Coleman Ruiz

Within a week, I knew this was my thing.

Maybe the first practice.

What do you think it was?

So when I was younger, my aunt and uncle, when I was like seven years old, they started taking me to road races.

And I'm sure just running races, one mile and 5K races when I was really small kid.

For you to run.

To run with them.

They were into the road racing thing back in the day when it was brand new, you know, the 80s.

I'm 48, so I was born in 75.

So I was seven, you know, eight years old at the time.

And I was into like, obviously, can I win this race?

I just, the pain of the effort was so comfortable.

And then it's kind of silly, but like I won the PT competition at like the Boy Scouts thing in Audubon Park.

PT is physical.

And so I won like the, whatever, when I was young in Boy Scouts or something.

And then it just snowballed.

Then I was just like the physical activity,

still today is, I mean, if someone said, what are you really in love with?

It's that.

And so when I walked into the wrestling room, it was so extreme compared to anything else I had ever done.