“My junior year of high school, I got in a car accident. I ended up breaking my back, which resulted with me being in a wheelchair. After that, sports fell to the wayside. In college, the only workout I got was going to and from class. There was a lack of fitness. I was never really out of shape, because of the miles I was putting on going back and forth from classes. But once I graduated, I got an office job where I wasn’t doing all of that wheeling anymore. I was sitting at a desk all day, so I started packing on some pounds. It’s amazing how quickly you can do it and how you don’t really notice. I was trying to motivate myself by working out a little bit, but it wasn’t consistent. Then in 2012, my sister came home for a holiday weekend. She had recently dropped 160 pounds and was doing all sorts of different races. She started talking about this upcoming 10k she was doing, and up until that point, I had never done a race, let alone thought about competing. There’s always been a competitive nature between us. I was getting a little mouthy with her, and I jokingly said, that doesn’t seem hard. She said, not only do I think you couldn’t beat me, I don’t think you could finish the race. So, I accepted the challenge. I forgot about our conversation, but on the following Tuesday, I got a text from my sister saying, here’s the link to sign up for the race. I had 1 month to train. The block around my house is 1 mile, so I would go out every night and do 1-2 laps. When the 10k race started, I remember making it around the 1st of 2 laps, and I thought I was going to die, but I knew I had to finish. I ended up finishing and beating my sister. After that, I thought maybe there is something to this. There was a sense of accomplishment. I started looking for more races. I competed in a half marathon, and did it in this chair. And now, 4 years later, I’ve gotten to the point where I’m getting invited to do races throughout the country. I’ve done multiple marathons. I’m competing with guys who just finished the Paralympics. Granted, they’re smoking me in these races, but I’m getting better and starting to keep up with them. I’m having a blast. Since I started doing this, everything in my life has gotten better. It’s not just the physical aspect of it. If I have a bad day, or a bad workout, or a bad race, I know I have tomorrow to get back on track. Instead of concentrating on things that are detrimental to my health, I’m concentrating on the healthy things in my life and working on getting better each day. I’m able to do things now that I couldn’t at the beginning of the year, and I want to keep improving.”