Matt Rich's superhuman quest catches attention of Joe Flacco

For Matthew Rich, nothing has ever been easy.

The Glassboro, New Jersey native was born at 29 weeks with cerebral palsy.

Doctors said he'd never walk.

4.5 years ago, he decided to prove them all wrong and walked.

"I had said I felt like the heavyweight champion of the world. Like I had competed in a title fight. When I got to my mom, my exact words were 'it took me 28 years, but I finally did it.' I accomplished the biggest goal I ever wanted to achieve in my life. I've always wanted to walk on my own two feet since I was a little boy," Rich said. "I thought what would I do next?"

The answer surprised everyone who knew him.

Matt decided to sign up for a 5K race.

"My brother Andrew had said to me, 'dude you want to walk the last 10 yards without your crutches?' I said, 'absolutely, let's do it,'" Rich said.

Since then, he's competed in 12 races, improving his time to an hour and 14 minutes and plans to do eight more 5Ks this year.

Kind of superhuman.

Which makes sense since the Superman logo adorns his crutches and usually his shirt.

But on this day, Matt decided to wear the jersey of Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco.

The reason? Rich is trying to land on a national TV show and the fellow South Jersey native has recently taken to Twitter to support him.

"That really meant a lot that he took the time to do that. When he did that, it really caught everybody's attention," Rich said.

Which is all Matt is trying to do - capture attention for a condition that may slow him down, but will never stop him.

"To me the most important thing is cerebral palsy is the celebrity, Matt Rich is just the guy God chose to carry it to the stage," Rich said.

LINK: http://superfitnessfirst.com/