Life happens.  It all starts out exciting but eventually, the responsibilities of life can smack you in the face.  Jobs, caring for people, caring for things, managing budgets: It’s all the important stuff we need to grow and maintain a life. The garbage has to be taken out, the dishes and laundry must be done, the lawn perpetually needs to be mowed and the pesky checking account has gotta be filled.

Believe me, I get a serious sense of accomplishment when a closet is nicely organized and all the laundry is folded and put away. But this “bounce a quarter on it” folded laundry satisfaction cannot sustain a person. Sleepy contentment can take a grip on someone if they let it. Although I appreciate and celebrate the importance of the tasks of routine, for me… life, every second of it, is meant to be lived to its fullest, and sometimes that means scaring myself a little and stepping wayyyyy outside of my routine. Putting myself in situations that are far from laundry and so distant from moments where I am in & out of snores at 8pm in front of American Pickers. Yawn…

Remember when you were a kid and you ran and ran and ran everywhere you went? Like, literally ran. Sprinted and road your bike fast, like scary fast. Sometimes you would wipe-out good and hard, leaving you with a serious gravel filled scrape. It hurt, but then, you had a cool, crack-y scab for a while. I wore mine like a medal of bravery.  The potential of a crash and ouch were all part of the allure of the race.   My legs still have faded scars from a few of my crashes, They boast sentimental pride. I always liked racing on the slippery-slidey of gravel roads. It added just enough danger; an uncertainty that the regular pavement didn’t offer. The exhilaration of it all and the adrenaline pumping through my veins had me high on life. In these moments, I felt completely alive.

One afternoon a few years back, a particularly uneventful day, I was watching my kids outside with their friends. I watched them run and race, being rough and tumble.  It brought me back and made me want to race, run and feel that rush of tough & wild.  I had this overwhelming feeling to get grass stains and throw the laundry right up in the air and mess up my perfect closet.  At that moment, I knew I needed something in my life to mix things up a little, something exciting. I needed something that would make me have to be brave and a fearless like back in the day.

As a responsible adult, what do you do to test your brave and fearless ways?  A friend and happy benefactor of my passion for cooking, suggested an audition for Masterchef.   As a passionate untrained home cook, you can easily push yourself to get to the slippy-slidey aspect of cooking but, then, add competition and cameras for a real opportunity to completely wipe-out.  This is exactly what I needed.  The exhilaration of a real competition, one where the whole world could see me win, lose, stumble or rise to the top.  This was the opportunity to set myself on a path to push and challenge myself.  Food competition and the excitement of the bumps, stumbles and scrapes along the way are not about winning for me, although I strive for it, it’s about personal development and discovery.  It’s such an opportunity to grow as human. As crazy as some moments can seem, for me, being a food competitor has truly been a gift.

So, is this what makes you love Food Sport? The “push yourself to the edge” kinda thing? Tell me below! What brought you to WFC? Why do you strive to be the best? What do you love about food competition? Tell me! Tell me! Do you love racing fast on slippy-slidey gravel like me? If so, get qualified and join us for some fun at WFC in Las Vegas this November!