Name – Steve Conway
Mudder Name – Vertebrae
Known Immunities – Asbestos, Radiation, Sadness
Favorite Movie – Back Draft, Back to the Future
Ethnicity – Irish by blood, American by adoption, Tough Mudder by choice
Favorite Song – Back in Black, AC-DC
Favorite direction – Lateral. You thought it would be back, didn't you?
Favorite in car positioning: Backseat
Favorite quote: “Conway, it means big sexy in Ireland, but in the States it just means Conway”
If Steve were an amoeba, what’s the first thing he’d do: Grow a back bone
Little known fact: Steve does not give a shit about the Honey Badger. Given the chance, he’ll prove it by completely ignoring that youtube video.
Best At What Tough Mudder Obstacle: Any that don’t involve wedging his enormous lats through a confined space
Today's Mudder of the Week is a triple threat – brawn, brains, and beauty. When he's not knocking out three hours on the rowing machine, he's off on whirlwind adventures throughout Ohio and Pennsylvania looking for asbestos in people’s ceilings and contaminated oil drums in their yard.
Steve had no choice but to grow up tough. The eighth of nine children, Steve's beginnings were humble as the pie bearing the same name. His father, Seamus O'Grady McStewart Conway, arrived on Ellis Island with his small Irish Catholic family, only two mason jars of Guinness and a potato to his name. But using his Conway wits and silver Irish tongue, Seamus traveled from swap meet to swap meet across the USA, and traded his way to a comfortable life for his family.
Potato → Unsharpened pencil
Unsharpened pencil and 1 moldy Guinness → Three left shoes
Three left shoes → Two soiled cowboy hats and a Christmas tie
(editor's note: several thousand trades omitted due to word count limit)
1 Ferrari (red), 10,000 shares of Chef Boy-R-Dee stock, and 1 moldy, nearly solidified, Guinness (half drank) → House with white picket fence, college education for six kids, vocational school tuition for the other three, 1 case expired Slim Fast
Steve and his father always had a tenuous relationship. That is until Nazis kidnapped Seamus, trying to get the noted environmentalist to decode an ancient tome said to hold the key to locating the Holy Grail. Steve pursued his father's captors across the Atlantic, simultaneously battling Nazis and an ancient sect dedicated to the Grail's protection. Spoiler alert, the Nazis shoot Seamus at the gateway to the hidden temple, and Indy... er, I mean Steve Conway... has no choice but to venture inside to save his father. You'll have to Netflix it to find out how the story ends (the traitor girl dies, and you find out Steve was named after the dog).
On another adventure, while environmentalisting through an abandoned building in Cleveland's historic Egyptian quarter, Steve made a startling discovery. Scrawled into the thick black mold coating the basement were irregular yet distinctive markings. Utilizing his photographic memory, Steve memorized the hieroglyphics and their sequence. With the frequent flyer miles racked up during previous adventures, Steve caught a plane to the British Museum to visit the Rosetta Stone.
With his mastery of the ancient Greek language Steve decoded the hieroglyphics and made an amazing discovery: the secret of the pyramids' construction wasn't primitive tools, massive amounts of slave labor, or divine intervention. The true key was the immense back strength of Egypt's people. By Steve's calculations, King Tut would have been able to carry at least two – 6 ton blocks on his meaty shoulders. And like some television infomercial workout program, the hieroglyphics showed how you too could get the back strength you'd always dreamed about with clear step by step instructions.
Steve is now developing his own workout regime, P-Nile-X, based on his discovery. While he's been successful in replicating all the moves, the diet plan is proving tricky; there's just not a reliable source for the locusts, blood water, or raining frogs in the United States. Steve has recently been spotted consulting with Tony Horton -famed Beach Body trainer and P90X creator- on developing a supplement to provide these vital nutrients. Look for “Pharaoh Fuel - Conway’s Max Back Attack” meal replacement bars in stores this Fall, and look for Steve Conway at the Tough Mudder in the South Amherst Quarries on April 14th. He’ll be the one with the huge back, rocking the shake-weight between obstacles.
(Steve Conway - Sun's Out, Guns Out)
