If there’s one thing American Ninja Warrior is never short on, it’s amazing stories. From rehabbed injuries and off-the-couch sensations to abuse survivors. The backgrounds of the competitors are as diverse as the competitors themselves, each with some glimpse of truly inspiring courage that keeps the consuming masses enthralled, leaning forward on sofa edges with wide eyes each and every Monday (or Wednesday) night during the summer season. Tales of overcoming obstacles—both the visible on the course and the metaphysical that pull at the heartstrings—compelling normally calm and rational viewers to scream at an inorganic screen devoid of auditory capabilities. Stories that leave an audience feeling warm and fuzzy inside after the challenger rises to the occasion.

This is not one of those stories.

I’ve been a part of American Ninja Warrior for a long time. Not as long as some by a large margin, but a long time nonetheless. With the massive popularity explosion that’s taken place over the last few seasons, it’s understandable that my students (I’m a coach at a popular ninja gym), partygoers, and random wide-eyed Monday-night couch-surfers inundate me with questions when they discover I’ve been a competitor since Season 5. "How far have you gotten?" "What’s your favorite obstacle?" "Do you know ∷insert famous ninja here∷?" But there’s one question I frequently get that I’m invariably ashamed to answer:

"How do you get on the show?"

And I pause. Anxiety rears its ugly head as I internally debate between trying to explain the nuances of the walk-on line or telling the little white lie: "I’ve just been lucky, I guess." How embarrassed am I at admitting my lack of mass-market appeal on that particular day? And it is embarrassing because I’ve been doing this for six years and have only ever received that magical incoming call once. But vanity is a ruthless emotion, and in most instances, I can’t suffer through putting on a smile and pretending all my sacrifices have just been small, inconsequential blips on the metaphorical radar of life. That the time, money, sanity, and tears lost were all just part of a magical luck-recipe that put me on the course those few times I actually did get up there. My pride makes me want to be understood…which is probably why I’m telling you this story.

Thursday, March 15th, 2018.

Most people who watch ANW aren’t fully aware of how large Ninja Warrior/SASUKE is on a global scale. For those of you who aren’t familiar with SASUKE (and if you aren’t, hop on the YouTubes as soon as you’re done reading), it’s the forerunner of American Ninja Warrior: the Japanese version of ANW born in 1997. It’s the competition that spawned a worldwide phenomenon now existing in some form or another in well over a dozen countries. In the Americas, Europe, and Australia (and some others), we call it Ninja Warrior. American Ninja Warrior, Ninja Warrior Germany, Ninja Warrior France, and so on. In eastern Asia, it’s SASUKE (in all caps, yes).

In 2016, I was granted the great honor to compete in SASUKE Vietnam. The results were nothing close to what I hoped for—a disqualification after clearing Stage 1 for a silly mistake I made on the second obstacle (it was my fault, no one to blame but myself). But ever since then, I’d wanted another shot at it. Course revenge aside, it’s a wonderful country and I yearned to go back. I highly recommend everyone take a vacation to Vietnam at some point in their lives. Anyway, since the middle of February, I’d heard murmurings a shot at redemption might be coming. On the 15th of March, I woke to a message confirming my spot. But this created a new set of problems—the filming dates conflicted with a lot of potential walk-on opportunities for ANW: overlapping the Indy filming outright, wrapping only three days before Philly, and subsequently offering a mere seventeen days at best to try my luck in Minneapolis (likely not enough for the final region). If I somehow got a casting call, it would be for Philly, and everything would work out, but no one knows the future (and let’s be fair, I didn’t have a great track record for callbacks).

(Stage 4 in SASUKE Vietnam, 2016.)

I could also forego Vietnam and ensure myself a top-five place in one of the final three lines. Of all possible permutations of every combination, this option set appealed to me the least—how could I justify turning down a guaranteed run spot in an international competition I’d been dreaming about for the last two years, even with the risk?

But another choice remained. The Miami line would be starting in the near future. I could prepare myself and depart within the week, twenty-and-some days out (depending on when I departed), leaving enough time to get home before my flight to the other side of the world. And, if by some nightmare, I failed to compete in Miami, I still had Minnesota as a last-ditch effort.

I had eight hours to make a decision. That was how long I’d been given to confirm my slot in SASUKE (it was late in the process, and I’d been selected as an alternate, so production needed to know ASAP if I couldn’t go). That’s a fun decision to make in a short time frame (not). In the end, the final option won: go to Vietnam, get two shots at ANW. Mentally, I prepared myself to leave my home, my job, and my friends for the better part of a month sometime within the following week…preferably Wednesday, as it allowed me to conserve some of my PTO while still giving me an early line spot.

Friday, March 16th, 2018

Having relayed my plans to the relevant people (boss, mother), I drove to my local rock climbing gym to get a good training session in, perhaps my last before leaving. I pulled into the parking lot and my phone buzzed.

There are few moments in the world that can create the despair felt upon discovering someone (or sometwo) has decided to start the walk-on line you were planning on joining nearly a full week before you were prepared to leave.

What do I do? I was supposed to compete in a local comp tomorrow, can I still do that? If I leave right after, I can get to Miami by Sunday night…if I leave right now, I won’t manage the whole drive (1,400 miles…about 21 hours) without sleep because I wasn’t planning properly for it, I might slide down the line. I lose a training session too. How many days without pay would that make it? I wonder how many people are planning on showing up right away—

My phone buzzed again to inform me that #3 had claimed his spot.

…I’m leaving now.

I would be remiss, at this point, if I didn’t give a shout-out to my mother, who—recognizing I couldn’t manage the whole 21-hour drive nonstop without having prepared properly—dropped everything to tag-team the drive with me so long as I could fly her home when we got there. I was packed in two hours and said my goodbyes.

I arrived at 5 pm the next day and was 15th in line.

15th is okay, it’s not great, but it’s better than the average total of walk-ons that run in each city. Who am I kidding this @$&*! sucks.

Twenty-seven days to go.

(Proof of arrival at the check-in spot, on March 17th. I attribute the awful face due to my fatigue ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

Sunday, March 18th, 2018

I had spent that first night at a friend’s house but quickly discovered that he lived too far and too many toll plazas away from downtown for commuting to be practical. New living arrangements were mandatory, but a music festival and spring break conspired to make hotels/Airbnbs/hostels unaffordable. Needing to cool off (literally and metaphorically), I jumped in the Miami river and swam around a bit. Poor man’s shower.

The park where we were meeting closed at 10 pm every night, but supposedly they didn’t tow cars. If I could stay hidden in my car until after everyone left, I could sleep safely in the driver’s seat (keyword: safely) and no one would be any the wiser…except the other walk-ons doing the same thing.

Friday, March 23th, 2018

Only a week since the walk-on line’s birth, and already I couldn’t really remember the days that had come and gone. I had some vague, fleeting memories of activity in my brain, but most of it was (and still is) a dense fog, one where direction is impossible to ascertain and even the passage of time loses meaning.

The one thing that stuck with me more than anything else was the uncertainty of the sleeping arrangement. The park itself ended up plenty safe, save for the anxiety stemming from the chance that someone would finally spot us hunkered down below our windows or in our trunks and give us the boot. I feared a lot about what I’d have to do if that happened. I could pay for a parking garage (~$30+ a night?), but with my PTO dwindling away, expenses had to be kept low…and twenty-one days still separated me from showtime. At a $200/night minimum, hotels remained out of the question. The hostels, while cheap, were still either completely booked up or unsafe. Same with Airbnb. Many of us in the line were traveling with nearly our entire livelihoods in our cars; getting robbed or having a car broken into could end the line (and worse) for a majority of the ninjas (in fact, I did hear that a ninja had their car broken into right before the taping). A friend and I actually looked into renting storage units for the month and trying to live out of them, but the lack of 24-hour access and parking nixed that idea. Traffic and tolls also complicated matters when it came to staying at friends’ houses or a local gym offering sleepover privileges (in case you didn’t know, there’s essentially no such thing as a freeway in Florida except for the interstates…also, traffic was monstrous, and missing a check-in meant the end of the line for a prospective ninja, figuratively and literally).

Every day was a rat race—make sure you’re at check-in on time, do something to stay sane and in shape, make sure you’re at check-out on time. Then, a few hours to try and recover the inevitable losses, whether physical, emotional, or monetary. Two blocks away, Publix provided a mirror and sink in the handicapped stall, offering a place to shave and brush my teeth when I needed. That’s emotional recovery. I found relief at discovering I had enough money to pay my rent back home for April, but the credit card bill and rent for May remained uncertain. I applied to work for Lyft during my free moments, but I didn’t have ideas about how to clean my car up enough to make it work. Uber wouldn’t even let me drive out of state.

I think some people would inevitably view four weeks in Miami as a vacation. I admit I visited the beach many times that first week (and the weeks thereafter). But the sun turned me into a lobster on day one, and I kept waking myself up for three days because of the pain. And every time I went to the beach, I swam. Not a relaxing float in the waves—a hard swim out to the buoy 250m from shore and back. I would try to do it at least twice, but I’m not a great swimmer and sometimes only had the energy for a single bout. I always wondered what would happen if a shark showed up looking for lunch.

(A few friends who kept me company during my swims in the Miami River.)

I went running five days in that opening week. The first Thursday was nice and cool, thankfully, but the prior Tuesday reached 90 with no cloud cover. I had to jump in the river when I finished just to keep from overheating, which the park workers had yelled at us about because people trying to commit suicide by jumping off the I-95 overpass above might come crashing down on our unsuspecting heads (thankfully we didn’t witness this happen).

The food was amazing…I assume. I never ventured out to sample the great restaurants Miami had to offer because of dieting toward the final stretch (and my wallet was on a diet too, remember). I’m pretty sure I had a day when my food intake consisted entirely of four protein bars and a veggie platter and salad from the Publix. Can’t remember anymore, though.

I hadn’t slept lying flat in over a week. And three weeks waited in front of me. The scariest question I faced—assuming I was lucky enough to make it onto the course—could I hope to perform at a level good enough to get me to Vegas? I always trust my training, and I knew my strength, but would I lose so much physically and emotionally in line that I’d regress to a point below passable? I even felt guilty logging the stuff above in my journal, because it was time that could’ve been spent running, or foam rolling, or doing pull-ups. There is no rest for the weary. Twenty-one days to go.

Thursday, March 29th, 2018

The Dallas filming had just wrapped, putting Miami officially on deck. But they only ran fifteen walk-ons, a scary number for most of us (especially me, sitting on #15), given that only seven got to pull the trigger in LA.

I finally got kicked out of the park some days earlier. That was a bad night…driving around until I found a Denny’s parking lot, only to have one of the other walk-ons who lived close by text me that I could crash on his living room floor (he ended up boarding six of us, and we made sure to pay him back by buying him a top-of-the-line vibrating foam roller). So, being evicted turned into a blessing in disguise, which meant that naturally, I got food poisoning the following day. If you ever want a real taste of hell, try training at a high level with food poisoning.

Fortunately, after the sickness subsided, my workouts began returning to the level I was accustomed to. It took me almost two weeks to normalize due to the sleep deprivation, starvation, and foreign environment, but I got there. My biggest worries then shifted to something beyond my control: whether or not I would actually get the chance to run. If I didn’t get my shot in Miami, I might not get one at all, and the thought kept me up at night and queasy during the day (though I’m sure the food poisoning contributed to some of that).

Fortunately, my tax return had landed in my bank account, giving me enough to pay off my credit card. The May rent was still up in the air, though. Lyft approved me as a driver, so that became an option I graciously took advantage of. Ultimately, it was still just a waiting game. Waiting and training. Stifled by uncertainty. More than once during my nightly meditations by the water, I wondered what it would be like to jump in and just start swimming to see how far I could go. The other side of Biscayne Bay? The Keys? Could I swim home? I dreamt of home constantly…my family, my friends…my bed. I was more grateful for some of my walk-on family than they’ll ever know, but they’re not the same as my own blood.

By this point, I had walked more of Miami than I ever had in Boston, my old stomping grounds. That hurt a little. I walked with a purpose, but no direction. Walking and watching the world go by without so much as an afterthought. And training. And waiting.

(At the suggestion of a Mikey P., a close friend also in the line, meditation by the bay became a nightly routine to calm my mind and heart.)

Friday, April 6th, 2018

Week three drew to a close, which meant the line would soon end as well. I was running on autopilot, with only a few key thoughts distinguishing themselves: I couldn’t picture Connecticut anymore, I couldn’t remember the feel of sleeping in a bed, and I couldn’t remember the taste of a home-cooked meal. Emotions and homesickness ruled on day one, but everything faded into numbness over three weeks, save for the ever-present anxiety of potentially missing out. All I could do was take one day at a time and attempt to attain peak performance and weight while maintaining proper sleep, recovery, and diet. I couldn’t remember the sensation of a normal life.

Today, I remember writing this stuff in my journal and considering that my experience in Miami was probably very different than other walk-ons’ in the sense that I might’ve been throwing myself a pity-party or letting pessimism dictate my outlook. But then again, maybe it wasn’t that different. Maybe, deep down, others know what it’s like to live that special brand of hell, where you’re surrounded by mostly wonderful people and get to share life-changing experiences with them…but you’re still alone in a foreign place with virtually no resources, and it’s a man-eat-man world because we’re all fighting for spots on the course and then city finals and then Vegas. The most well-prepared will achieve, the others will just find water. I even got bumped up to #14 due to unlikely circumstances. Tensions are always high, even though it’s usually not talked about. I just wanted it all to be over. I wanted to see my family again. I wanted to be able to eat dessert again. I wanted to be able to watch television in a room I wasn’t sharing with half a dozen other ninjas (whom I still all love dearly). I didn’t want to worry about having to find a Publix so I could use the bathroom when not at the house. I just wanted to go home.

But only after I hit the two buzzers that defined my reason for being in Miami in the first place.

Friday, April 13th, 2018

For me, there aren’t many feelings in the world that rival waking up on competition day. From the moment I become conscious, a sense of purpose fills my body, a drive to achieve and perform. My routine is long and methodical and exceeds the scope of this article, but it ends with arriving on set at the appointed time, in my gear, ready to go. Even though I knew I wouldn’t run before 5 am (most likely), it’s always best to be prepared.

( After check-in, ready and waiting to dominate a few hours before start time (and rocking the sunglasses-tan.)

We waited a while, then went through the check-in process, then waited some more, and finally heard the course rules. After rules, there’s nothing to do but try to relax until the sun goes down…and then it’s showtime. The forecast called for beautiful weather all night, and the first in line stepped up to the starting platform as the sky dimmed from deep blue to black. Five walk-ons ran to start, the usual number. I was bummed that ten didn’t run (that would’ve meant I might go after lunch), but ten to start has always been unlikely anyway. Resigned to 5 am, I took a seat and began counting the runs so as to determine how fast shooting was moving along.

Lunch rolled around and production was behind. Not by too much, but behind. The odds of them running ten walk-ons after lunch remained very low. Casting confirmed that hunch shortly thereafter, and the counting began again.

As the night wore on, my hopes began to trickle away. What started as slightly behind turned into legitimately behind…and the course was slow. The odds of catching up to schedule seemed long. And then, at around 4:30 am, I felt the worst possible sensation that situation could’ve offered me:

A raindrop landing on my forearm.

The passing shower halted filming for five minutes, and thankfully only five minutes. The show was back up and running full steam ahead sooner rather than later, but I couldn’t shake the fear that had settled in my bones.

By 5:45, the called runners had nearly finished. The sun wouldn’t really brighten the sky until closer to six, maybe a few minutes after the top of the hour. The odds were bad, but not impossible—

—and then the real storm arrived.

I watched it creep toward us from across the bay: a sheet of translucent doom, curtains of howling wind and water obscuring South Beach and the shipping rigs at Port of Miami drawing ever closer. I knew before the eventual final runner jumped on the steps that the clouds would arrive too soon.

And so at 6 in the morning, huddled under the casting tent with a dozen other ninjas, I watched the set lighting fade to darkness on both the obstacles and my hopes. You can’t plan for rain. I dragged my feet back to the hotel—one must spend the money to sleep in a real bed before the competition—unsure of where the line between my grief and numbness began or ended.

(Despair, in the form of precipitation. Production officially shut down about a minute after this photo was taken.)

I stayed for the first half of city finals the next night, then retired to get a full night of sleep before checkout and the drive home. Saying goodbye to my friends and the resident stray cat who’d just birthed a litter of four shouldn’t have been so hard, but I found myself lingering in the parking lot at my friend’s house wondering how to manage it. I had to leave, I had to get back home and work for the few days before my trip overseas. Yet, it took me almost an hour to finally get in my car and drive away, defeated.

(Molly—the stray living at the house I stayed at—and her four three day-old kittens. The best part of Miami, hands down. )

In Season 9, I completed a similar drive home from Daytona after having shamefully fallen on the wingnuts. I didn’t think the solitude and long hours could get any worse…but I was wrong. The pain borne from failure couldn’t compare in the slightest to the despair of not running at all. I couldn’t even allow myself to accept the grief because I had to remain focused and hardened for Vietnam. Two weeks in Vietnam…and the moment I would return, another 21-hour drive to Minnesota for the longest of shots, with virtually nothing in my bank account, and only a frayed strand of hope to cling to.

I was able to work for six days before departing, and thankfully that provided enough to catch me up on my bills and rent. The expenses I was about to incur from booking my plane ticket home (I had only booked one-way to keep all my options open… isn’t it a nice fantasy to think about just not booking the ticket home and living in Asia forever?), let alone whatever I had to spend in Minneapolis, were a different story, but I would cross that bridge when I came to it.

As much as I’d like to, I cannot yet share my results from Vietnam, at least not if I have any hope of them inviting me back again in the future—and make no mistake, I’m going back if they do. The short version: I got on two planes for a combined total of 21 hours, got myself a Vietnamese SIM card so I could stay in touch with everyone back home, and had a wonderful eleven days on the other side of the world. Again, I ended up not sleeping on a bed for the entire trip (the couch in the shared suite was softer than the murphy-bed-without-a-box-spring), but the food was amazing, the people were wonderful, and the never-ending rain didn’t fail to remind me of my unfinished business. That’s the beauty of a guaranteed spot…rain can only annoy me, I don’t have to actually fear it.

So many 9 am interviews. If you want to conceptualize the worst possible sleep schedule, imagine being twelve hours outside of your timezone, then only getting a few hours sleep here and there because you’re filming pretty much until the free breakfast at the hotel starts, doing interviews early enough to take advantage of that free breakfast again, and all the while your body thinks it’s the middle of the afternoon.

There’s an indescribable joy that comes from competing internationally, though, and it’s not because of the competition itself. It’s because you get to compete with (not against) other like-minded individuals from literally all over the world. This year, SASUKE Vietnam featured participants from Vietnam, Taiwan, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Australia, the UK, the US, Japan, the Netherlands, and Germany (and maybe more, I don’t know the whole roster). You forge a bond with such people, even if you’re only around them for a few days. That bond is why the international competitors stood for a photo with a banner bearing Kishida Satoru’s name—a Japanese competitor from SASUKE Vietnam 2016 who died of a heart attack last October. We are all SASUKE (or NW).

Many times, I’ve wished more people who participated on American Ninja Warrior could remember that.

(The international competitors standing together with the banner of Kishida Satoru. )

Tuesday, May 8th, 2018, Ho Chi Minh City (GMT +07:00)

At 8 am local time, I boarded my plane to Tokyo, whereupon I would have a two-hour layover before the thirteen and a half hour flight to New York JFK. I had stayed up all night with the goal of sleeping for the six hours to Japan, but I couldn’t manage it. Instead, I watched Dr. Strange, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and some anime on my laptop. Not what I would call a productive flight. I had lunch in Narita Airport, finished my shopping (many boxes of exotic Kit-Kats), and boarded JAL 004. I stayed awake for the first meal, then thankfully slept for eight hours, awoke for the second meal, and dozed off again.

Tuesday, May 8th, 2018, NYC (GMT -5:00)

It was a ∷expletive∷ good thing I slept on the second leg of the flight. I landed at 6 pm local time. Global Entry is a wonderful invention, and because I didn’t check any baggage, I hurried through passport control and customs, arriving on the curb in five minutes flat. My mother, still being ridiculously awesome, drove down from Massachusetts to give me a ride back to my house in CT. It took a little over an hour. When I got home, I emptied my suitcase, repacked it, and threw everything in my car for the twenty-one hours to Minneapolis. I told my mother in no uncertain terms I was going alone on that trip—for one, I couldn’t afford another plane ticket for her, but I also knew the line was sixteen people deep and rushing would be silly. I originally had left my schedule open enough to make a crazy stab at the Philly line if the opportunity arose, but with over twenty people already there, I saw no reason to go for it. Better #17 in MN than 20-something anywhere else.

I made the drive straight through, stopping only for bathroom and gas breaks. You can ask the people who saw me when I arrived, I could barely form a coherent sentence. I didn’t have any connections in Minneapolis and ended up having to bite the bullet and spend $70 on a motel that first night. I slept for thirteen hours and had to hit snooze on my alarm at least twice (I can’t really remember).

(The long-awaited end of the travel day(s) from hell: 9,430 miles by airplane, 1,279 by car. Forty-three hours from Vietnam to U.S. Bank Stadium )

Thursday, May 10th, 2018

Officially listed at 17th, I already felt significantly better about my surroundings than I had in Miami. The city was so much cleaner, and at first, glance seemed quite a bit safer as well. Airbnbs were also an option this time, and I managed to secure accommodations for the fifteen remaining nights for ~$270, between Airbnb and splitting hotel rooms with other ninjas. The best part, though, was the proximity of all the relevant places. The rock climbing gym I ended up making my home away from home at resided only three miles from U.S. Bank Stadium; the hotel, three miles in the other direction. Places to eat? All in between. Even the ninja gyms (which I didn’t end up going to simply due to lack of funds) were all close by. I spent every single day at Minneapolis Bouldering Project, which is a wonderful gym and I highly encourage anyone who likes climbing to check it out if you’re in the twin cities. Not all my time there was spent on the walls—I put on weight in Vietnam (the food is too good and too cheap over there), and cardio exists to shed pounds. I think I probably conquered close to fifty miles on those treadmills in the two weeks leading up to the filming.

One thing stuck with me during those days. Minneapolis became the seventh walk-on line in my ANW career. To the best of my knowledge, no one else has more than six. I spent a lot of time thinking about that, wondering if I should be proud or ashamed of being the lone record-holder. On the second night, I sat underneath the campus boards at MBP contemplating it, then looked up to see light still streaming in through the windows. Confused, I picked up my cell phone only to read 9:03 pm, and a horrible realization hit me—because Minneapolis stood so far north, after the Vernal Equinox, the days get much longer much faster. Darkness wouldn’t fall until close to 9:40…nearly an hour later than Miami. My chest tightened.

Friday, May 25th, 2018

The days between my arrival and filming mostly passed without incident. More long days of training, homesickness, and depression. It wasn’t fun, I’ll leave it at that. Regardless, two days prior to filming, the official roll call with casting brought the worst news any of us could’ve hoped for. Not only was production keenly aware of the lack of darkness, but more rain problems in Philadelphia had forced them to add ninjas to the roster in Minneapolis. We had known this since it’d happened, truthfully, but for casting to address it in such a blunt manner soured the mood. We were also going to lose nearly ninety minutes of filming due to the extra sunlight.

Remember how I said waking up on competition day is an incredible experience? Not that time. That time, instead of purpose, foreboding filled my spirit. A sense of inevitability, like the moments before the imminent impact after your car loses traction and spins out of control. All the waiting was over; everything left to chance. I would need an outright miracle. Forty-three days in walk on lines, and a razor-thin margin of error to stay alive. Check-in got delayed due to a passing storm cell (because why wouldn’t it?), but it never actually caught us. We resumed the pattern of wait, rules, wait again. Wait for the sun to get just a little lower. The first runner took off right on time…at 9:30.

In the first hour, I grew some hope. It was the fastest hour I’d ever experienced in my six years competing on the show. Then, sometime after 11 pm, something happened to the lighting on the course…I don’t know what. But runs stopped for thirty minutes, and instead of being well ahead of schedule, we broke for lunch barely on it.

When no walk-ons ran after the break, I knew my fate. I rested on my air mattress, blanketed with a POM towel from my fall in Season 9, watching runner after runner step up to the starting platform, knowing in my heart that my shoes wouldn’t touch it. At 4:15 am, I looked to the northeast, and sure enough, the first faint whispers of light stretched from the lowest point on the horizon. Twenty runners still had to compete before any walk-ons could go. Still, I waited for the official word from casting, which came as the last runner took the course about an hour later, the sky already a bright blue.

Forty-three days. Six 21-hour travel days. Thousands of dollars. Sleeping in cars, on floors, couches, sidewalks. Stress levels far beyond normal. Aggravation. Depression. Loneliness. Homesickness. Fasts. Sweat. Blood. Tears.

For nothing.

(The Minneapolis walk-ons. Only five of us would end up reaching the starting line. )

Now, perhaps I shouldn’t be so cynical as to say it was completely for nothing…life experience has incredible value, same with the experience that comes from surviving in harsh conditions. But I didn’t give up so much just for that kind of experience.

I have taken part in seven walk-on lines in six years. In Season 5, I missed out on my very first line due to rain (go figure). I tried again in Miami—exact same location as Season 10, believe it or not—and ran fifth. In Season 6, the only year I ever got a callback, I completely ruptured my Achilles tendon three weeks before filming. In Season 7, seventh in line in Orlando, I broke my leg playing basketball with two other walk-ons a mere nine days before showtime. In Season 8, I ran from the 14th spot in Atlanta. In Season 9, from the 11th in Daytona.

In Season 10, I failed to run from the 14th spot in Miami and the 17th in Minneapolis. I went to test the Minneapolis finals course the next night, but ultimately the hurt was too great and I quit with my tail between my legs after one obstacle to say my goodbyes, pack, and hustle through the twenty-one hours back to southern CT.

Monday, May 28th, 2018

My 31st birthday, and it’s hands-down the worst I’ve ever had. I’ve never been so frustrated in my life. The worst part is that I have no outlet for the anger. I want to be mad at production, who didn’t call me to be on the show again and then didn’t run me in either region, but I can’t be mad at them. Production can’t control the weather or the rotational speed of the Earth, and they have a television show to make that needs to be profitable—a show without which I would have no opportunity, callback or not. I want to be mad at the weather, but that’s as silly as something like being mad at the weather. I want to be mad at the people who started the walk-on lines so early and/or with rules disadvantageous to me, but I suppose I can’t really be mad about that either, because I probably would’ve done the same thing if I had the opportunity to be in their shoes. I can’t even be mad at myself, because I did absolutely everything I could to have my cake and eat it too. I could say I regret going to Vietnam, but that’s not true either because it’s an amazing experience and also because of how I performed (and if/when you find out my result when the show airs this late summer, you’ll understand why). I have all this anger and frustration and nowhere to put it.

(Official run numbers from Miami, Vietnam, and Minneapolis, in order. )

Why tell all of this? I’m unable to answer that entirely. Maybe I want people to understand the suffering I and others have gone through for this show. Maybe I want to create a sense of recognition for the walk-ons, who are the largely the most dedicated competitors out there and fight tooth and nail for a chance to prove themselves, yet usually only receive a cursory glance. Maybe I want people to feel sorry for me. It’s probably all of the above and more. I know this story is completely a by-product of my choices. I made my own bed, and I have to sleep in it. Maybe this is how I’m coping with the defeat, my own way of moving on. Prolonged lamentation only serves to hold us in the past, after all.

Undoubtedly, when I tell this story to my students, or partygoers, or random wide-eyed Monday-night couch-surfers, they’ll ask me a new question along with all the old ones:

"Why put yourself through that?"

And the answer is because I can tell you with absolute certainty that in this moment, I would give anything to go back in time to the hell in Miami if any chance existed that the rainstorm would hold out for another hour. The suffering I endured at the end of March and beginning of April pales in comparison to what I’m experiencing right now, having just finished my drive home from line #7.

Last year, I was accepted into an MFA for Screenwriting program at one of the top film conservatories in the world. I was also accepted into my alma mater for a second bachelor’s degree in astrophysics (my first was in English, hence my love of telling stories). I turned them both down to work at a ninja gym full time. I’m a ninja who writes, not a writer who ninjas. I have devoted every fiber of my being to the Ninja Warrior life. It saved me, after all (fat, depressed kid who weighed 225 lbs at my heaviest eleven years ago…I was 159.5 on the comp day in Miami this year). Ninja Warrior gave me meaning, it gave me hope. I don’t really get interviewed in walk-on lines anymore (production pretty much knows everything about me at this point), but they do always ask me one question, "Why do you do Ninja Warrior?"

And I pause. Then I look up with a smile and reply, "Ninja Warrior is my home."

*For the safety and respect of those involved with the show in any capacity (competitor, production, or otherwise) certain names and locations have been omitted.