Idaho man finds success as Cowboy Ninja

Lance Pekus began competing on the tv show “American Ninja Warrior” six years ago.

“I’ve always been the type of person that likes to run around, hang on stuff, jump on stuff,” Pekus said.

Now knows as the “Cowboy Ninja” for his jeans and hat, he had no idea how far it would take him.

“Once I started training, I kind of started building some obstacles and realized how hard things could be,” Pekus said. “I started improving here and there, it’s kinda just exploded from there.”

In his six years, he has made it to the national finals four times. He made it to stage two of four in the finals twice. To put into perspective how good that is, only two people have ever actually completed all four stages of the final course. His training regimen is a big part of his success.

“The cool thing about Ninja Warrior training and getting that exercise in is it’s fun,” Pekus said. “You know, you can run around, do a quick course run real quick. Or, I can play around with my kids. Put them up on a bar, let them hang for a little bit and then I can get up and do some pull ups.”

In order to train on his ranch, he built obstacle courses around his house similar to those on the show. He showed me just how difficult they were. But it’s just part of the competition.

“It’s okay to keep trying,” Peekus said. “And you learn from you failures, learn from your mistakes. And just being able to try things new and not knowing if you’re going to be able to do them or not.”

Pekus has no plans to slow down. And he will continue to monkey around his ranch.

“At some point in life, society kind of tells us that we need to grow up and stop running around and climbing on things,” Pekus said. “I think a lot of the Ninja’s that are good just kind of never lost that.”

Pekus is currently in the national finals. You can watch him run stage two Monday night at 7 on NBC.