Estimated read time: 6-7 minutes
PARK CITY — Once upon a time a man got married, had some kids, worked at a corporate job (or two) and made lots of money. He was very much living the life he set out to live — yet, there was something missing.
Some may call it a midlife crisis, but 39-year-old Max Valverde, of Park City, would contend by saying it's never too late to live your childhood dream of becoming a professional athlete.
For the better part of his 20s and 30s, Valverde climbed the corporate ladder, even making it on the popular show, "Shark Tank." The corporate grind took him and his family of five to many places around the world, where he managed hundreds of employees and grew brands that he would eventually sell for a large profit.
According to Valverde, however, that climb to the top came at a cost, and that included his physical health. So, when the software company where he was CEO sold, he decided it was time for a new set of goals.
He moved his family to Park City for its unmatched active lifestyle — including mountain biking, hiking and backcountry skiing. Valverde said what he learned in the backcountry is what spurred his next stage in life.
"I do this thing where I write down who I want to be in five, 10, 15, 20 years — like what I want to be when I grow up. When the software company was sold, I was like, 'Well, you know, I don't really want to start another software company and have 500 employees, because it's really stressful,'" he said. "I really loved backcountry touring, and then someone told me that it was going to be in the Olympics in 2026. There was this weird thing in my head that I kind of started thinking about and saying, 'Look, if my life and my family's life depended on it, I know I could make the U.S. Olympic team in four years.'"
The Olympic team that Valverde is talking about is the ski mountaineering team, referred to as "skimo." Skimo is one of the newest winter sports offered at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Milano Cortina, Italy. It is a sprint race where athletes ascend up to 262 vertical feet and then ski back down, according to the U.S. Ski Mountaineering Association.
Now, if you think that going from "dad bod" to pro/Olympic athlete is a far reach — perhaps, even impossible — that's where Valverde wants to prove you wrong. He said he lived his corporate life, and now it's time to flip the script.
"We have pop culture and society saying things like, 'Oh, you can't be an athlete when you're older,'" Valverde said. "Well, you only lose 1% of your muscle mass over the age of 30 or 40 and it's just lifestyle that gets in the way. I feel like a lot of people just try to justify the most common position, when, really, a lot of the time it's just lifestyle factors that get in the way.
"You hear people going to med school when they're 30, and becoming a surgeon at 45," he continued. "There's a cool story in there of flipping the script a little bit and asking if a decent athlete could start competing at the highest level. I believe there is a physical beast inside all of us."
From 'dad bod' to pro athlete
Valverde is a self-proclaimed "above average" athlete who, according to a recent social media post on his @dadbodgoespro accounts on Instagram and TikTok, as a child he dabbled in sports like baseball, football, basketball and rugby. Valverde acknowledged that not all men his age have the time to devote to becoming a pro athlete, but he is in a position where he does have the time. For Valverde, it really is about realizing a dream and seizing the opportunity.
"I'm attempting to do it from a place of balance where I'm still there for my family," he said. "Because of the sale of my company, I'm home a lot. I'm there in the morning, and I drop the kids off for school. I work out for five hours and then I pick them up after school. I'm there from 3 p.m. onward and I only work out during the week and I don't on the weekends."
The training has paid off, and Valverde is very much on that Olympic bound track.
I believe there is a physical beast inside all of us.
–Max Valverde
In fact, he recently took 12th place in the country among skimo pros, many half his age. He also landed a deal with outdoor retail company, Backcountry, solidifying his pro athlete status.
Whether Valverde makes it to the Olympics or not, he said he has a secondary goal that has nothing to do with him, and everything to do with the sport he has grown to love.
Putting skimo on the US map
Since moving to Park City, Valverde has met many pro athletes who train in the very same mountains, and one of them is 17-year-old Griffin Briley who is widely known as the 2026 Olympic favorite.
"Typically, in an open field in the World Cup in Europe, out of 80 athletes, Americans will come in, like, 70th. We're not globally competitive except for in the under 18 category," Valverde said. "Griffin Briley, out of Park City, won everything this year. He's 17 years old, from Park City, and (he) won everything. He's the actual Olympic favorite.
"So, part of my goal is to grow awareness for the sport. If I can get up to 500,000 followers — a million followers by 2026 —everyone knows what the sport is."
Valverde has been sharing his story on social media, gaining tens of millions of views with many viewers having not even heard of skimo before.
"I think that there's a lot of people who should be doing skimo," Valverde said. "There are a lot of people doing 10Ks and marathons, and you know, there's a lot of overlap with those people who know how to ski. And when those people come to Park City to train, they learn that this is the most amazing sport of all time. So I'm thinking, well, why can't I grow that?"
"And, even if it's not me who goes to the Olympics, maybe I'll be the announcer and I can announce Griffin Briley taking home gold," he said. "Either way, I'm going for it. If I'm not competing, I hope I can be one of the people who brings this sport into the public eye."
To follow Valverde's progress, he can be found on Instagram and TikTok @dadbodgoespro. He also does a podcast for dads, titled, "Milkless." That endeavor warrants another story, entirely.
