This morning I hit the road to make the 6 hour drive to Oklahoma City to compete in this season’s American Ninja Warrior on Friday night, and then hopefully again Saturday night if I advance to the OK City Finals.  I’ll step to the line this weekend reinforced by the love and support of my friends and family, and with the knowledge that I fulfilled My American Ninja Warrior 8 Pledge to be better prepared for this season that I have for my previous six seasons.  I plan to lay it all out on the course with no reservations or hesitancy, and hope my training and experience will take me far and let me play on a whole bunch of obstacles before the run inevitably ends in the water somewhere

Even though it is often a humbling experience, and can be brutal in that it is often over in a flash of an eye or a slip of a hand, I’ve gotten so much out of this journey in ways I could never have expected.  I’m very excited to see where this season’s chapter takes me.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

The Man in the Arena – Theodore Roosevelt