IRONMAN Casey Kammel's Very Good Day

So here's something to think about the next time you find yourself ready to quit on a long run. In 1994, a 22-year-old college senior was on vacation with his girlfriend in Hawaii when he broke his C4 vertebrae after diving into a swimming pool. The accident left him paralyzed from the neck down and doctors told him they didn't think he'd ever walk again. As the young body builder and exercise science major began to have an awareness of what that would mean he also started to have an awareness of the bottom of his foot. The guy walked out of that hospital, and on April 2, 2016, he finished his seventh Ironman 70.3 race in Oceanside, California, where he swam 1.2 miles, biked 56 miles, and ran 13.1 miles. "I had a good swim and a good bike but the run was tough," Ironman Casey Kammel, 44, deadpanned in a telephone conversation with me a few days after the race. Kammel wears a brace on his right leg when he runs. He has a limp, and he worries about catching his foot in a crack in the pavement and falling, which he says happens a lot. For the swim, Kammel's devised a way to strap his right hand, which is closed like a fist, into a paddle so he can get some propulsion because the accident left him with limited strength and range of motion in his right arm. He says he's fine on the bike because he can wrap his hand around the handle bar. "I finished and that's always a good thing." A good thing for Kammel and for other challenged athletes seeking to find ways to pursue p...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news