I often use the phrase; “nothing is worth doing, if it isn’t hard.” Probably not very good grammar, but you get the point. Hard is a nebulous term that can only really be defined by the person using it. For some, “hard” is resisting eating a bag of Cheetos, and for others it is running 5 miles. For me, I have gotten to a place in my life where “hard” is defined by very large quantities of stupid. Which is not to say that I am super human or think I am that much tougher than anything else. Simply it is that if there is not a very real possibility that I might fail in the given task, then I am not really interested in it. The Death Race fits very well into this category. In my adult life, I have deployed to Iraq as an Army infantry officer, investigated our nations threats as a Federal Agent and have dealt with personal tragedy on a very large scale. These things have given me perspective that to be truly alive you have to go the very edge and take the chance that you might fall off. Other than alpinism, which is another passion, this is one of the few “sports” where the experience and the effect that it has on the mind can truly push you to the edge. I am ready to go to the edge.

Death Race 2012 also has some special motivation for me as the race in 2011 didn’t go the way I had planned. After training hard for 7 months, I had to cancel the trip two days before the race. I am the Mountain Manager of Ski Santa Fe and the Sunday before the race, the Pacheco Forrest Fire lit up in our back door. I spent the next two weeks working with the fire team to keep the fire off our doorstep, all the while checking in on the progress of the race and feeling the disappointment that I should have been there but that I was right where I needed to be. What that experience has given me is added motivation to train harder, train longer and to go in to next year with the will to never quit and to push my self beyond my limits. For the last 7 months not a day has gone by that I haven’t thought of the race, and I
know that the next year will be the same.