Health and exercise have most always been a part of my life and while they’ve gone in cycles, I tend to live a pretty healthy lifestyle. You could say it started when I was a hyperactive 6-year old. The only fights I got in with my parents were to come in at night and go to bed. Left to my own devices, I would have stayed outside day and night. To try and give me a release for all that energy, my amazingly wise and wonderful parents enrolled me in a local Taekwon-Do school. As it turned out, the woman who co-owned the school, became my 2nd and 3rd grade teacher. Needless to say, I behaved in school, because I knew what she was capable of. That experience really helped shape the man I am today.

I stayed in Taekwon-Do for a few years, then moved on to other sports…the normal stuff like soccer, football, track. Then, when I was in high school I got back in to Taekwon-Do and ended up teaching for a few years. Again, the discipline had a huge impact on my development.

It was easy to stay active in undergrad and even into my first few years in the real world. Then, grad school started up and all that changed. I was living with my girlfriend at the time, traveling for work, going to grad school at night, and trying to maintain my house and still help other people as well. I had to cut something and stopped working out. Those three years in grad school took their toll on my health and shortly after graduating I hit 259 pounds. I vowed I would never hit 260 (and never did). That was almost four years ago and now I’m a healthy 220 pounds (6′-4″) with a nice mix of lean and bulky muscle. I’m probably in the best shape of my life and enjoy mountain biking, road biking, rock climbing, lifting, running, hiking, adventure racing, training for the zombie apocalypse, being a general badass…I think you get the point.

Then, in March a friend sent me a link to the Death Race thinking I’d like it. He didn’t know how right he was. Upon checking out your web-site I seriously got so excited I had to go take a crap. A race that doesn’t post finishing times, because they are “irrelevent” and the waiver only says “I may die!” is right up my alley. I wanted to do this summer’s race, but didn’t think I was ready and was also signed up for a century road bike ride for charity, so signed up for the 2012 and am thinking I’ll likely do the winter one as well.

Some general comments, insights, reasons for wanting to do this, in no particular order are:

- As an engineer I am fascinated by the human body and that it is one of the few machines that actually gets stronger as it’s worked harder.

- I am curious about my own true limitations and I love it that you guys try to break people. If I wanted to do a cushy, hand-holding, “ra-ra” race I’d sign up for the Warrior Dash.

- The unknown and unpredictable nature of the race only makes me more excited about it.

- My motto for a while now has been “There are no stops on the road to badassville.” and I plan to wear that in some fashion for the race. So, yeah, I basically can’t wait for June 23rd, 2012 to roll around.