Country: United States

Running has never just been about fitness for me. It’s where I found myself. Growing up, I was more into video games than sports, and I definitely wasn’t the most dedicated athlete in high school. 

That all changed in 2016 when I joined the Air Force as a SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) Specialist candidate.

The real turning point came during a brutal, scorching hot run with our cadre. Every few miles, they’d stop us to do intense calisthenics until people started quitting. But in the middle of that exhaustion and heat, I realized I was genuinely having fun. I fell in love with the suffering and the mental battle of endurance right then and there. I haven’t looked back since.

My favorite distance is 100 miles. Not just to survive, but to compete. I want to take on the hardest, most notable hundred-milers in the sport and put down times I can be proud of. That distance forces you to struggle, strips away your ego, and shows you exactly what you’re made of.

My most memorable race was the Tejon Ranch 100K. The course was wild—beautiful views, brutally hard climbs, punishing descents. But what made it unforgettable was that it was my first race as a father. Through every low point, my singular motivation was carrying my daughter across the finish line in my arms. People talk about dad strength in ultras, and I finally experienced it firsthand. It gave me a new, deeply profound why.

Here’s my philosophy: race with intention, and don’t be afraid to push the limits. Even when a training buildup isn’t perfect, you can still show up, shoot for course records, and perform.

Trail running, to me, is about being surrounded by people who love to push themselves to their absolute limit. It’s a way to strip away the noise of daily life and find out what I’m truly capable of. When you’re deep into a hundred-miler in the mountains, everything else fades away. It becomes a pure mental battle—a space where I can struggle, learn, and find purpose. Especially now, running to show my daughter what true grit and dedication look like. This community understands that shared suffering is a privilege. Getting to push the boundaries of human endurance alongside them means everything to me.

As Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”