pulled out his phone and loaded a map of the encierro and then expostulated on elements of the route. As he spoke he would slap the back of his hand into his palm as he laid out a series of firm guidelines for the run.

“First - You should be sober – is too dangerous if you are drunk… also is illegal now as of a recent law.” (OK, “check.)

“Second, is not so much you must outrun the bulls – you cannot – instead you must outrun the other drunk crazy men and not get pushed into the bulls' horns. Please, John, avoid the horns… hooves too” (OK I’m pretty fast - “check”)

“Third, there are three sections to the run, you must absolutely avoid the first section of the course– the bulls are angry and the men are drunk where the bulls come out of the pen. There are no barriers to jump over and there are two sharp corners – this portion is 250m long and is the worst.” (OK, “check.”)

“Fourth, after the right turn, you also want to avoid the middle part of the course this is 400 meters long and lined with stone walls and uphill – this is the famous portion of the course and also there are too many people and not enough barriers to jump over if you get into trouble – this part is very dangerous. So don’t run this portion - it is the worst.” (OK, “check”)

“Fifth, you must avoid the last part of the run – the last 200 meters is a left turn into a plaza and then down to a narrow tunnel into the stadium. This is the where everyone gathers and and the final corner and tunnel are dangerous and people fall down and the bulls run over them - this is the worst part of the run.” (Um…???)

“So, in conclusion… John… my advice to you is you should not run any part of the encierro… any other questions?”

We all had a laugh at this point as his advice was translated and I again affirmed my intention to run. Eventually we settled on the notion that I would run the final left turn section and then into the bullring. “It is the only place that it will be possible to get a picture of you – the barriers will be lined w/ spectators starting 5:00 a.m., and the balconies rent for $1000 for 5 minutes for the encierro. Your friend John can show you the way and where to line up.”

-------------

Three hours after dropping into a dead sleep the morning of my run, my alarm went off at 6:00 a.m., and John knocked on the door shortly thereafter. I stumbled about mumbling to myself “sleep when you are dead, sleep when you are dead” and clumsily dressed in the traditional garb of San Fermin purchased the evening before. I donned the wine stained white pants, white shirt, red sash and red bandana and then a pair of running shoes. Sadly I had failed to find an identifiable piece of clothing for Alba to find me; so in generic garb I followed John quickly through the streets to catch the bus to town to fight our way through the throngs to join the encierro – the running of the bulls in Pamplona. It was a Saturday – perhaps the busiest day of the 8 day event.

At about 6:45, John and I found the spot where I would run. There were two layers of heavy wooden barriers, and I had to climb through on all fours to enter the course. John wished me luck, told me he would be in the stadium, and that we would meet afterward at “Hemingways,” a bar just outside the “plaza de toros.” I moved out into the cobbles and throngs, and I was now fully awake and alive. I muscled through to the final barrier blocking the final 150 meters to the bullring by 7:00 a.m. Perfect position.

There I met two English speakers: Bill from Ireland who was clearly drunk, and Greg from the UK who was sober but easily 6’7” tall. We talked strategy. We agreed we would wait for the bulls to arrive and then run with them into the stadium – it sounded simple.

Then we waited. I wasn't nervous. I "got this," I thought. Then at 7:30 a.m., the police formed a cordon and kicked all of us out – aggressively shoving all of us outside the barrier and off the course. "Too many people" they said.

I had flown 4000 miles for this, and I wasn't accepting no. Greg and Bill felt the same way, so we ran full tilt down the hill trying each barrier – each time thwarted by the EMS and police who waved us away. Finally we reached the set of barriers right at the base of the hill, right at the very start, right by the corral itself. As we arrived, a fight broke out in the street and the police and emergency workers were briefly distracted. I threw myself to the ground and belly crawled through the legs of a policeman inside the first barrier and then across the wood of the second barrier to enter the surging throng. Bill and Greg followed suit and then we were in!

We had to move – now! We knew we didn't want to be at the bottom of the hill at the most dangerous place - no barricades to climb, fresh and angry bulls, and mostly drunk young men. We had regained the course at 7:48 a.m., and needed to push through the throngs of more than 1000 people if were to regain our original position. This is where my inebriated friend Bill’s aggressiveness combined with Greg’s height became the perfect combination - Bill unrelentingly forcing his way through the throng yelling ahead and waving saying “We are coming Melissa!!” as though we were joining an imaginary friend, and Greg shouting directions based on the vantage point his height provided. Eventually we were able to shove our way through the throngs to regain our former positions 170m from the bullring. We arrived right at 7:59 a.m. and slapped high fives. One minute later, the fireworks went off – the bulls had left the corral.

In that instant everything went to hell – everyone panicked and started pushing and running pell-mell, some jumping over the barriers and others falling and running over each other. It was complete hysteria based on nothing. There were no bulls and there wouldn’t be any time soon. I knew from Miguel that it would take at least 2 minutes for the bulls to arrive, yet everyone was already running toward the bullring looking over their shoulders in sheer terror. Over and over again people slammed into me sprinting forward while looking backward, bruising me all over while I barely maintained my grip on the barricade. After the first wave, Bill and Greg were gone but there was a small group of us still in place. I left the protection of the barrier to join them in the street: all of us jumping up and down in place like Masai warriors, attempting to catch the first glimpse of the bulls coming over the crest of the hill. There was then a second surge of runners looking terrified and looking behind them and my adrenaline started flowing. Surely, I thought, this must be it. I thought about running like many of those left began to do, but again I couldn’t see any bulls, so once again I waited and for the first time, I felt some trepidation. I was on the inside of a corner . . . if the bulls came tight, I could be caught in the horns and die . . .. Fifteen people have died over the last 40 years or so, and about 300 are injured each year (granted, usually from other humans).

But I was there to run WITH the bulls, not from the bulls, so I waited. By now mostly everyone around me had run off, and for a few seconds, I was almost alone except for a trickle of frightened runners threading single file in the center of the lane jogging towards the stadium.

I breathed deep, slowed my heart rate, and focused my attention. It was exactly like the last lap of a bike race. I was focused. I was ready. And then I saw them. Cresting the hill as if in slow motion I could see the shining hooves and gleaming flanks of the bulls pounding the cobbles, super sharp horns held waist high ready to pierce anything in their path, angry as mad hornets. Beside and behind I could see some of the steers, even larger, horns six feet in the air, all of them galloping full speed over the crest of the hill, tails swinging in the dust of their wake. There was a small cadre of runners just ahead and beside the bulls and a massive sea of white following in their wake.

In that moment I began "thin-slicing" time. I could see the lumbering propulsion of shiny hooves striking cobbles, muscular chests glistening and quavering in the light, murderous eyes behind the needle sharp points of horns tilted to give death’s blow. I was no longer myself - I was unraveling my awareness into the events unfolding in front of me. This was my time - to stop time.

Time slows down. Self vanishes. Action and Awareness merge. Welcome to Flow. -Steve Kotler

They headed right at me, directly towards my barricade. All sound stopped and I grabbed the barrier, preparing to launch myself over the heavy wood and steel crossbars if necessary. Arms and hands stretched my shirt and grasped my arms attempting to pull me over. I fought them off and could see the mouths of the watching crowd moving in unison – they were chanting something. Then the herd was upon me: at first, the giant steers running three abreast, and then two bulls passing just behind them, their lethal horns clearing my soft abdomen by about 2.5 feet. The steers’ horns were taller than my head.

There was a small space, a gap, after the second bull, and in slow motion, I dropped, turned, and sprang into a sprint, running parallel to another steer and just ahead of two other bulls as I reached full speed. Sound and motion returned and I was now in the middle of the “peleton de toros” preparing for the final sprint into the ring. I could see the hooves flashing, the rapid gait of the gallop, the ominous flanks of the steer just to my right. I focused on the swinging tail of the bull in front of me, staying as close as possible, knowing that just behind me was another bull whose horns were aimed at my soft tender parts. As we cleared the turn I was able to see just where all those previous runners had gone - they were cluttering the plaza and attempting to enter the 11-foot wide tunnel down into the stadium. But now with the bulls in sight, they were panicking. My spidey senses tingled - bad things were about to happen . . . .

The huge throng that had run ahead were now attempting to run into the tunnel, jump the barriers, or were falling over each other on the stones. The steers up front were still running 3 abreast, and as the lane narrowed towards the plaza del Toros the animals formed a gigantic snowplow: there was no room for the runners ahead, and so to the left and right the detritus piled up like a bloody snowbank, white bodies punctuated with their red sashes layering and stacking even as the bulls and steers momentum continued unabated. As the walls narrowed into the tunnel, the steers and bulls moved with precision into a single file, all the while backpedaling on the cobbles to slow their momentum. I could see the hooves of the bull in front of me also skittering backward on the cobbles in attempts to slow and avoid the slowing steers in front and I knew that the bull behind me was doing the exact same thing - and that if the bull behind me was not as good at slowing down as the bull in front of me, I’d be a human shish kabob.

Despite the mayhem, I was unafraid, seeing and predicting everything with precision– it was both fast and slow. Ahead 100 men were trapped in the tunnel in a complete panic trying to climb the walls, run into the stadium before the bulls, or just press to the left and right. There were perhaps 5 feet of open space in the middle for our bull and steer train with the occasional unfortunate falling into the path of hooves and horns. As we slowed I watched the inevitable unfold in slow motion - the forward momentum of the crowd on both the left and right turning into a human train wreck. I watched the pileup in slow motion as the bodies crashed and cartwheeled over each other, stacking and screaming - I remember seeing a hand flapping on top of the pile before disappearing into the carnage..The bulls continued plowing forward, stumbling over the unfortunates who had not managed to get out of the center of the tunnel.

At this point I had to make a decision - I was now so close to the bull in front of me that I was running the risk of being kicked and I could feel the presence of the bull behind me, sharp horns looming. I felt I had no choice and I abandoned the center of the tunnel, moving to the left to clamber up and over the pyramid of fallen humans. Using both my hands and feet, I ran across a jumble of men like so many fleshy stones and then ran right back down the other side and back onto the bricks just before the doors to the stadium. I was only a few feet behind the last bull when I broke into the light of the bullring and they immediately shut the doors behind me. I was one of the last humans to enter the arena and 25,000 people were on their feet screaming. As the last bull was billeted in the corral, I stopped in the center of the arena and in a gladiator-like moment I raised my arms and turned slowly, hands up enjoying the noise, the atmosphere, and the joy of being “really alive.”

This whole effort, by the way, lasted about 18 seconds.

"There's this sense that sometimes time slows down and sometimes time speeds up, and sometimes when we are in the zone and lose track of time, or when we are doing an activity that elicits an adrenaline rush, time slows down. There's time dilation - altered states of consciousness..." -Jason Silva, Shot of Awe

A moment later I had an odd realization - I realized I was suddenly nearly alone. In the last few seconds, most of the other runners who had made it into the stadium had quickly scattered like cockroaches seeing a light, dissipating behind the walls of the arena. For a moment I felt a swelling of pride - I thought it was “my moment,” but then I noticed that the noise of the crowd had changed its tenor. It went from excitement to . . . something else - from Yaaahhh! to Ooooohhhh! and dropping an octave… It was then that I finally turned and saw what everyone else had already seen. Behind me was a giant jumbotron showing the terror about to be unleashed into the arena.

For only the second time in over 100 years of the festival, there was a “Curioso”… an extremely rare situation where one of the bulls bred to run, fight and kill, stops and decides to abandon the steers, peers, and encierro, and instead explore other options rather than run into the ring. This bull had left the peloton and instead browsed around chasing runners in circles mid-course for about 30 seconds. Eventually, he was poked and prodded with sharp sticks by handlers to resume his journey and as he came charging down the tunnel he did so with a vengeance. They had just re-opened the doors, and, mad as a hornet, he charged bucking into the arena, black glistening hide, wide sharp horns, and one particularly available target… the stupid Chicago boy still standing at the center of the arena. At first he lunged at a couple of runners still standing near the door, buying a brief moment of time, but once I began my sprint, he noticed the motion and changed his course to aim his horns directly at me.

Suddenly there was a new sound even as I began to sprint towards the wall to my right - a thrumming and rhythm of hands at the barriers – virtually every person at ground level had their arms out – begging me and a few other remaining runners to be lifted over. I had the farthest to go and gave every ounce of energy I had to sprint to the right towards the closest section of the wall. A few seconds later I finally came into proximity of the 5-foot red-painted concrete barrier, and I leaped as a dozen hands grabbed me roughly and pulled me up and over, literally throwing me onto my back into the space behind. I flipped as I fell and landed on my back on top of another runner, who had ducked to avoid me. My back cracked as I draped heavily across his frame and then I fell off him to the concrete below. I had had the wind knocked out of me but I was safe and alive . . . SO alive. I stood to see the curioso enter the pen and I joined in on the cheering with the crowd.

Here's the thing. This entire experience was less than a minute long… but it seemed like hours, even days… and has grown with each passing day. I had planned and designed for this moment for a long time in hopes of creating an “event horizon moment.” And so with the plans and a lot of serendipity I had experienced a perfect layering of risk, beauty, danger, uniqueness, physical and emotional intensity and “flow” in such a way to create a “moment worth a year.”

It worked.

Why Am I Still Alive? Pt. 11: Running With the Bulls in Pamplona