197 Miles Later
The 2010 Hood to Coast is in the books and Team Amazing Awaits proudly left the beach—some limping, some yawning, most doing both—knowing they set a new team record! 27 hours, 46 minutes, finishing 374th overall.
The picturesque scene at the Timberline Lodge at base of Mount Hood provided a fitting start for the race and it was all downhill from there! 
While there were 1000 teams—12,000 people—in the race, not all teams start at the same time and so there’s ample room on the mountainside. Start times span across a 12-hour period, beginning at 6:30am; our team’s punishment began at 11. After the traditional team photo with the Mt Hood backdrop, Jeano started things off for Team AA with a 5-mile steep descent, followed by another similar leg ran by Tasha—later dubbed “Puker.” Puker then handed the wristban off to her boyfriend, Darin—later dubbed “The Puker Cleaner-Upper” who handed off to Chris, who relayed to this writer who gladly passed on to Courtney, a man more manly than his name projects.
Not one mile into my 6.08 mile section I came upon a Canadian woman who looked an awful lot like a random runner I’d met at about mile 5 of last May’s 56-mile Comrades marathon in South Africa. As I passed her and had that thought, she said, “Is that you, Paul? It’s Cathy from Comrades!” The moment “Is” crossed her lips I knew it was her. I ran along side her for a brief spell and made the expected small talk about how cool it was to cross paths on the other side of the planet at another amazing event. She then told me to stop talking and start running…
The finish of my first leg ended with a 1.5 mile uphill push which I truly enjoyed pushing, “killing” as many competitors as I could before handing off to Courtney. Other than the blister on the very bottom of Stumpy that I imagined might suck later in the race, I was happy with the effort which took approximately 43 minutes (the time keeping system lacks exactness) or just over seven-minute miles.
After Courtney’s leg, Van 1’s duties were on hold while the other half dozen team members comprising Van 2 did their thing. Meanwhile, we were treated to showers and a fine dinner at Jeano’s athletic club in downtown Portland (I had the grilled salmon and mud pie/espresso desert!), near the second van transition, pictured here. 
The crowd at the van transition erupted as Van 2’s closing runner, above-knee amputee Sandy Dukat, came around the corner.
Sandy handed off to Jeano before that half of the team headed out for food and a rest. Had Jeano had the good fortune of starting ten seconds earlier, two hundred yards later she wouldn’t have been at the front end of 150 other runners awaiting the passing of a boat under a Willamette River drawbridge! The stall lasted six minutes which I’m sure seemed like 30 to those stuck there. (Jeano second run marked the beginning of darkness and, fittingly, her third and final leg, 12 runners later, marked the dawn of a new day.)
After we all had our second run, Van 2 took over at around 2am and we drove directly to the next van transition at an open field where the organizers had roped off a couple large rectangles for athletes to throw down their sleeping bags. These areas are then awashed in 10,000 mega watt spot lights to add to the sleep challenge—although they say the lights are to save athletes from getting run over by sleepy van drivers as has happened in the past.
I was rudely awakened in my 67th minute of sleep when Van 2’s recon man let it be known they had arrived. Jeano was off and running and we were soon packed up and on the road again.
Perhaps it was the dinner, the stop-n-starting of the van experience, or both, that caused Tasha’s innards to disagree with her, but in any case her anxiety rose as Jeano approached the exchange. She was already having trouble keeping things from exiting both designated in-n-out orifices and I was told later that my comment to her, “If you pass out or puke or crap yourself, just shake it off—or wipe it off,” which I yelled from across the street among many fellow runners, brought her nary an ounce of confidence. A mile later she earned the Puker moniker. Perhaps we should have been a bit more respectful as the tough young lady didn’t walk a yard of the rest of her alloted mileage before puking again after handing off the wristlet…
Said wristlet was handed off in proper succession before I grabbed it for my final leg which began with a steep three-mile ascent followed by an equally steep three-mile descent. Given a choice, I’ll take an uphill battle any day; for me downhills are stump pounding/soundside quad pounding punishment. Yes, I often run these backward to lessen the discomfort, but since I was looking to go as fast as possible and since it would be over soon, I did my best to let it fly. In doing so, that blister from section #1 opened up and I was soon reduced to walking backward in search of the fastest, most manageable means of covering the next two miles. Thankfully, the final mile was less steep and at the third reboot I thought to move a sweat-loosened preventive-maintenance laden Tegaderm bandage from one area to loosely cover the pink, moist under layer of derm. This made a 12-minute mile shuffle manageable and I reached the transition with minimal misery.
Courtney then ripped into his final leg and soon Van 1 was headed to the finish line at Seaside beach for bratwurst, beers and bragging rights. A couple hours later we were informed that our teammates in Van 2 were closing in and it would soon be confirmed that Team Amazing Awaits would set a new team record (this was the third year in a row The Hartford has sponsored this team). Sandy Dukat hobbled along the soft sand toward the finish line on her $30,000 above-knee prosthesis made with Ossur parts at A Step Ahead Prosthetics. The crowd cheered, the teammates put up the high-fives and it was confirmed, once again, that some segments of mankind are incomplete without self-induced suffering.
Another Perfect Weekend
This past Sunday the New York City Triathlon hosted the the Paratriathlon national championships for the seventh consecutive year. I, too, was there for a seventh go at it. As one my expect, everything over the weekend went perfectly and life was enriched because of it.
The notables started, as they often do, at the airport on the way out of Denver. I took advantage of the technology Expedia offered and downloaded my itinerary—which my prosthetics provider A Step Ahead of Hicksville, NY provided me—directly to my computer’s calendar. This made it so easy to keep track of my departure time and, hence, show up with plenty of time to spare. Nevertheless, I missed yet another flight.
Let it be a lesson to you all that despite a departure from the Mountain time zone, the downloaded version of your itinerary could be on Eastern time.
The nice lady behind the counter at check-in actually remembered me from my flight to South Africa a couple of months back. She kindly checked, free of charge, my bike and bag a healthy 14 hours before my newly scheduled 1:00AM flight, making it a breeze to head back home and cook up a delicious kale soup to enjoy with my family and neighbors in our driveway—the kids played on bikes and scooters while the day’s light dwindled. After dinner and toddler clean-up, I snuck in an hour of shut-eye before heading back to DIA for the red-eye.
Airline sleep is typically difficult to come-by so I did something completely novel for me: I brought my own pillow! And it worked perfectly. I had a whole row to myself, laid my head upon my personal bedding and slept so well they had to wake me up on the tarmac in NYC after everyone had already deplaned. Perfect.
It was then 6:30AM EST and the nice people at Delta ensured me that despite my luggage’s alternate route to Minneapolis, it would be in by 2pm and delivered to my hotel by 6pm. This would make my trip into the city so much smoother without having to lug that bike with me. Perfect.
At 6pm the nice lady at Delta’s baggage counter informed me that my stuff had been noted as “Departed,” but just to make sure she’d check it’s progress toward Manhattan. “Looks like it never left the deck. It’ll got out on the 8pm delivery, you’ll have it by 9.” The mandatory bike check-in would close at 9PM. Wow. How perfect.
At 9PM, with the delivery remaining elusive, Delta assured my things would be at the hotel by the wee hours.
I slept well, perhaps as good as I’ve ever slept before a race, knowing that my machine would be with me when I awoke.
The wake-up call came at 4AM and I immediately proclaimed, as I’ve done many time before, “Rrrrrace Dayyyyyy!” I headed right downstairs to put my bike together so as to arrive at the race start no later than 5AM. But it wasn’t there…
I pulled out my iPhone to make a few calls, eager to come up a bike somehow. The first couple calls provided nothing; the third call was a winner: Justin Modell, a local triathlete and the organizer of the paratriathlon division, had a bike for me and, since he was already at the race, he made the call to his doorman to let me in. I cabbed it over, grabbed his bike and his right shoe and peddled my way to the race, arriving at 5:15AM, in the clothes I’d donned 36 hours prior.
(I would later learn that my bike and wetsuit arrived, in perfect timing, the moment I jumped in the water to start the race at 7:10AM, by a company aptly named, no joke, Perfect Delivery Service!)
Surprisingly, without the wetsuit, I swam one of my faster races there and exited under 17 minutes, ninety seconds ahead of the fastest one-legged triathlete out there: JP Theberge. That 90 seconds turned hard into a seven minute deficit. I had a tough time riding crunched up on a too-small road bike with my bike leg unable to clip in on the mismatched pedal/cleat combo, i.e., I was unable to pull up with the prosthesis or get out of the saddle—JP blazed by me about a third of the way through the ride.
Without my speed lace race shoe I was forced to sit and tie the lace of the race shoe I’d traveled in (probably doesn’t mean much to most of you) and stopped twice before exiting transition to stretch my aching crunched-up back, making for a very slow T2.
I knew I was at least seven to eight minutes off pace of JP when I saw him coming the other way from the 180 turnaround near the bike finish. So, with no hopes of winning, and with the thin skin from the recently-healed blister from the previous weekend’s race, I sucked it up and pre-emptively rebooted a few times on the run. This, I’m happy to say, resulted my first blister-free finish of seven there. More perfection.
(I must note that JP had a fantastic finish time of 2:19, edged only by the ageless and legendary One Arm Willie Stewart. Wingers Joel Rosinbum and Tommy Knapp also had great races and I wrapped up the top five. The top five on the women’s side were visually impaired Robin Caruso, below knee amp Meg Fisher, VI Yvonne Mosquera, wheel-bound Carly Waugh and in fifth was my very good friend and one of my worldwide favorite people, above-knee amp Sandy Dukat.)
So don’t let this photo fool you. I wasn’t stomping mad at Mile 1 as I ran straight at Erik Shaffer, my prosthetist and sponsor from A Step Ahead. I was, atypically, just having a little fun on the run.
The last little bit of perfection relative to the race transpired a couple days later: my customer service experience with both the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission and Yellow Cab was so much more satisfying than that with Delta. After a series of phone calls placed by myself and the lovely Dr Sharon Wetherall, FedEx delivered my iPhone I had dropped in the back of the cab at JFK!
(Regarding the photo, that was kinda how I felt sitting on the tarmac for two hours, waiting to depart, when I discovered the missing phone…)
Running and Skating
Before I say anything else, I must give attention and congratulations to Amy Palmeiro-Winters, the recipient of the AAU Sullivan Award, presented to the nation’s Amateur Athlete of the Year. For those of you not familiar with Amy, she is a fellow below knee amputee and patient of A Step Ahead Prosthetics, in Hicksville, NY, on Long Island.
Last New Years Eve/Day, she ran 130.04 miles in a “how far can you run in 24 hours” race and beat the nearest competitor—the nearest able-bodied competitor, male or female—by 15 miles! This qualified her for the 24-Hour World Championships, to be contested in France sometime in May, as part of Team USA! YEAH AMY!!! Read all about her at www.seeamyrun.com.
Earlier today, I completed something a bit more mainstream. The Boston Marathon. I did, however, run six miles beforehand and squeezed in a difficult extra mile after crossing the finish line. I was staying with a friend 1.4 miles from said finish line and had a plane to catch (on which I now type).
The extra miles and the 26.2 in between were all part of my own ultramarathon ambitions. You might have read about my commitment to run the 56-mile Comrades Marathon on May 30 in South Africa. Today’s race doubled as both a training day my official qualifier for next month’s run. I needed only finish under five hours—a goal I’d have bet large money on. What I was truly hoping for was to get in under four hours, so my 3:58:47—my slowest Boston finish of five—was warmly welcomed.
I’ve preached the following outlook on many stages in many cities over the years: I look forward to life’s adversity’s because nearly each and every one brings me a gift. Today’s challenge began last night when my host, Christine—one of my wife Sharon’s best friends who happens to inhabit 10th floor apartment with a killer view overlooking the River Charles!—injured her lower back at her nephew’s birthday party…in the bouncy house! She shuffled through the door at 8PM in miserable pain and this morning, about the time she was to drive me to the start, she nearly passed out, right after she nearly vomited… Suffice to say I had to find another way to Hopkinton.
Her apartment isn’t too far from where the buses were loading up adjacent Boston Common and I had 30 minutes to spare, so jumped in a cab and put myself in line with thousands of other runners. Some say this is a quintessential part of the Boston Marathon experience and one I had yet to partake in. That was the first silver lining. The second was when the guy sitting next to me on the bus offered to sponsor a World Vision child in Africa in support of our team’s mission with the running of Comrades Marathon! My heart goes out to Christine—who was the first person to support me by sponsoring a child—and her suffering, but because of this challenge, which barely splashed on to me, a child and his or her community will have a better life. Some things are just meant to be.
(Please visit www.theultimatecause.org and sponsor a child. You’ll be glad you did.)
That was today’s excitement. Last week’s excitement went down in DC where I met Lord Stanley’s Cup! The vast majority of you just said “Cool!” To those of you who just said “What’s that?” it’s the coolest trophy in sports: the 100-plus year old championship trophy of the National Hockey League. It was in DC to celebrate the National Disabled Hockey Festival. The weekend was filled with hockey players who don’t have all their “normal” parts. I played with the National Amputee Team. There were also deaf players, players with intellectual disabilities (special hockey), and sled hockey players. These guys and gals are mostly double amputees, above knee amps or paraplegics. The sleds are essentially seats set low to the ice, mounted on skate blades. They propel themselves across the ice with modified sticks that are shorter, have a more obtuse angle at the blade, and have spikes at the butt-end to push with. The US Team just won the gold medal at the Vancouver Paralympics!
I hadn’t played with the national team since the World Championships in Prague, 2004. The team’s president and co-founder, Dr. Dave Crandell, phoned me several weeks ago asking if I’d like to return to the squad for the weekend in DC—the team needs more “leg guys”. (In amputee hockey, teams are allowed only so many arm amputees—typically below elbow—on the ice at one time to maintain a fair balance of skating ability, and Team USA is loaded up with “arm guys.”) With Jack and Luke and an extremely hardworking-in-a-stressful-job pregnant wife (I love you Sharon!!!!), I limit my travel to business, i.e., money-making, and so declined the offer. Then he held out the carrot …
President Barrack Obama had personally requested a meeting with the team! How could I pass up a chance to meet the President of the United States!? Regardless of what side of the aisle you sit, it’s an extreme honor.
Of course, I said yes.
As of late, I’ve been playing drop-in hockey once a week, then bumped it up to twice in preparation for the trip. This cut into some of my mid-week training runs for Comrades, but I still stuck to my two-hour Saturday runs, followed by four to five hour Sunday runs.
Ever so sadly, with the White House visit schedule changing constantly in the waning hours or trip, we were granted an phenomenal tour of the White House, but the President had to bail; apparently signing nuclear disarmament treaties in Europe is more important than shaking the left hands of hockey players who have no rights.
