Contra Costa Times Article

Last week our local newspaper ran an article about my story on the front-page, you can read the article online here: How a tragic fall turned into to an inspiring story

The journalist, Tom Barnidge, dropped by the house to interview me. He had heard I was competing in the Wildflower triathlon as a challenged athlete and had checked out my story on my blog and found it inspiring…every now and then he gets to do a human interest piece, so thought he’d write a piece about me.

I didn’t know when it was going in to print and the first I knew about it was from the Facebook updates and texts from friends saying they’d just read about me in the paper…bought a smile to my face.

Finishing the Rhodes Race 5K

Sunday was the 5th Annual Rhodes Race 5k around Lake Merritt in Oakland organized by our friends Claire & Matt Rhodes. It’s a fun run to raise  money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (Matt’s a cancer survivor).

All are welcome, adults, children, babies & dogs with awards going to fastest in age group, fastest kids and even the fastest dog. I wasn’t out to win any awards myself, it was just a great training run surrounded by friends from Team in Training.

Kerry & Jake

Kerry ran as well with our new family member, Jake. He’s a little long-haired, wired-haired terrier mix that we had been fostering for Tony La Russa’s Animal Rescue Foundation and then ended up adopting. Now if there was an award for the scruffiest dog we might have been in with a chance.

Back in 2010 the Rhodes Race kicked of my 10×10 Challenge and I completed the 5k in 25 minutes and 50 seconds, this year I’m ashamed to report it took me 27 minutes and 36 seconds…oops! I must admin the last couple of months have not been good on the training front, especially when it comes to running. Next year it’ll be a personal best I promise!

My next triathlon is coming up May 5th & 6th at Wildflower, I have to decide if I’m fit enough to attempt the long course (half Ironman distance) or instead play it safe and do the Olympic distance…or maybe do both…who knows. You’ll have to check back next month and see and as always I’m doing it all for a good cause, so why not help me out and make a donation.

By making a donation you will directly help a challenged athlete in need.

Help me raise $1,000 for the Challenged Athletes Foundation

This has been spurred on by the fact that I’ve found myself on occasion to be in the privileged position of being able to share aspects of my story with people who were themselves facing challenges in their lives and it seems to have been a useful metaphor.

And so I begin a journey to see if I can distill my experiences on thriving through adversity and answer the question “How do you Thrive and not just Survive Life’s Toughest Challenges?”

…you’ll read about it first here on my blog and who knows, maybe one day it’ll even make it in to a book…I’ll keep you posted!

Motley Crew

After taking last year off from any serious training (only completed a century ride around Tahoe and a marathon) I’ve started to get back at it again and kicked off the year with a century ride.

My wife, Kerry, had been training with Team in Training (TNT) for the Solvang Century and I decided I’d join her for the ride.

This was the 30th Annual Solvang Century ride and our first time. Solvang is the “Danish Capital of America”, a  9000+ acre enclave in the verdant Santa Ynez Valley just 125 miles north of Los Angeles. It’s a pretty unique tourist destination and really does look like something straight out of Holland.

The ride is a 100 miles through Santa Ynez Valley with 4000 ft of elevation gain. For us it was just a fun ride and I was fortunate to join in with one of the TNT teams and tag along for the day. The photo is from the top of one of the last climbs at around mile 85.

Even though the day started out frigid at 5:30am with thick fog, finally about 3 hours in the weather started to clear and as you can see ended up a beautiful spring day with blue skies…definitely stripped off a few layers as the day wore on. The ride took over eight hours to complete, although only about six and a half of that was riding. You’ve got to make use of the food stops along the way and riding with a team means waiting sometimes for people to catch up.

All-in-all a fun day and a great kickoff to my 2012 season. As I’ve done since 2010 I’m fundraising for the Challenged Athletes Foundation again throughout this year. So far, I’ve got the following events lined up:

• Rhodes Race, a fun 5k run lined up in April
• Wildflower Olympic Triathlon in May
• AMBBR century ride around Tahoe in June
• Escape from Alcatraz triathlon in June

So why not help me out and make a donation…

By making a donation you will directly help a challenged athlete in need.

Help me raise $1,000 for the Challenged Athletes Foundation

Thank you from Brightworks

I was invited to visit Brightworks in San Francisco by my friend and Founder, Gever Tulley.

Back in 2005 he founded Tinkering School, a summer school for children based on the belief that they can build anything, and through building, learn anything. He’s written a book, 50 Dangerous Things (you should let your children do) and presented at TED a couple of times. And now he’s got his own extraordinary school.

The children were exploring a theme called “By Hand” and part of this was to see what it was like if you didn’t have a hand or perhaps what it was like if you had four. The children (of all ages 6-12) were incredibly creative, taping up body parts, adding articulating limbs to different parts of their body, seeing what it was like without a hand or just a few fingers.

I got a chance to come in and talk about my experiences and show them how I had adapted and used my different prosthetics for different situations. They got to see my high-tech, bionic hand as well as my low tech body powered hook.

It was great fun and they all made a card thanking me for coming in to visit.

Brightworks blew my mind, it was so unlike any school I remember from my childhood and all the children were so engaged and happy. Makes me wish I was a kid again!

Eye Borg

A few weeks ago while I was in Toronto I connected with Rob Spence, a one-eyed film maker (see if you can notice his bionic eye in the photo) who is making a documentary on today’s cyborgs as part of a promo for the new video game Deus Ex Human Revolution.

Bionic Eye

He wanted to interview me on my experiences with my i-Limb hand and as curious as he was about my hand I was just as curious about his eye!

Rob damaged his eye in a shotgun accident as a kid and decided to have it removed a while back. Recently he worked with a couple of engineers to take a tiny wireless camera and build a bionic eye…it doesn’t connect to his optic nerve or anything, but it is really cool.

His documentary compares the cybernetics available in the video game Deus Ex, set in 2027, with state of the art prosthetics today to see how far away we are.

You can watch the video below, Rob did a great job and you’ll see a few segments of the interview he did with me.

One Handed Wake Boarding

This last week Kerry and I were in Canada for our best friends wedding at Balsam Lake, Ontario. While there we got to play in boats on the lake and after my success knee boarding the other week I was up for giving anything a go.

I’d never wake boarded, even when I had two hands and wasn’t sure if I’d be able to pull up with one arm. After 2 attempts trying to hold on to the rope and failing it was third time lucky. With a slightly slower start I was able to keep hold and pull myself up and thanks to my years of snow boarding I was off to the races. What a blast!

Certainly tiring with only one arm, so for my next goes I donned my prosthetic hook to take some of the load, which helped greatly.

Waiting to Wake Surf

Then from wake boarding, to wake surfing – something entirely new to me. I was familiar with wake boarding, but I’d never heard of wake surfing.

Wake Surfing

You use a mini-surf board, your feet aren’t attached to the board and you need a wake boarding boat that has balast tanks to generate a huge wake…which you then surf.

You hold the rope and pull yourself up as the boat starts, then once the wake is established you surf it and drop the rope.

It’s wild, you’re actually surfing behind the boat as it motors along at 10 miles an hour or so.

You can watch the video below to see me in action…not bad for someone who’s never wake surfed before!

One Handed Knee Boarding

At the weekend I got to do something I’ve never tried before…knee boarding.

Now I’ve water skied a few times, prior to losing my hand and figured trying to get pulled up on skis behind a boat with just one arm might be a bit tough so had written off the idea of doing anything much beyond being towed around on an inflatable donut.

Well that’s before I discovered knee boarding…Kerry and I had joined some friends, who are avid water skiers, on a boating trip and as they merrily skied away I got talking to one of their kids who mentioned they knee boarded, “what’s that I asked?”

Basically it’s a bit like a boogie board (for any surfers out there) that you lay on while the boat tows you along and as you pick up speed you work your way up on to your knees and can then play around behind the boat similar to a wake board, I guess.

Sounded like something I could do so I gave it a shot and on my first attempt managed to maneuver myself up on to my knees (after much jiggling around). From there I worked out that by leaning (thanks to my years of snow boarding) I could direct the board across the boat’s wake…way more fun than just sitting behind the boat.

A most enjoyable experience, if somewhat tiring on the one arm. I’ll have to experiment rigging up some webbing or something so I can use my residual limb to take some of the strain, or maybe next time I’ll try it wearing my prosthetic. I’m looking forward to my next opportunity to knee board and it was just as well I got up on my first try since as I lost balance the rope went slack and then jerked, dislocating my shoulder…fortunately it’s an old injury so it jumped straight back in again…nothing a few days of rest won’t take care of.

Prepped For Surgery

Two weeks back I went in for what I hope will be my last surgery…EVER!

As some may recall back in 2009 I had a bike accident whilst training for my first Half Ironman that resulted in a broken clavicle and shattered left elbow (I don’t know what it is about my poor left arm).

The surgery patched up my elbow with various plates, screws and wires and I’ve been living with this for the last 18 months or so.

Elbow Metalwork

The challenge has been that I wear a prosthetic on my left arm everyday and when I go biking or compete in triathlons I put a lot of pressure on my prosthetic and arm. I was able to complete my recent 100 mile bike ride around Lake Tahoe, but not without a fair share of discomfort and pain in the old arm.

All-in-all the metalwork has made life a little uncomfortable, so I finally scheduled the surgery to get it all taken out. Now, I’ve had enough surgeries to last a life time so I promise this will be the last one…honest!

Fortunately everything went well…they cut along the same 6″ incision line as last time and according to the surgeon the procedure was just “tedious”…go figure!

I’m healing fast and earlier this week had the staples removed…a good friend called me the modern-day wolverine…now if only I could actually grow a new hand, that would be something!

Out on a Limb

The makers of a new documentary called OUT ON A LIMB just reached out to me through my blog.

Daria Price, an award-winning film maker, is working on finalizing the fine-cut of her latest documentary after working on it for the last couple of years and is looking for help to cover the remainder of post-production costs, which include color-correction, graphics, sound design and audio mixing. $12,000 will get the film close; more will get it over the finish line faster and ready for release in the fall of 2011.

As an amputee I think it’s time to show case just what is possible today technologically and the strength of the human mind, body & spirit to adapt and embrace adversity.

Help Daria raise $12,000 to complete this documentary.