By ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA -- A Massena woman will be a contender on an upcoming episode of American Ninja Warrior.

Jessica Hurlbut will compete on the show that pits contestants against each other in obstacle course runs.

Her episode will be filmed May 26 and 27 in Philadelphia and air June 29, Hurlbut said.

Hurlbut was among 12 applicants picked from a pool of 50,000 for the show’s northeast region.

The show will be a qualifying round. If she does well she will get to a city finals round and contend for a shot at the show’s overall finals in Las Vegas.

She said the obstacles will be surprises, except the first and last, which are the same in each episode.

The opening challenge is called a quad step. The contestant jumps sideways from step to step and at the end leaps to a rope.

“They make them go higher and higher up and you jump to this rope that’s really far away,” Hurlbut said.

A demonstration of the quad steps is at http://bit.ly/1T8Jpsh.

The final challenge is the 15-foot warped wall.

“It’s like a slanted wall, you have to run up it and grab the ledge,” according to Hurlbut.

A short video showing that is at http://bit.ly/1TzZ3qT.

She said everything in between the two won’t be revealed until the show films.

“There’s about three or four other obstacles … balance and agility obstacles,” Hurlbut said.

She said because there are so many recurring contestants, the show creators are trying to up the ante with the obstacles.

“They’re making it harder,” she said. “There are people who do this every year, so they can do this in their sleep.”

She said her athletic experience is more geared toward running, so she has had to focus her training on the upper body.

“The endurance level would probably be my strength. Being a runner, you don’t use your arms much,” she said.

This isn’t the first time she has tried to get on the show.

“Two years ago I had a call from them randomly. They wanted an all-girls episode,” she said. “I didn’t get picked, I didn’t have much training.”

This time around, she had to submit a three-minute video talking about herself, in addition to answering a lengthy questionnaire before she was chosen.

“What you have to do is go online and there’s a zillion questions about yourself, your life, everything. It’s very bizarre, little to do about your athletic ability,” she said. “I did that in December and you just wait.”

Her audition video is at http://bit.ly/27dI3R5/

Hurlbut trains at what she describes as a “ninja gym” in Essex, Vt.

It offers training on obstacles much like the ones on the show. Her audition video shows her training on some of them.

“Had just opened, so I figured I’d check it out … I really loved the people that worked there, the guy that built it,” Hurlbut said. “Got more and more interested, met a lot of people… have a friend that did the show last year.

“Going to Vermont really sparked my interest.”

She said she wants to use her time on the show to promote awareness of foster parenting and adoption.

She and her husband, Greg, have two siblings they adopted through foster care, in addition to three biological children.

“That was really the main reason I wanted to do it, was hoping to get the word out more,” she said. “We started fostering … back in 2012 and we couldn’t get over even just in our county how big of a need there is.”

She said there are only 40 foster families in St. Lawrence County to fill what she describes as “such a huge need.”

She said Department of Social Services calls them on a regular basis with children in need of a foster home, some of whom are freed from their parents and need a permanent home.

“Their parents have lost their rights to these chidlren, so they’re able to be adopted so there’s no one who wants to adopt them and they spend their lives going from house to house,” Hurlbut said.

She says she believes if more people become aware of how many children out there need foster homes or to be adopted, more people might open their doors to them.

“It’s the best thing we’ve ever done. We have a daughter and a son because of it,” she said.