Previously in January myself and many other Spartan racers received an email about tryouts for the second season of the Spartan Ultimate Team Challenge. I sent a video and application about a year ago for the first season, attempting to make the Elite Team Leader position. My video did make it to the producers but they did not choose me. I remember being a little bit disappointed on that one, but alas, I had a lot of stuff to do so I moved on quickly.
This year when another email came out, I was not so immediately interested. Putting together a video and application takes a bit of time. Then I received an email from COL Liam Collins, our Army obstacle course racing coach, that suggested we put together a team to try out to be led by our friend Robert Killian. Robert is Colorado Army National Guard and a Special Forces soldier. He won the Spartan World Championships in 2015 and placed 3rd at this year's event. He is now a Spartan Pro Team Member for his efforts and races frequently. He and his buddy also won the Best Ranger Competition in 2016. With Rob as our team leader along with the lineup of Army folks we have as team members, I think we would crush the challenges.
So about five days ago I began working on my video and put together my application. On the one hand, I think my video is better than last year's. On the other hand, I still didn't LOVE it. Part of the struggle in making the video is a consideration for how much time it actually takes to film, edit, voice over, then decide you hate everything you just did. Part of making the video is conforming to what the producers want to see and I am historically very bad at conforming to what other people want unless I agree with the reasoning. Since I don't own a television anymore, I'm getting further out of touch with what makes good television.
I did complete three important tasks for the video so I will give myself a little credit in that regard. #1 - the video wasn't longer than 3-min (this was very hard, I tend to go long #distancerunner). #2 - there are scenes that make it appear that I have muscle which is probably good for television (#abs). #3 - I made a funny and then I made another funny (#comedianlife).
If these producers don't laugh at me, they don't have a heart, or lungs, or a brain. I'm not sure when the decisions will be made. Applications close this Wednesday evening and word is the actual filming would be in mid-April. So I'm guessing they will have their decisions made by mid-March in order to coordinate everything in time. I have no idea what kind of chances we have as an Army team but...hopefully Liam's history with special forces, as an athlete, and as a Best Ranger Competition winner will pick up some of my slack and lack of coolage. Yes coolage is a word that I just made up but if you accept it than it's a real word now. Bryce and Ashley are also great athletes and have interesting stories...so I'm thinking if we don't get it, it's simply because we either made crappy videos OR the world just isn't ready to handle this much awesome.
I'm SO not biased.
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| Rope climbs with no legs so I can act like I'm all strong. |
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| Longboarding is fun and they want to see me being a normal person. |
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| Attempting to show some versatility by doing a 45# turkish getup. |
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| They said "show your athleticism" which is code for sell out if you have visible abs. |
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