Matt Davis was a self-described everyday guy. “I was your average 40-year-old, married with a couple of kids kinda guy that played neighborhood softball and an occasional flag football game. No one would call me obese, but I certainly wasn’t in shape. I couldn’t run more than a mile.” He did his first obstacle course race, the Warrior Dash, because it sounded fun, it seemed manly, and you got a goofy hat and a turkey leg. He wasn’t looking to change his life; his sensation-seeking personality drew him into activities with a high adventure factor.

An obstacle course race (OCR), also known as a mud run, is an adventure endurance race. Swamp Dash and Bash, Tough Mudder and Beast Race are some of the more popular ones. Those who pay to participate can look forward to the muddy mayhem, arctic enema, cry baby, and more. These are the affectionate names mudders give to such activities as belly-crawling underneath barbed wire with your face in the mud, sliding feet first into a pond of icy water, and crawling through a tent filled with tear gas. It all sounds like a scheme that might have been concocted by Dr. Evil to thwart Austin Powers. I guess the sharks with lasers attached to their heads were already booked.