In this episode, Sean Corvelle sits down with Dave Didier, the “Cancer Killer,” who will have completed 14 Tough Mudders by the end of this year. Dave discusses his cancer journey, along with his experience with Tough Mudders and all the lessons he learned along the way.
Connect with Dave on Social:
-Instagram: @Ageless_Journey
-Facebook: Dave Didier
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A LOOK INSIDE THE EPISODE:
TM: How did Tough Mudder come into your life?
D: In 2013 a friend of mine at work was talking about it. He was going to do it and I thought this is really kind of interesting because I had just gone through a weight loss journey where I had dropped 40 pounds and I wanted to do something off the wall. I was 230 pounds, I looked at myself in a mirror one day and I said this just is not working for me. I breathe heavily going upstairs, I need to do something. So I literally flipped a switch. I threw all the junk food out of the house, I started a workout program, and started eating healthy. Within a couple of years, I lost 40 pounds, I felt great. I was down to like 190, where I wanted to be in the 190 to 200 range, and I was looking for something oddball to do. So, I heard about it from a guy at work and he talked about it and told me some of the things that happen at it. I went online and looked and I saw there was one coming up in Oshkosh in Fall 2013. It was me and my son, Eric and our friend, Kyle, we all signed up. The moment we drove there on a Saturday it was pouring rain and lightning going on. We’re like, “Oh my gosh, what are we getting ourselves into.” Then, by the time we got to the course the rain stopped a little bit. We saw as we were driving past all the people walking into the event and saw some of the obstacles and it was all new to me and new to us. Then, we got into this crazy community of people, watched all the things that they do and thought, this is kind of cool, I’m kind of digging this. Along came Sean, my first MC and I’ll be honest with you, when you were saying your thing I literally took a knee, and I said a prayer and I said, “Please, Lord, get me through this afternoon.” We can do this, we can do this.
We hit the course and I’m not a fast runner, I lost speed a long time ago, so we kind of jogged it and walked some of it, and just had a great time. But I’ll never forget, we came up to Everest and it was so muddy, so slippery, so rainy. I just couldn’t get up it and I was so mad at myself. I tried like four times and I finally just said, “No, forget it. I’m not going to make it.” I’ll do it another time because I knew I was going to do one of these again. After we left that obstacle, it was interesting because you had planted military people in the fields, in the bushes by where we were. When you passed an obstacle, all of a sudden we heard them yelling and I’m like, “Where the heck is that coming from?” You really didn’t see him because they were hidden in the bushes, it really was kind of an intimidating thing. Then, when we got to the finish line, we crossed, I got hit with electroshock which hurt like the blazes and I’ll never forget that moment, of course. Getting that first headband was pretty darn awesome getting that shirt, which I still wear today and it’s been a long journey from there. But that was September or October 2013.
