Okay so I guess for starters, my name is Gavin Ross, I’m from Washington DC, and I’ve been paddling all my life as well as wanting to compete on American Ninja Warrior for most of my life. I was a fan of the original show ‘Sansuke’, which took place in Japan, but in 2008 the show came to the U.S. And I immediately tried to sign up but there was a 21 year and limit.
So I waited until I turned 21 and filled out the online application and created a submission video and sent everything in. They never called me back. I was so shocked when I didn’t get a call back I was thinking if a young guy like me with such a unique background and come up story doesn’t get in what the f@ck do you have to do to get on the show. So I said I’ll try again next year and if I don’t get a call back I’ll stop trying.
I redid all the paperwork and video, sent it in, they say they get in touch with people about a month out from qualifiers. So there are 3 weeks until qualifiers, I’m pissed, my dream is never gonna happen. And then I get a call from the NBC office.
I saved a video of an NFL player being drafted cause that’s exactly what it was like, so after all that I realized I had 3 weeks to train for this thing, that might I stayed up until 1 or 2 in the morning switching on and off from 3 sets of Pull ups to a dead hang. And I just did that circuit for about 4 hours. From then on I started paddling more and more, I started doing Pull ups on towels hung from the pull up bar and anything else I could think of to get my grip strength better. Since there were no ninja gyms near me all I could do was get better grip.
Qualifiers are in Philadelphia, me and my girlfriend drive up together, I do all the interviews and green screen they need, then the night of city qualifiers comes the next day. They don’t shoot until it gets dark, that means runs don’t start until around 8. All the competitors have been at the venue until 4, each run can take anywhere between 1 minute and 8 minutes, there are a hundred athletes at each qualifier. Simple math here tells me that there will be people running at 4 maybe 5 in the morning and I might be one of them. Sure enough 3am rolls around and one of the producers walks into the athlete warm up zone and rattles off a list of 5 people who are up next, I was the 5th.
People don’t really understand how intimidating a Ninja course can be, all the lights, cameras, fans watching you, producers watching you, the course is much taller than it looks also. The best thing I did for myself was remember reading Mark Oldershaw’s self-written recap of his awesome 2012 1000m race, the part that stuck with me and helped me on the course was when he said “I had to remember, I already made it into the A final at the Olympics, not many people can say that, so whatever happens after this point doesn’t matter” (or something along those lines) and that made me realize, I am about to compete on American Ninja Warrior, not many people can say that, so the rest doesn’t matter, I made it here now I’m just here to have fun.
The course was. so. much. fun.
I was focused the entire time but inside I was screaming like a child, City Qualifiers consisted of 6 obstacles and I made it all the way to the 5th one. Which for a rookie was very good, as said by one of the producers, We had to stay until the last runner since I wasn’t sure if I had made top 30, top 30 is defined by the top 30 competitors who made it the furthest, the fastest, and if you were in top 30 you advance to the city Finals the following night. By the stroke of Jesus I was 26th, me and my girlfriend got back to our hotel 30 minutes before breakfast started there and slept until noon. I remember all of that day trying to joke about what had happened that night and joke about how well I did as a rookie and not let it sink in to reality that I might be a competitive athlete here. I credit so much of my success the 1st night to being care free and enjoying the experience that I didn’t want to change my mentality to being competitive. So another thing that they don’t show you on TV is that weekend Philadelphia was hit by a massive thunderstorm and that more than once on the second night we had to shut everything down because of lightning. And what should have started at 8 again didn’t start until more like 11:30 because of rain. They also don’t mention the fact that some athletes (me) ran the course when it was still wet which made it that much harder. Regardless, I was able to keep my care free attitude and I approached the course the same way. When I got to the obstacle that took me out the night before I took a moment to compose myself and allowed my mind to be taken over by my competitive “take no prisoners” state and was able to complete it.
I was so relieved when I hit the mat on the other side it was like winning a race you knew you shouldn’t have been able to. I continued the course and got to the obstacle I was most looking forward to, the salmon ladder. Paddlers who have watched the show have always said that would be the obstacle that would be most easy for us, I’ve got news for us paddlers, we were right. I completed the 1st rung and shot a look to my family and smiled, then completed the rest easily, unfortunately I fell on the next obstacle. What made me satisfied about my runs were I got farther or just as far as any other rookie did, then failed on 2 obstacles that were completely new to Ninja Warrior. Once again we had to stay and wait for every competitor to finish so I could see if I made top 15. Top 15 determines if you made the national finals in Las Vegas, once again I was reluctant to stay thinking there was no way that I could have done that, but somehow, I managed to make top 10. It wasn’t until the next day when I woke up again at noon that I allowed myself to let all the events that just transpired to sink in, I layed in bed and could barely catch my breath hands holding my forehead still not believing that by their standards I was one of the top Ninjas in the country, with only 3 weeks of training.
Coming home the National Finals were a month away so I took the 1st week slowly to recover from the qualifiers, you actually get really really sore from each night, and I started looking for Ninja Gyms near me. The closest one was 45mins away all the other were over an hour, I decided that once a week I would make a day trip to the Ninja Gyms and stay there for the day, during the rest of the week I would paddle. So 3 weeks pass and I feel good about my training, I land in Vegas, hate it immediately, so I spent most of my days in my hotel doing yoga and meditation. Going into stage 1 with the same care free mindset, not as a competitor, but as an athlete that’s just there, I fell on an obstacle called the jumping spider where you jump off a trampoline and have to wedge yourself in between 2 walls. I got a good jump but immediately lost traction, it was disappointing to say the least my goal was to make it to stage 2 but I was able to make the National Finals and that was still great. One of the best parts of Ninja Warrior were the people, I grew up watching a lot of them and the rest I have watched for years and looked up to a lot of them. I got to talk with many about training and lifestyle’s and show them pictures of what my sport of sprint canoeing was, I’m happy to say that all of them were interested in canoe and all were incredibly humble and nice to talk to. Yes, Drew Drechsel, is everything he is on camera in real life.
I have to say though that the part I was most happy about competing on Ninja Warrior was it reminded me how fun competing can be, it doesn’t have to always be blood, sweat and tears. I carried that with me to U.S. Nationals in Canoe and with most of my summer focusing on Ninja Warrior I had little preparation for Nationals. It didn’t bother me though cause that was the theme of the summer, train for 3 weeks and have fun, I had 3 weeks to train for qualifiers, I trained for 3 weeks for Vegas, and I trained for 3 weeks for Nationals. I was a pro at that point about not caring what the results were as long as I had an equal chance at winning like everyone else and if I had fun.
Gavin Ross, Sprint Canoer/American Ninja Warrior Finalist.
Any individuals in sports and fitness who would like to share their voice, please submit to hank@hankfittraining.com