Within 2 days I have had 2 great emotional accomplishments; running the Grand Canyon Rim to River and passing the CPA Audit exam. One was physically tough, the other was mentally tough. And the more I think about, the more I am convinced pursuing the CPA certification is just like qualifying for the IRONMAN World Championship (Pre-Covid).

In 2016 (after 8 attempts and 4 years) I finally secured one of the few qualifying spots in Cairns, Australia through the roll down process. I then went to Kona the same year. But then in 2018, I qualified again after only 4 attempts and 2 years. However this time, I earned one of the 40 spots by coming 2nd in my A/G. Historically the top 1-3% of athletes got to Kona, I was one of them.

In an IRONMAN, there are people that take the entire 17 hours to complete the 2.4mile swim, 112mile bike ride, and 26.2mile run and they must meet that cutoff or it doesn’t count. They may have attempted the race multiple times before and failed. Even some of those near 17 hour finishers may qualify for Kona but then they’d need to go to Hawaii, and do it again in a non-wetsuit swim, 90F temps and 80% humidity in the lava fields, and run the Queen K, again within 17 hours for it to count.

For the CPA, I’m one of the back-of-the-packers like in an IRONMAN and I just passed the Audit exam with a 75, the minimum passing score, after failing with a 70 the first time. Now I’m heading to “Kona” and I have to take FAR (Financial Accounting and Reporting), for the 3rd time hoping to improve from a 61 to a 67 to a >=75. Having now studied for 18 months, I know what works and doesn’t work for me. I also know my body and how to balance my life, remain focused, relaxed, and also deal with the mental roller coaster of the CPA Exam which is one of the hardest professional exams to pass.

Know your why: They always say this. For me it’s to have the requirements to satisfy CFO/Financial Director/Controllership roles in Australia where we plan to move back to in 2027; most finance professionals down-under have a CA or CPA.

Obtain Resources: Working at RTX (Raytheon), I signed up for Becker (Free of charge).

Build a plan: I planned out the 2024 with the goal of passing FAR & AUD. I repeated a revised plan in 2025 and culminated them around trips and holidays while marathon/triathlon training 12 hours per week and working 40 hours per week.

Execute the plan and adjust: Audit was very close to my role as a Program Cost and Schedule Control Finacial Manager but I never took Audit at Northeastern in my BSBA or Bentley in my MSF. So I went through all the videos and questions the first time taking a binder full of notes. The passing time I went through questions daily having “built my base”

Looking forward: Yesterday, the day after running 24.6 miles over 6hr27minutes to the Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, climbing 5,794′ I became more inspired by R3 (Rim to Rim to Rim) than I have been with anything since attempting to qualify for Kona from 2012 – 2016, that I cancelled our hotels for the T100 Las Vegas race we were going to do in October, bought a new trail running pack, and set my sights on this ~50mile run with 11,000′ of climb for November 13, 2025. And now that I know I have passed AUD, I will plan to take the exam again around November 10th giving me another 5 1/2 months to study.

I know this will not be easy. I got this.