Tag: MLmotivation

UTRECHT, The Netherlands – Paralympic silver medalist Monique van der Vorst has miraculously become an able-bodied Olympic hopeful after a crash reversed her paralysis.

Paralyzed from the hip down since she was 13, the 27-year-old handcyclist, who has just signed with the Rabobank women’s professional cycling team to compete as a top-class able-bodied athlete, was hit by a bicycle last year while training in her wheelchair for the 2012 London Paralympics.

While recovering from the trauma, van der Vorst’s feet started to tingle and miraculously she began to move them again. From that point on she spent months in the hospital and in the rehabilitation centre trying to regain the use of her legs.

When she was 13, van der Vorst — good at tennis and hockey — suffered nerve damage during a routine ankle operation and was paralyzed from the hip down, according to the U.K. Telegraph.

She also sustained a spinal cord injury in 2008, when she was struck by a car while hand cycling through Amsterdam, the Telegraph added.

She told Reuters that when she took her first steps again in July 2010, she felt just like a child learning to walk.

“I wanted to jump in the air for joy,” van der Vorst said this week, and recalled how great and surprising it was to look at herself standing in front of a mirror.

Doctors have no explanation for her amazing recovery. Some believe the trauma of her last accident may have jolted her body back into activity.

But the realities of her new-found joy also put an immediate end to a successful athletic career.

“Although walking is the best thing you could do in life, I immediately missed the sport, the people and the challenges,” van der Vorst said.

Rehabilitation and physiotherapy with an athletic focus strengthened her and as soon as she sat on a bike she again wanted to give it a try.

“The spirit is in my body,” she said.

Despite a near-crash the first time she cautiously climbed aboard a racing bicycle for able-bodied athletes, van der Vorst got back on her bike and carried on to complete a painful and slow 30 km training route and has not looked back since.

Although she is not on the same cycling level as the other women on the Rabobank cycling team, her willpower is enormous and the team is confident van der Vorst will quickly catch up.

When you consider van der Vorst won two silver medals at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics, was elected Dutch disabled athlete of the year in 2009, was the first handcycle athlete to win the 2009 Ironman world championship in Hawaii, her goal of riding in the 2016 Rio Olympics does not appear unrealistic.

SOURCE: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/45597247/ns/sports-olympic_sports/

A college friend of mine who I lost touch with has recently re-entered the social media world and joined the blogging world. She was in an emotionally abusive relationship with an alcoholic – they were engaged and living together, until this summer when we finally got the courage to leave.  She took to blogging as a form of self-therapy. She was always a runner, but really got serious about it with her former fiance. Below is one of her posts about marathon training. 

Well I bit the bullet and did it. What, you ask? I registered for the Cox Rhode Races Marathon in Providence on May 6^th, 2012.

And just to clarify, a marathon is 26.2 miles. ALWAYS. Doesn’t change. EVER.

No matter where you run one? Nope, no matter where you run one. I point this out because I often find myself explaining to people how long a marathon is. Like my own father for instance…

“So you ran a marathon, what’s that like 20 miles?” It’s actually 26.2

“Even the ones you ran?” Yes, even the ones I ran… unfortunately for my hips they did not shorten the course.

What’s most fun is the mass confusion that arises if god forbid you mention running a half marathon. I won’t even get into it; but most people can’t just simply divide the already confusing 26.2 in half and arrive at 13.1. All sorts of crazy distances come out to play here when guessing the course length.

I don’t blame people for their confusion however, because there is some (true) statistic out there that states that only roughly 1% of the world’s population has ever run a marathon. So that just makes me part of the “in” crowd…OR…crazy.

ANYWAYS, I got sidetracked for a minute there. Back to the point of my story. I’ve been hemming and hawing for quite a while if I had another marathon in me. I ran the Providence marathon in 2009 to qualify for Boston, and then ran the Boston Marathon in 2010. And as you know already, 2011 has been a less than stellar year and no marathon was run.

My hesitation to sign up and train for another marathon runs a little bit deeper than worrying about developing bursitis in my hips again and being out of running commission for a month or two (if you find out I have this again, please steer clear of me and have me locked up in a room somewhere until I’m allowed to run again, because my demeanor is NOT PRETTY).  I would also like to avoid another bout of physical therapy if only because the entire 3 months of my treatment I was accused of having an affair with my doctor because he was MALE.  It’s amazing how sneaky I was to avoid running for THREE WHOLE MONTHS just to have relations with a married man.  Because that’s right up my ally.  Sigh.

So if I’m not worried about an annoying hip injury, and I’ve already run 2 marathons and countless half marathons, what exactly is my problem? My problem is this: I’ve never run a marathon BY MYSELF.

Well, Melissa who’s legs ran the races for you then?

Okay so my own two little legs ran par the course, but I always had “him” on one side of me and for some reason my crazy little manipulated brain still believes I COULDN’T POSSIBLY RUN a marathon with no one running with me to get me to the finish line.

Somewhere along the lines of “No one will ever love you like I do,” “No one will ever want you again,” and “You are annoying” is another line that goes a little something like “The only reason you can run in the first place is BECAUSE of me.”

And you know what?  THAT REALLY PISSES ME OFF.

For goodness sakes’ I got up every Saturday morning in the dead of winter and completed a training run of anywhere from 12-20 miles for 5 or 6 months at a time in addition to logging over 50 miles per week.   No one had to pick me up out of bed and push me out the door.  I did the aforementioned all on my own, and willingly.  In fact often times I had to beg “him” to get outside and do a long run because at the time “he” didn’t need to log the miles, he was already a world-renowned marathoner and could run one in his sleep.  And now that I think back, he actually made me feel like HE was doing ME a favor by helping me to train for a marathon because he was already so awesome at it.

At the time I was so appreciative of his “efforts” in molding and shaping me into a “REAL” runner.  But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, running is a very individualistic sport and no one can just wave their magic wand and  turn you into a runner.  Sure they can give you advice and push you to be better, but you actually have to get off your butt and just get out there and DO IT.  So why was I so caught up in HIS coaching and “YOU NEED ME” mentality?  Because he stripped away my self-esteem and self-confidence, remember?

For the better part of a year and a half I’ve been running without him on the road and during races…and I’m quite used to it.  I actually thrive on running alone now…it’s my “ME” time and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. 

I’m not sure what gave me the final “push” today.  Maybe it was the fact that the NYC marathon happened this past weekend, or the fact that I stalk many “running’” blogs daily and am jealous of the runners who have marathons on their docket, or maybe because I’m Type-A and goal-orientated I need something else to check off and say I’ve accomplished.

But at the end of the day I think it comes down to this:  I need to RUN THIS MARATHON for MYSELF; if only to prove that “he” doesn’t have a hold on my running ability anymore than he does on my LIFE.  I took my life back in July and on May 6th 2012 I will be kicking that course’s butt and taking my running back too!

“The miracle isn’t that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start.”
-John Bingham