For those seeking inspiration to kick-start their healthy New Year’s Resolutions, look no further than Scott Ragsdale.
Scott is a Dubai-based American businessman who can best be described as an adventurer and endurance fanatic.
For most people, completing a marathon or for the even an Ironman triathlon is a fantastic fitness endeavour – and they would quite rightly feel great for doing it. Scott does Ironman triathlons for training.
Highlights of Scott’s fitness CV to date include swimming across the English Channel, half of the 3,000km Race Across America (before he retired injured), seven Ironman events in seven days, brutal desert race the Marathon des Sables, scaling Mount Kilimanjaro and completing over 20 marathons.
Ragsdale hopes to complete the Race Across America in April of this year, which will lead onto his main endurance focus: rowing solo across the Atlantic. It is a dangerous and difficult feat that only 77 people have ever managed to achieve.
What is all the more impressive is Scott’s business CV. Around his various fitness endeavors the 6ft 5in ex-swimmer has learned fluent Japanese and is the co-founder of Naseba, a business facilitation company with a global network of offices.
So why the fitness obsession? It was not always Scott’s passion. When the financial crisis hit, a slightly chubby Ragsdale decided that he needed new motivation to inspire himself professionally and personally.
The successful entrepreneur was bitten by the bug for adventure and has not looked back since, making his way through an increasingly daunting list of fitness challenges.
However it has not all been plain sailing, so to speak. Last year Ragsdale began his first attempt at the RAM and quit mid-way through due to mental fatigue and saddle sores.
But his remarkable determination to live life to its fullest and not to give up on a challenge gave him a new sense of dedication and with a new trainer he is giving it another go in April of this year.
That and the fact his wife who will not allow him to undertake his solo row across the Atlantic until this challenge is fulfilled.
While these fitness challenges would make most people of sound mind feel nauseous at the very thought, Ragsdale points out that his message is not to encourage others to set world records.
It is simply to inspire people to challenge themselves in any way, be it in sport or beating a phobia and live life away from the TV and computer screen.
With his business booming once more and his physical state never better, it is difficult to see Scott slowing down any time soon.
