Crystal Lake man takes on 'Steve Austin's Broken Skull Challenge' on CMT

He didn’t break his skull, but Keith Puralewski of Crystal Lake did break two fingers when he took on “Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Challenge.”

Puralewski, a restaurant manger by day who’s taken on at least 100 obstacle courses throughout the country in the past five years, competed as part of the television series that pits athletic contenders against one another.

In an episode taped at the end of July and airing at 9 p.m. Oct. 24 on Country Music Television, Puralewski will take on seven other competitors. At age 48, he’s the oldest among them, the rest being “kids in their 20s,” he said.

In the California desert heat, the competitors face off against one another in a series of intense challenges, with only one advancing to a “skullbuster” challenge designed by Austin, who went by Stone Cold Austin as a Hall of Fame professional wrestler, and the chance to win $10,000.

Attracting more than 4 million weekly viewers, the series has featured world-renowned athletic contenders, including Spartan, CrossFit, power-lifters, professional athletes and mixed-martial arts fighters.

Although Puralewski couldn’t reveal the outcome of his competition, he did say the nearly year-and-a-half worth of effort – videos he sent in, interviews, Skype calls and such – it took him to get on the show was worth it in the end.

“The entire experience was surreal, just to see what goes into the filming of an episode like that,” Puralewski said.

For Puralewski, the challenge was trench warfare in which he and another contestant had to get past one another through a 5-foot-deep trench filled with about 4 feet of water to ring a bell. They then had to turn around, get past one another and reach the bell on the other side.

“I know Stone Cold said it’s one of his favorite obstacles,” Puralewski said. “It’s a matter of who wants it more. It was extremely physical. It was physical enough I walked away and had two broken fingers.

“I can’t say anymore. If I win I go onto another competition. If I lose, I don’t. Tell everybody to watch and see if a Crystal Lake resident wins.”

Puralewski, the general manager of California Pizza Kitchen in Deer Park, goes to the gym seven days a week and races most weekends during race season. He recently competed in the Obstacle Course Racing World Championship in Canada, a competition avid obstacle course racers must qualify for in order to enter.

Drawing about 3,000 athletes from 67 countries, it involves a half-marathon and more than 47 obstacles. Fail an obstacle, your band gets cut.

Puralewski’s band was not cut.

“It was just an amazing spectacle,” he said. “It was the most physical and mentally demanding thing I’d ever done in my life. I actually shed a tear when I walked off the course. I was overwhelmed.”

Always athletic – a wrestler in high school and college and what he described as a “gym rat” – Puralewski began obstacle course racing about five years ago for the challenge.

“I kind of fell off [working out] because I didn’t have that sport to train for,” he said. “I found obstacle course racing and fell in love. … It gave me a reason to go to the gym other than vanity or health. There’s not a day that goes by that I’m not in the gym, at least for a little bit. I’m 48. I have to keep up with these young punks out there.”

He tries to balance the exercise with family, though, ensuring he spends enough time with his wife and two children, ages 17 and 12.

In the restaurant business his entire working life, he said his passion is customer service. He’d like to one day turn his love for racing into at least a part-time job as a personal trainer or something of that nature “to inspire people to get into shape and join this wonderful sport instead of sitting on a couch.”