In 2017 I was diagnosed with diabetes. I guess all those years of drinking beer and eating twinkies had finally got the best of me. I realize my diet was horrible, workouts were nonexistent and my working schedule did me no favors. So I decided to walk every day 4-6 miles with my knot head dog Molly, who at the time had no boundaries for being naughty. For a while, it worked my sugars were under control and I was getting healthy again. Then the big move to Alaska happened and my life went back to the same old unhealthy habits. Super frustrating! Then we found a gym and the family started working out together healthy habits happened and the “betes” was controlled again. Then one night at work it happened I started vomiting violently at work. I remember telling my charge nurse I think I need to go home. She was like “hell no” you’re going to the ER (luckily I worked at a hospital), she through my ass in a wheelchair, and to the ER we went. I had an emergent CT and I was not prepared for the results. The Doc came in and told Melissa and me that I had a small bowel obstruction. As he was walking out the door he turned “Oh also it looks like you have a tumor on your kidney” and walked out. We looked at each other and just started laughing, did he just tell me I have cancer? Why yes he did and it turned out it was the most aggressive type. Well, I won’t bore you with details, but I ended up having a radical nephrectomy (basically they took my left kidney out). Ugh! Back to square one with healthy habits. Then luckily a year later I had a double abdominal hernia lifting a 400 lb patient. WOW! Back to square one again. One bad thing after another my health was taking a beating. Now I’m 56 and going nowhere good. So I decided to take control of my health and in January of 2021 started helping my younger boys Alex and Marcus train for football. Damn, I realized I am not young anymore the pain of recovering from those workouts was brutal HAHAHA!

Meanwhile, Gus was having better luck. We had a gym membership we were paying for and nobody was using it. Ugh, flushing money down the toilet!! Gus decided he wanted to do powerlifting, hallelujah the membership was getting used! At 6’2″, 320 lbs he was already the size of a small house. He did his research and started his powerlifting program. A few months into it he was deadlifting and felt something pop in his back, he was in extreme pain and could hardly move. Fortunately, he just pulled a muscle, but recovery was long and slow. Eventually, he recovered and continued his power-lifting venture. He was making great gains, getting stronger every day. In the March of 2021, our paths started to cross at the gym. Gus started plateauing in his gains and I

reached a point where I needed to advance my training. We both needed more and we needed each other. I needed someone young, ambitious with a high drive to push me to the next level. He needed some old man to show him up to push him to the next level HAHAHA! I did some research and discovered the Westside Barbell workouts. We set a time to work out together and started brutally torturing each other. As time went on our muscles became sore, but our gains were huge. Sometime in May Gus came to me with the idea of competing in strong man competitions. Which then evolved to wanting to be World’s Strongest Man! So we continued to train and started incorporating strong man movements (tire flips, the log, and of course stones). While at work one night I was getting my ass kicked! After all, it was covid pedal to the medal and people were very sick. While there is a great deal of satisfaction in being a nurse, compassion fatigue is real. I needed to focus on something to break the stress of the horrendous situation our health care system had become. Our workouts were going well and helping with the stress, but how to make it more of a hobby. I came up with the idea of Alaskan animals doing powerlifting/strong man events. Then settled on the name “Beast Alaska.” Beast Alaska was born! As time goes on we hope to turn our

idea into a product for the public to purchase. For now, Beast Alaska is a story of Gus’ journey to be a strong man, the difficulty of training in Alaska, and our adventures in the wild. Soon we will start posting on Youtube, Instagram, and Facebook. We hope you enjoy our journey and if there is something you want to see in Alaska or our workouts. Just leave a comment and we will do our best to accommodate. Get out there and “Let the Animal Out!”