This blog comes from our trip to Tanzania in November ‘08. It’s out of sequence, but I have many partially finished blogs that to me are important to the overall story. Periodically, I will insert them with current ones. I hope you enjoy them. Thanks.

There must be 250 dogs outside the window of my hotel, which is an oasis, a patch of green with a sparking pool and a fence all the way around, in a sea of dusty brown. The road out front resembles a dried creek bed with rock outcroppings and deep ruts where the last rainy season water carved its path. Cement-structured storefronts border the creek-bed road only wide enough for one and a half Land Cruisers, but that doesn’t slow the drivers, nor do the pedestrians, some in traditional garb replete with spears, stray dogs or locals on their one-speed Chinese bicycles. From the front passenger seat, each confrontation looks like a fatal head-on collision until the last moment.

Sarah Wallis, our Swahili speaking, Aussie/Kiwi, Tanzanian liaison told us, over a glass of wine, about a rash of burglaries in the area. One of the doctors at her hospital held off intruders with a shotgun. They shot up his lower level but never entered. The owner of our hotel offered his own story.

Even with those stories, jetlag has softened the edges for me. As I climb into my bed with the gauzy mosquito netting wrapping from above, I figure I can sleep through anything, but the dogs bark in a chorus that’s like a complicated domino configuration—first there’s one, which elicits a response, then another, and suddenly there’s a crescendo of yelps from every direction. I still feel that I’ll drift into sleep until it sounds like a little one gets sucked backwards into a blender—four tortured yelps. I try to convince myself that my imagination runs wild in the dark. It probably isn’t a moshpit of dogs outside my door.

Sleep comes, I assume, but I’m well aware of a seamless transition from the dogs to the streetcorner preacher. Armed with two high-powered speakers, he begins at 5:30 am. Later in the week he will start as early as 4:30. I can’t understand a word of what I assume is Swahili, but the preacher’s crowd rivals that of the dogs. At 5:30 in the morning, I wonder the need—the popularity—a developing country with a belief that the next life, life in heaven or whatever will be far better. I don’t know if that explains it all or if I can begin to comprehend, but that’s what I think lying there in a cocoon of mosquito netting.

Finally, I succumb to the inevitability of not sleeping. Dave and I head out the front gate, now open in the daylight, for our second training session on a brand new vehicle. The day before we’d climbed much of the first day’s climb on Kili. The first 2000 feet up the mostly pumice stone porters’ road took me 2:42. I didn’t realize how difficult the road was until I turned to descend. On the way up I only broke traction two or three times. Dave has worked hard on this new rig, an important prototype that weighs less than 50 pounds—a far cry from the one I used in June which weighed 83. We moved the rear wheels 13 inches forward so that my hip bones are almost directly over the rear axles, greatly improving traction. Almost all of my effort results in forward motion. This new vehicle rolls so much better. I can feel the difference, but with winter covering my training routes back home in snow, I don’t know if I’ll be able to figure out what that difference will mean in terms of speed and distance covered.

We take a left out of the hotel, then the first left and a right at the big tree. Kids in forest green sweaters and skirts or pants and white shirts—the sign of a public school all-stare. Mt. Meru sits off in the distance. We’ll climb to her shoulder before it’s all done, but first the stares. I say” Jambo, hello,” some say it back, others just look. The road tilts and we climb. I push hard always with the idea that I want to make Dave walk fast. Even at 7 a.m. people are up. A woman sweeps purple petals off her front yard with something that looks more like a branch than a broom. Surrounded by dirt, she makes it tidy.

We open onto the field where the Olympic athletes train. There’s a soccer goal in one end, a basketball court behind it. The grass gathers in clumps. Three sets of men spar on the basketball court—something that looks like mixed martial arts. They stop and stare. One speaks English. He’s most concerned with the training benefits of my rig because he’s one of the skinny guys. He comments on my arms tying a direct correlation to the vehicle. He’s right. This training has made me stronger, though we impress upon him that this is one of a kind, and we move on climbing higher.

Another dried creek-bed road brings us closer to Meru’s shoulder, which is shrowded in a layer of fog like a shawl. We say “Jambo” to those we pass. It’s close to the extent of our Swahili. Most say “Jambo” back. Some are headed to work, the kids headed to school. Music blares in a tiny, transistor radio way from the hair salons. Dave and I figure that that’s the place of excitement. On one uphill section, not a steep one, I make Dave run. After a summer of him walking so slowly uphill, this is encouraging.

Looking back, we’ve collected a group of kids. I feel like Rocky running to the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum. The kids talk among themselves. I wonder what they say. I wonder what they think. I could be like a UFO in this neighborhood. By way of explanation Dave and I say “wheelchair” in Swahili, or at least we think we do. I can’t even remember the word we used now. The kids seem to nod in understanding. I still want to know what they think.

So many times in the U.S. I’ve said that from the time we’re little we’re taught not to stare at someone who looks different. In Tanzania everyone stares. They stare like I’m on television—like I can’t see them. They don’t stop when I wave and smile. They continue as if it’s all part of the act. I’m told they stare because I’m white, because I use a wheelchair and because no one pushes me. Okay, I can handle those, but what do they see?

Later that day we go to the market. The sun beats down in a way that makes me think of Matthew Brodrick in the movie version of “Brighton Beach Memoirs.” As he said, “It’s Africa hot.” There are no supermarkets in Tanzania. Everyone comes to the market for their produce. Sellers stack garlic, tomatoes, potatoes, rice, etc., in artistic formations on their blanket. Occasionally, I ask Sarah to name a particular fruit or vegetable, but mostly I look at the ground. As we turn the corner having passed through the produce, the clothing and shoes, mostly American knock-offs, and the sewing machines turning bolts of cloth into traditional African wear, Sarah asks me if I saw all the people staring at me. At first I have trouble answering because another hair salon blasts a transistor radio rap song with only one lyric, “Barack Obama.” Apparently, the soon-to-be elected U.S. president’s name is music in Tanzania.

No. I didn’t see them stare because I worried so much about flipping over on the rocky terrain in between booths. From the dogs, to the street corner preacher, to climbing to the shoulder of Meru, I was exhausted. The market was the final straw. I wonder if I would ever eat if I lived in Tanzania. And I wonder how those that we hope to help with wheelchair and handcycle donation do it. 

We elected Barak Obama the night before as I flew from New York to Salt Lake. The next morning, the first snows of the year blanketed Utah. Thick wet flakes clung to the each street sign making it nearly impossible for me to find the middle school for our Nametags presentation. I drove around consulting the GPS on my phone, talking to Missy, executive director of the One Revolution Foundation and director of the Nametags Program. I sensed I wasn’t getting any closer, and apparently was correct, as Missy found out that the school had moved. Our directions were obsolete. So we arrived a little late, and the first presentation went by in a blur. Six hundred middle school kids in the auditorium, 45 minutes later and it was all over.

“That’s the best one you’ve ever done,” Missy said as we waited for the next group to enter. Considering that I’d arrived home at about midnight the night before and had driven around frantically all morning, “best ever” was a pretty big deal. I immediately wondered if I could maintain the same energy for the second event when the adrenaline inevitably waned.

We created the Nametags Program for a variety of reasons:

• Children’s minds are far more open than those of adults. Children want to ask questions, they want answers and they are open to different perspectives. Most adults, however, hold strong to beliefs that they created long ago. If we wanted to change perceptions we needed to start with children.
• We need fans. For our project to be successful we need fans. Students provide a great fan base.
• We didn’t want our presentations to be specifically about physical disability. I want it to be about all of our perceived shortcomings. There’s no better place in the world to feel like you have shortcomings than school.
• We wanted to look at our differences as indications of potential genius as opposed to reasons to be separate. It seems there’s such pressure to conform—to be like everyone else—but then we lose the unique part that makes all of us great.
• We wanted to foster an environment in which we could give and receive permission to be ourselves.
• Nametags are literally the labels that we put on ourselves and others.

Starting in the spring of ’08, we’d done about 20 Nametags presentations. All had been received well, but as the next group entered something different happened. I can’t say that there was a different feeling from the beginning. As usual, Missy and the teachers passed out one of four colored note cards to each student. With those cards I separated the students into four groups and asked why I had done it? Students offered ideas, and then finally I stepped in and asked if we could say it was arbitrary? Immediately, hands shot up asking what arbitrary meant. In hindsight their question should have foreshadowed that I was imposing my own educational paradigm on this group.

I quickly changed direction and said, “Can we assume that it’s chance? That there is no reason?” Heads bobbed up and down. Then a couple in the top right corner yelled, “No.” Perfect, I thought and asked, “Why can’t we assume that it’s chance?” This is great, I thought. We can have a conversation, but they wouldn’t answer. So, trying to get back on track I asked, “Can we assume that you received this card by random, by chance?” Those same guys, I couldn’t figure out exactly who they were yelled, “No,” again. At this point I started to get mad. If they wanted to challenge me, perfect, but when they refused to follow through it just upset me, leaving me embarrassed that I was mad and couldn’t make sense of the situation. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t gain any momentum—the result of two kids undermining my program. I took it personally, which only made it worse. Afterwards Missy said she thought that I might just flip the crowd off and leave, but I so desperately wanted to connect with them that I couldn’t give up. The more I refused to give up the worse it became.

Of course, on the way home I reflected on the situation and understood what had happened. Those two kids took my voice. They wouldn’t let me be myself, and they wouldn’t let the others in the auditorium be themselves either. It was exactly what we wanted to combat with Nametags. Those two kids gave me the perfect opportunity and I totally whiffed. I couldn’t see it because I’d grown so mad.

Driving up the canyon I thought, yes, challenge authority. Don’t take something to be true just because I say so. Don’t take something to be true just because your teacher says it. You’re in charge of your learning. Mark Twain said, “Don’t let your education get in the way of your learning.” In my own school career I hadn’t challenged the teachers as much as I should have, but I consider my ski racing to be a continuation of my learning. There, feedback from coaches was a discussion. I wouldn’t do something just because they told me to. It had to make sense. I had to understand because then I could use it and then I could make it my own.

Challenge authority. Challenge the establishment. Be iconoclastic. Be like Picasso who said, “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to learn to paint like a child.” Or the Dalai Lama, who  said, “Learn the rules so that you know how to break them.” Both of those thoughts assume learning the rules. Learn the rules and then break them. Don’t do what someone else has already done. Find a way to be unique. Break from tradition. Challenge authority. Challenge history. Make things better.

But have a reason. Have something to say. I was worked up. I thought, “Yeah, challenge authority, break with tradition, but have something to say because if you don’t have something to say you’re just being stupid.”

In my mind I’d answered the question. I’d found the solution, but there are so many different solutions. Nametags assumes you see another individual the way that they see themselves, which is far more difficult than it sounds. Just the other night I read Malcome Gladwell’s book Outliers. In it he said that people of different socio-economic backgrounds interact with authority figures differently. Middle class and above are encouraged at home to ask questions—to interact, to challenge. The lower classes usually fall silent.

While my interaction sounded like typical middle school kids trying to look cool in front of their friends, I didn’t take into account that they might not have been able to interact—to give me a reason why they said no, and that’s too bad. I hope that the next time I will avoid my anger and find a way to connect with the students. As much as this presentation challenged me to the core and frustrated me well beyond my limits, it was the best presentation yet. Adversity brings far greater teaching. And the next time I get unruly kids I will bring them on stage.

In keeping with the Nametags theme, the best question was

Are you happy with our new President?

I immediately thought of Stephen Colbert’s congratulations to our new president: “Congratulations to our first Hawaiian president.”

Talk about avoiding the obvious Nametag. 

Robert Burn’s poem “To a Mouse, On Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough” and its famous line, “The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry,” slipped into my mind as I left Moab. When we didn’t get a chance to try for the White Rim Trail record it seemed that plans had gone awry. The trail wasn’t open because of ice. We’d brought a new rig,which at one point offered lots of promise, but didn’t work at all and seemed like wasted time, but there was so much more. The February Kilimanjaro climb loomed just around the corner and I had no idea how I’d pay for it, as money entered at a trickle and left as raging rapids. We’d wired money to Tanzania for a prosthetic for a porter who’d lost his leg in a rockslide on the mountain. With the new leg he’d join us on the climb, but the money never found the right place. We’d sent money for another individual’s schooling, but that money also never arrived. Fundraising and financing were difficult for us, but we’d sent this money. I feared that our liaison Sarah Wallis, would think we’d become like so many who promised to help in Africa but never made good on their promises.

I wondered if my best laid plans were turning into my most feared reality. It hurt because I wanted Sarah to believe. I want everyone to believe, but truth be told I would have borne the same skepticism if I was in her shoes. Feeling the world crumbling around me, however, I maintained an optimism that I recognized from my ski racing days. Often before my best races I had my worst training—many times wondering if I could even ski the morning of a big race. The game was to maintain faith in the starting gate. As more went wrong I maintained that faith. We’d go in February because the most damning line in Burn’s poem followed the most famous one, “And leave us nought but grief and pain for promised joy!” You see, in the poem that drew me, the author couldn’t see anything but unfulfilled dreams, the pain of the past and the fear of the future. Ploughing the fields he’d ruined a mouse’s nest—its warmth and security for the winter. The mouse scampered off most likely to find or build another place, but Burns couldn’t get past the bleak prospects. Like the mouse, I still believed.

It’s ironic, or maybe just nature, that I was most hopeful now that my proverbial nest had been cut by the proverbial plough, as things had turned even worse. As I wrote two blogs ago, my digestive system has bothered me for years. On Dec. 27 I started an herbal plan (following it to the ‘T’), cut out all gluten products and even stopped drinking alcohol just because I wanted to be as pure as I could. I woke early to ski on the morning of Jan. 10. A searing pain drew a straight line down the middle of my stomach. When I got out of bed, a film of sweat – the kind I’ve only experienced in Atlanta or DC summers – covered me. Still, I thought I could ski but finally had to relent. I told my father, who was visiting, that I couldn’t go and returned to bed, sure that I’d be fine.

I woke again just before noon. The pain was there again and the sweat proved even worse when I got out of bed. I called my father saying that I had to go the ER. He called back from the mountain saying that it would take him a while to return to my house. I called 911 for the first time in my life. I sat in my wheelchair, resting my elbow on my bed and supporting my head with hand. Concentrating on my words, I tried to make one lucid dot in the field of pain.

I will not try to climb Kilimanjaro in February. That’s been pushed to summer ’09. The ambulance took me to the University of Utah hospital for 23 days. My stomach bloated to the point that I looked like I was eight months pregnant. Trauma forced my body to hoard liquid, bumping my body weight by 50 pounds of water. For the first time in 20 years I actually had a butt. My legs held so much liquid that they barely bent. My scrotum swelled to eight times its usual size. The pressure in my belly felt like it peeled my ribs up the edges and pushed my diaphragm down. Breath came in short gasps when I didn’t have body-ripping hiccups, caused by the NG tube that went up my nose, down my throat and into my stomach, where it drained the contents from the top, reducing the pressure. I hated the NG tube. They funneled it up my nose and I literally had to swallow it into my stomach as my eyes filled with tears. Once in place the tube created a grating feel and plastic taste every time I swallowed. It also bumped my soft palate causing the hiccups. The NG tube was just another thing I tried to forget during my hospital stay.

Talk about achieving the moment. Pain and discomfort locked me in it. As much as I tried to think of anything else, as much as I tried to relax, the pain always grabbed my consciousness. Relaxation became a game that I tried desperately to win and occasionally felt successful when I felt my shoulders drop.

I dreamed of cold water in a glass bottle. The doctors wouldn’t let me eat or drink for almost three weeks. My mouth felt like it was dying. I took to constantly swishing and spitting water and Gatorade, mitigating the cotton mouth and bringing my mouth back to life.

The doctors told me to wait. Patience. Let’s wait and see. It could be as much as two weeks. The first morning I asked if I could go outside to do some hill sprints. They looked at me like I was crazy. I figured if I was all blocked up, maybe I could get things moving. No. I didn’t ask for hill sprints anymore. On their pain meter of 0-10, I figured 10 meant you’d pass out. For much of my stay I maintained a solid 9. As I whimpered at one point my father said to the nurse, “He doesn’t whine.” There wasn’t much that my father could do. There wasn’t much I could do. And there wasn’t much that the doctors could do either.

Eventually, they performed exploratory surgery, finding that the urinary tract infection in my bladder had spread inexplicably to my stomach. They cleared the infection and looked unsuccessfully for holes in my bladder. Originally, they thought the UTI had dehydrated me, locking up the fiber from my new herbal program. We came up with a lot of theories, but no concrete answers.

Now I’m at home looking like a fat skinny guy. I no longer look eight months pregnant, but I’m still showing. Meanwhile the muscles in my arms, shoulders and chest melted to the point that they are starting to look like those of a marathon runner. Yet, I’m hopeful.

When I started the herbal program I wanted to be healthy. I hadn’t realized just how big my problem was. Now, I’m even more motivated to find health. I have few answers, but that’s the beauty. I and those around me will find them. Burns writes in original Scottish, “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men, Gang aft agley.” But the Dalai Lama said, “Remember that not getting what you want is often a wonderful stroke of luck.”

I desperately wanted to climb in February, but that won’t happen. Not going in February is a gift that will make the climb, the project and, most importantly, my health so much better.

From my treatment by the EMTs in the ambulance, to the ER nurses and doctors, to my daily nurses and doctors, and to my surgeon, my care was especially great. As I lay in the hospital I couldn’t help but think how difficult my experience would have been had I been in Africa. I have seen some of those hospitals, and I don’t think that I could have made it. Just having a roommate for the first couple of days was difficult. I couldn’t imagine sharing a bed with someone else, or my family being responsible for transporting me to the hospital, or not having many of the necessary antibiotics and painkillers. I’ve said it before: We’re looking to assist people in Africa—to give them a bit of a head start, but they’ve already achieved so much. I look at them with respect and reverence, for I know the pain, but I don’t know their strength. 

I’m sick of sweating on myself in my basement—using football, sports talk TV or even Friends reruns to distract me from the slowly moving clock. Winter training is beneficial, but boring. With my three-wheeler on a trainer, essentially turning it into a stationary arm-pedal bike, I ride at a higher cadence than climbing mountains. A higher cadence, if my muscles can adapt, could mean higher speed when I get back outside, but right now I just want to forget that spot on my chest that hurts so much. When I’m outside I constantly shift my chest on the chest pad to steer. There’s no steering on the trainer. The chest pad bores into my sternum. There’s nothing I can do except try to ignore it. Pain meditation, that’s what Dave Penney, my expedition manager calls it.

He should know. To prepare to guide trips in Nepal he’ll run three 14ers in a day, sleeping on the top of the final one to maximize altitude adjustment. On my birthday in September, Dave ran for seven hours, joined the party, and then outlasted pretty much everyone at dinner. During the winter in his hometown of Crested Butte, Colorado, he routinely cross-country skis after he puts his five and nine year old children to bed. By that time of the night I am usually excited to be warm and dry in my house, not sweating and freezing all at the same time in the dark and the cold.

For a long time Dave has talked about “taking a run at the White Rim Trail.” On our long hikes this past summer, he’s often mused about doing it in a day—105 miles in one day. I’ve only done one century in my life and that was on road and when I could still pedal with my legs. One day is crazy, but Dave’s ability to dream separates him, especially since he routinely makes most people’s impossible possible. It shouldn’t have surprised me a couple of nights ago when Dave said, “Let’s do the White Rim Trail.” It’s my fault. I said that I wanted to do a bunch of 4-6 hour days on our next Moab trip—starting tomorrow. “We could go for the record,” he said.

I knew that Mark Wellman, Steve Ackerman and Bob Vogel, great athletes all, had captured their epic White Rim ride for Mark’s film Crank it up! The White Rim Adventure. Immediately after hanging up with Dave I Googled the trio. They’d ridden the entire 105 miles on their own using the same One-Off three-wheeler that I had on my trainer. At times, they had dismounted their rigs, scooted along on the ground trailing the rig behind them over the loose, difficult terrain. Other times, one, higher on the trail, would rope assist the others. Reading about it, I marveled at their trip. I’ve pulled my three-wheeler behind me and I can tell you that it’s a dirty, frustrating job. I got nowhere fast. The trio’s trip took six days. That’s the record: six days. With the benefit of our new vehicle, Dave and I thought we might be able do it in three. I have no idea if that’s even realistic, but it’s the all the time we have. It’s just a thought and a hope, but it’s enough to get me excited—that and getting out of my basement.

Snow in Moab prompted us to consider the White Rim Trail for our next training session, but it might be our undoing too. If there’s too much we won’t even get a realistic shot, but I’m excited to try. We’ll start on Monday morning, sleep in Dave’s camper Monday and Tuesday nights, and hopefully finish Wednesday. According to the weather report, temperatures should range from 9-43 degrees. We’ll ride for six hours or more a day. I look forward to getting outside. Somehow, I think Dave looks forward to my pain meditation opportunities. He’s toughening me up for the mountain.

I plan to report from the White Rim, so please check in daily.

“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”— Aristotle

“I’m going to beat it. I know I am.” I’m not sure if those were Kate’s exact words, but the power and conviction are accurate. In her resolve to achieve the impossible, I heard myself. I heard myself after my accident, almost 20 years earlier. Doctors couldn’t cure my paralysis. A cure, however miraculous, was up to me. When I planned a trip to New York for a weekend of R&R following our June scouting trip, my tentmate John Lawrence said that I definitely had to meet his new friend Kate. “She will blow your mind.” So we met for brunch my final day in town. In the last year Kate had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a chronic degenerative disease that attacks the nervous systems leaving lesions that break the sheath housing the nerve. Much like my spinal cord injury, these lesions create damage that prevents messages from traveling along the central nervous system. Unlike my paralysis, the lesions will continue to accumulate, damaging more and more of the spinal cord and stopping more and more of the messages.

Doctors can’t stop the lesions, so Kate took it upon herself to stop them with a commitment to her traditional MS medicine (a daily injection called Copoxone), positive thought, a restrictive diet and the advice of a functional medicine doctor, who looked not just at the symptoms, but also at their origins and the imbalances that created them. He helped her treat her imbalances and the lesion, in her neck at cervical vertebrae 4-5, reversed itself, which, in the clinical world, doesn’t really happen. Lesions don’t reverse. Nerves do not regenerate, but the lesion didn’t show up on the films anymore. Kate seemingly achieved a miracle, but the miracle was more about seizing control of her health, finding balance and harmony.

As the July rains fell in sheets on Tribeca’s Greenwich Street raising the smell of summer so nostalgic to my East Coast youth, I felt drawn to Kate’s energy, yet like a magnet of the same charge, I ultimately felt pushed away. Ironically, I pushed away. I want the euphoria of fighting the fight that only has a chance if I tap into that part of me that’s uniquely me, the raw essence, the naked part that’s so easy to cover up. In Kate, I see an unwillingness to hide, and it’s so damn powerful that everyone should experience it, because that’s what it means to be alive – to fight, to struggle, to accept heaps of abuse, to expect it, and keep going when there’s every reason to stop – to seek balance when all scales tip in the opposite direction.

I pushed away because I felt jilted by the very approach that made Kate so powerful. When I left the hospital after my accident, I vowed that I’d never be intimidated again. I’d recovered from a broken back and I had cheated death, probably more figurative than literal, but significant just the same. Calm and resolute, I felt destined. I would render disability irrelevant the way Michael Jordan had affected race, but I fell short.

I quit my athletic career for many reasons, chief among them was that I couldn’t achieve transcendence. Don’t get me wrong. I was really good, but I out-worked, out-thought, and out-disicplined my opponents more than I out-performed them. The very thing that made me good strangled my inspiration. In an arena that requires bigger, better and often crazier, I’d reached my limit both physically and mentally, and I felt like I left without reaching that destiny in which I’d believed so much, and I felt cheated, jilted because I hadn’t achieved the transcendence that was so central to my career.

When I retired, I lost the hope and the outlet to achieve that dream, which I so viscerally felt as destiny. I slipped into a depression. Without sports I wondered who I was. I doubted I would ever achieve on the same level. I grew apathetic and lashed out at the balance that I now saw anchoring Kate’s power. Sulking as result of my lost sense of destiny, I slipped into greater imbalance. My digestive system, stripped by years of antibiotics for urinary tract infections, refused to work properly. Each time I ate or drank I felt and looked like I had swallowed a bowling ball. Yet, even after seeing the power in Kate – the vibrancy, the life – it still took me five months to address my digestive problem, a luxury because it was simply uncomfortable and not life-threatening in any way other than it stripped me of happiness and comfort.

The day before Christmas, my integrative medicine doctor gave me a program of herbs designed to kill the bad bacteria and replace the good. He also gave me a drug to boost my adrenals. I needed to cut out all gluten grains – something I’d known on an intuitive level, but hadn’t always followed. On my own, I stopped drinking on December 27^th. I don’t consider drinking a huge health problem, but there’s a part of me that thinks that there might be some relationship between drinking and my UTIs. I have no scientific evidence to back up my hypothesis, but I want to become healthy. As my doctor said, “If your sitting on 10 tacks and you remove five it pretty much feels the same.” I don’t know if drinking is a tack, but it seems best to remove that possibility.

In short, I’ve been literally constipated for the past few years. I have felt guilty training because it was part of my former life. I’d gone from under 140 pounds when competed in Athens in 2004 to more than 160 when I landed in Tanzania for the scouting trip in June. We’ve spent so much time, effort and money reducing the weight of the rig by 30 pounds, and now it’s my turn to accept some responsibility. I might not ever achieve the truly transcendent physical feat, but even when I competed I wanted to tell the story – to point people in the right direction and help them see what I saw. This year, I have the opportunity to do that.

So in the tradition of New Year’s Resolutions I set mine: to be honest enough and courageous enough to be healthy and happy.

Thanks Kate, for facing your demons. You remind me of the person that I want to be. We learn from each other and often the greatest lessons are the ones that we have to learn over and over. Balance is the sustenance of happy, healthy life. Happy New Year.

If you would like more information on Kate’s story please visit her YouTube trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35v7UFpBPRs

She tells her story much better than I can.

My mental development is that of a five-year-old. It’s a harsh realization, but sometimes when I see children squabble I think that I’m not all that much different, I just hide it a little better.

We all know the scenario: One child steals a toy from another, a fight ensues, a parent removes the obviously offending toy, and both kids go away mad. I might be able to hide my disappointment, and I can suppress the urge to steal someone else’s toy, but how often do I feel like there’s an obvious loser in these situations and why do I keep thinking about the airline ticket desk, where it definitely doesn’t serve to yell the loudest as much as it might feel really good since someone should be responsible?

My friend Donna told me that kids need words. They need a script. They don’t just know these things. “Can I play with that toy?” “Not now, I’m playing with it, but you can have it in 10 minutes.”

You mean everyone stays happy? Talk about revolutionary.

Yes, it sounds simple, but simple is the best kind of revolution. It’s the kind of revolution that succeeds. Those complicated ones never take. But using your words, creating a script – could they work for me? I’m climbing to the top of the tallest mountain in Africa in the hopes that people will see me, that they’ll get the script, but maybe I need to do more.

But why do people need a script? The need became obvious after I had two disappointing, yet far too common, interactions at a recent Christmas party.

First, a woman told me that I should meet her nephew, who is in a wheelchair, too. My immediate thought was that we didn’t choose this situation, and most likely don’t share that much in common. We’re not like my childhood best friend’s father, who drove a BMW and waved at all the other BMW drivers. They’d made a choice we hadn’t. In fact, I probably share more with most of my able-bodied friends than I do with the vast majority of disabled people because we’re all something else first. We’re white, black, Hispanic, Asian, rich, poor, middleclass, educated, uneducated, active, inactive, artistic, inartistic, etc. I shared a lot in common with my former disabled teammates and competitors, but with most disabled people, I only share the fact that we each had an unfortunate moment in time, a greater collection of scars than most and general rejection from health insurance companies.

So this woman thought that her nephew and I would have something in common. That really isn’t a huge stretch. This guy sounded active, but then she compared his wife to Ruth from the Bible’s Old Testament, and talked about the patience of Ruth and how her nephew’s wife had to endure such hardships. The woman dumbfounded me and insulted my friend, who had invited me to the party and stood by during the conversation, but many share the woman’s assumptions.

The next guy approached me as I hoped to leave for the night. My departure seemed to ratchet toward the exit, moving two rooms forward and one back. He found me in the piano room where the kids were playing remarkably well. Without preamble he said, “What happened to you?” I explained that I’d had a freak skiing accident almost 20 years ago. I hoped the “almost 20 years ago part” would set him at ease because he shifted, stammered and couldn’t look me in the eye. It didn’t. He said, “That was really hard for me.” I didn’t know how to respond. Did I need to tell him that it was okay? Did I need to tell him that I was okay?

The script surrounds us, but it might not be the accurate script. And people might continue reading from that same bad script unless provided a new one.

Driving down the highway during a quick trip to Montana last week, I saw a billboard with a policeman standing with his hand on the push handle of a wheelchair and the statement: “Think seatbelts are confining? Try a wheelchair. Buckle up.” Obviously buckling up is a good idea. I support seat belts, but the billboard message perpetuates the existing script that made it so difficult for the guy at the party to approach me: Life in a wheelchair is so confining it’s worse than death, which after all is the biggest worry when you don’t wear your seatbelt.

My challenge lies in replacing the script. The billboard states that the wheelchair is the end. Both people at the party were reading from that same old script. Adopting the new script proves difficult because that obvious question, the one you’re not supposed to ask, rattles around in your head. It’s right there begging for attention and the more you try to ignore it the more you fear it will just slip out.

I know because I’ve been there.

A few years ago, I shared the gym on a quiet Sunday with a woman who walked on two prosthetic legs. I wondered if she lost her legs to frostbite because at the time I was reading a book about Hugh Herr, who lost his legs to frostbite after being trapped on the side of a mountain. But as much as I knew I couldn’t ask that question, it was all I could contemplate. So, I’m stuck in my own head when she walks by, deliberately heel-toe, on her black and grey weave, carbon fiber legs. She looks down at me lying on the bench and says, “That’s a lot of weight.” Ahh, a compliment, that’s a good way to start a conversation, but those thoughts rattled in my head. I could only muster, “Umm, thank you.” Brilliant. I am a heck of a conversationalist.

So what’s the end result? Like many things, adopting a new script is easier for kids, because they don’t need to forget the old one. We should follow their model. They ask whatever questions, and they want answers. Questions are good. They represent interest – as long as we forget the old script.

But what does the new script say? Think like a child. What do you like to do? Who are your friends? Want to play? Maybe having the mental development of a five-year-old isn’t such a bad thing after all.

From the beginning, I’ve said that I want to keep up. Speed. Speed. Speed. During our June scouting trip it took me forever to reach camp. Each day, I slowed more and more on the rocky slopes of Kilimanjaro. If I can’t reach camp, then I can’t make the summit. With our brand new rig, Bomba, which as one of our Tanzanian drivers told me, means cooler than cool, speed is starting to come.

In November, we returned to Tanzania to follow two stories for the film, but Dave Penney, my Expedition Manager, and I managed one day on the mountain. We climbed two thousand vertical feet on the porters’ road in 2:42. Later in the week, there were times that Dave had to run to keep up with me as we climbed from the hotel to the shoulder of My Meru, but we didn’t have direct comparisons and without direct comparisons, we couldn’t know how much faster we were. Two days ago in Moab, we got our direct comparison. In the spring, I rode Schaefer Trail on the White Rim Trail covering the 1500 feet of vertical in three hours. Two days ago that same 1500 feet took me 1:26—less than half the time, and more importantly about a thousand feet of vertical an hour.

The trail on Kili will be far more technical than Schaefer Trail. One thousand feet of vertical an hour will not be realistic for most sections, but it started us thinking. From hut to hut it’s approximately 3000 feet of vertical a day. With a thousand vertical an hour under the most optimal conditions, I could complete most days in three hours. That’s far from realistic. There will be many spots where I will grind to a complete halt, but other sections will allow me to cruise. I’m starting to think that it might be realistic to move from hut to hut, three thousand feet of vertical a day in six or so hours a day, which would allow me hours of daylight per day. As everyone says, “Every day on the mountain is summer and every night winter.” It would be very nice to enjoy some of the summer.

As we drove back from Schaefer trail Dave couldn’t help but think about the new speed. Maybe we could make it from Kibo hut, at 15,500 feet, into the crater at about 18,500 feet in one day. Originally he’d planned to cut that stretch in two relatively equal sections. In order to even contemplate that stretch we need to work on the winch that will help us over the loose and step sections of the upper mountain. If we can make similar time on the winch, it could be a possibility. That’s the cool part, the possibilities that this new rig brings.

A week ago, I climbed a good section of Guardsman’s Pass in three to four inches of snow. I never would have been able to do any of that in the other rigs. Funny how the my mind works, the whole time I climbed up the mountain I thought this would be great on a beach. Dressed in ski pants, Ugs, three layers of fleece, ply-pro and wool, and a hat, and I’m thinking this could get me to the ocean. The last time I went to Hawaii, my girlfriend gave me a piggyback to the water. Bomba would let me do it myself. Obviously, each scenario offers unique benefits, but the independence would be nice.

Exceeding expectations, that’s a part of our mission. This rig has exceeded my expectations. It’s brought me to think about how many other things we might be able to do. I could ride this on the beach. I could ride it uphill in the snow. I could ride it up hill faster. I could ride with my friends. My world opens—my opportunities. When I climbed to the top of the Schaefer trail, Paul Quinlan, a friend who had ridden the White Rim’s 78 plus miles numerous times, said, “You could totally ride with a group of people.” To enjoy recreation with my friends might be my true mission as I saw during my skiing career.

My greatest day in skiing wasn’t a day that I won a medal. Instead, it was a day in Vail 1993. I had graduated the year before, but now my former teammates were in Colorado.  Under blue sky and warm spring conditions I became a peer for the first time since my accident. I fit in. No one worried about me keeping up. We just skied. The same as skiing, trail riding uphill has been difficult from the beginning and climbing Kili will remain an incomprehensibly difficult challenge, but there’s a slight shift.

When I first started to ride the three-wheeler, I thought that my heart would jump out of my chest in the first hundred meters. The first climb by my house (on a route that I’ve now done in 34 minutes) took well over an hour. Numerous times I wondered if I could make it to the top, which barely seemed like the top of anything. When I went to Kilimanjaro in June, I couldn’t believe the difficulty. I moved so slowly. We made the first camp the first day, though we finished in the dark after eight hours of climbing. Then it took me three days to get to the second camp and that was only after I had asked for help. I wouldn’t have made it there under my own power. Now, I know it will be far from easy and I haven’t even seen the top yet. It will be hard—incomprehensibly hard, but with this new rig and with the training, I can at least dream.

Building the rig

This rig is the compilation of many ideas that started with Mike Augspurger and One-Off Titanium. In the mid-nineties he developed a vehicle that could climb most anything, traverse rough terrain, and go off-road. I was his first disabled test rider. The idea of getting to the woods intrigued me, especially since life in a wheelchair usually requires paving the rough spots—sidewalks, ramps, and curb cuts.

Dave Penney and I spent a lot of the summer climbing. Hours of moving slowly left ample time to talk about ways to improve the vehicle. Our first thought was to shorten the wheelbase, moving the back wheels almost under my hips to improve traction. Then we’d need to reduce the weight and narrow the wheels. Those were our priorities, but we couldn’t find someone to make the changes (Mike wanted to focus on other projects) until Dave found Rod Miner and Lightfoot Cycles in Darby, Montana. In a short four to five days Rod and Dave created Bomba, a vehicle that makes me dream and believe that we can access the mountains, the beaches and who knows what else.

To see the rig in action go to this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rbh496zgCF4 

We all know that Roger Bannister first broke the four-minute, but most of us don’t know the others who tried. Australian John Landy and American Wes Santee like Bannister searched for the “perfect race” when training, weather, track surface, and competition combined for “the perfect mile.” Each, by virtue of training and talent stood on the cusp, but who would be first? Bannister possessed a crushing final kick, Landy’s fitness reigned superior, and Santee a combination of both. The three revolutionized training methods. Bannister fit purposeful training sessions into his days as resident in neurology. He also studied the body as it approached and bypassed exhaustion. Landy ran under the veil of darkness—torturing himself with long, fast intervals in a nearby park while his family slept. Santee competed for the University of Kansas, turning in World Class times in events ranging from the 800 through the 10,000

As I read Neal Bascomb’s The Perfect Mile, I couldn’t help but project myself in the role of protagonist—couldn’t help but imagine my quest for Kili somehow approaching the four-minute mile. I started to add intervals to my training in the hopes of adding speed. In the past when I’d thought of Kilimanjaro, I’d considered it a long grind, but speed would help me get to the desired locations more quickly and before darkness fell. With speed would come power to surmount obstacles. And there was a race. Darol Kubacz and Jimmy Goddard both planned to be the first paraplegics to summit unassisted. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to be first—to in some small way approach a feat like Bannister’s—to be first. At the time the four-minute mile had seemed as elusive as reaching the highest point on Earth. Bannister’s father had said as much to him—the four-minute mile and the peak of Everest are all that remain. Bannister and Hillary knocked those off in the span of a year. Like the four-minute mile, Kilimanjaro in a handcycle has proven elusive.  There have been at least five attempts, with none really coming close.

Darol took his second run at the mountain in August. Reading the blog on his website: www.uhuruascent.com, I marveled at his pace and long days. In five days, three climbing and two off days, he made it to Kibo hut at about 15,500 feet. He logged two eleven hour days and one fifteen hour day. During my June trip, I never climbed longer than eight hours, and even those were miserable thanks to temperatures that plummeted with the setting sun, about six pm. Darol climbed for another seven hours after sunset, and he climbed through miserable rain and mud conditions. As a feat of strength and will, his climb escaped comparison, but the mountain caught up. Pulmonary edema forced Darol to descend without a shot at the summit. Like those in the race for the perfect mile, I need to learn from Darol’s attempt. He obviously has tremendous fitness, but altitude thwarted his attempt. My fitness is coming. I’ve had numerous good four and five hour climbs—one day climbing over 2,100 feet in 5 hours. I also lowered my Nowhere Elks climb record by four minutes, finishing in 34:25. The Nowhere Elks day Dave Penney asked me, “Is this your regular pace?” I said, “No. I’m flying.” Flying or not, we’ll aim for shorter days than Darol—about 1500 feet vertical a day. Our pace will mean more time on the mountain, but hopefully a better shot at the elusive top. Summit day or the descent would be the only days that we might push to darkness, and only then if we can get up and return low relatively quickly.

The four-minute mile captivated the world. Bannister’s name and achievement lit marquees throughout the world. For me, the summit is the top of the mountain and it isn’t. I achieved many proverbial summits in my life: gold medals, World Championships, but none achieved what I consider the ultimate summit: “To get noticed.” I spent last month in Beijing for the Paralympic Summer Games, the second largest event in the world this year with approximately 4,000 athletes, yet there was minimal to no television coverage in the US; www.paralympicsport.tv and Universal covered the Games on the web, yet it’s a shame that American viewers couldn’t stumble over the Paralympics while clicking their remote. It’s too bad that only existing fans watched the Games, and it’s too bad that many missed some of the greatest sporting achievements of the year.

For me, the climb is about reaching the top, but it’s about so much more. It’s about the genesis of ability—that spark that starts a journey from something inconceivable to something realized. At times, my spark has been completely internal. After my accident I knew that I had “to do it myself.” No one else could recapture my life. I needed to know that it was all me, but as I moved to disabled sports I learned so much from the people around me. I learned from Jim Martinson, twenty plus years my senior, about the youthful joy of hard work and physical exhaustion. I watched Sarah Will, all 80-90 pounds of her, strive to be the fastest monoskier in the world. At one point she beat almost all the men in the world. I watched those with doubts—the ones just starting out—and I watched the light bulb go on. I learned from the training of wheelchair racers like Scot Hollonbeck, Saul Mendoza, and Heinz Frei—and marveled at athletes like Jeff Adams ability to fight out of seemingly impossible situations on the track to reach the finish line first. Those around me pushed me—helped to create that spark—that genesis of ability.

 Is it a race? Yes. It’s a race to get noticed–to get the Paralympics on TV–to tell the story. 

The top. The summit. The cone. All my preparation focused on the top. The rest of the mountain did not seem to exist. It was all the steep, soft almost 4000 final feet. I envisioned my wheels sinking to a halt in the volcanic ash, my lungs screaming for oxygen. In reality, my wheels didn’t sink. Surprisingly enough, the part of the top that I completed—from 15,500 to 16,500 challenged me less than the more technical lower part of the mountain that I had dismissed so easily. At 16,500 feet my heart rate reached 141. It felt comfortable, yet altitude will still presented one of the biggest challenges. Oxygen at the top is only 48% of that at sea level.

The effects started at 12,500 feet when I stopped breathing—just for a moment, but long enough to wake me up. I fell back asleep and it happened again. Thoughts of pulmonary edema or cerebral edema snapped my eyes wide open. I reached out and shook my tent mate, John Lawrence, our doctor.

“I stopped breathing twice. Is that a problem?”

John struggled to wake. “Do you want drugs?” Diamox—the diuretic that balanced O2 and CO2 in the body—was on all our minds. Coming out of the haze of sleep, John offered the suggestion on the top of his mind.

“No. I just want to know that I’m okay.”

John gained lucidity, “You’re fine.”

That was enough for me. I fell back asleep, but I had planted a seed of altitude doubt for him. While I slept, he wondered about the altitude effects, and like a good doctor tested himself. Over and over he counted to ten in French. Each time he reached the end and only had nine numbers. And each time he knew that he had missed “sept” or seven. When he relayed his counting exploits to me the next morning I told him that if he knew he missed seven that meant that he was fine, but in the dark, in the thin air John worried, and I slept, but I’d have my own problems in the night.

John might well have been trying to remember seven as I slid into the side of the tent again. Not only did the slope of the mountain push me into the nylon wall, it also twisted the sleeping bag around me. Cold nipped at any exposed flesh. The locals say that on the mountain it’s summer every day and winter every night. I felt the winter. The zipper had rotated from my right side all the way to the left.

I say my sleeping bag, but it wasn’t my sleeping bag. It was the sleeping bag of my former girlfriend. I moved my left arm out of the straight jacket-like, but warm cocoon of down and grabbed the nylon on my hip and pulled and slid myself back to straight, but then the bag popped. Feathers flew in the air. I immediately wished I hadn’t tried to straighten out—wondered how I’d explain popping her sleeping bag, then I fell back asleep.

In the morning John woke to the sound of me blowing quickly through pursed lips. He worried about altitude, especially since it was a world where seven didn’t exist or at least sept didn’t. Darkness—light and dark are almost exactly twelve hours apiece that close to the equator— kept John from seeing me burble goose feathers. As light rose, I rolled to my side and said, “John, I had an incident in the night.”

A scared look crossed his face. In the proceeding days he’d complained that he hadn’t been able to do any doctoring short of cutting the sleeves off one of my shirts. Now, he might do some doctoring and he looked worried. I let him flutter in the breeze like a floating goose feather, waiting a few seconds before I said, “I popped my sleeping bag.”

He raised up on one elbow. Looking at the space between me and the wall that I’d visited so many times during the night, it looked like snow. He started to laugh—part must have been relief in that he didn’t have to do some disgusting doctoring—and part must have been the pure spectacle.

Going higher on the mountain—going to that higher more difficult part—I’d just limited my ability to stay warm. My below zero sleeping bag suddenly went to an above zero, and when the porters packed the tent the feathers flew out the back. It was another lesson that the biggest challenges on the mountain are not always the ones for which you prepare. 

“Jambo…jambo” It is chant and chorus–Hakuna Matata–the song that The Lion King made famous. The porters, guides cooks, etc. surround me. I recognize Freddy, Solomon, Seki and a few others, but most–especially the ones leading the song, I haven’t seen before. There are 72 paid staff and most I haven’t even seen. They are the ones who carry the tents, the food, our gear, and they are the ones who just carried me.

We started at the bottom of the Rongai Route at about noon on the first day. It had been a four hour drive to the Kenya and dry side of the mountain to avoid the slippery mud of the Morangu Route. That first dayI felt strong and sure that I’d suprise myself. My training wasn’t what I’d hoped, but I had this strange feeling that I’d come into my own on the mountain. Eight hours later, under the veil of darkness, I’d rolled into the first camp–a feat I didn’t think possible before I’d started.

 That first day I’d climbed a steep rocky slope so much more difficult than anything I’d ever approached. We’d used the winch. I pulled myself up the fixed rope and the porters had laid boards over some of the more difficult sections. At the top one wheel perched at least three feet off the ground as I crawled over the last rock. I’d never been in that kind of position. I didn’t know if the wheel would come down or if I’d tip over. The wheel came down. For the first time everyone clapped. I felt a bit self-conscious because this was just the first day. This was supposed to be the easy part. Still, I made it to camp and that allowed me to dream, that just maybe I could achieve the summit.

 The second day was another eight hour affair and a slight setback. As darkness approached we were forced to set camp about 1000 vertical feet from the proposed camp. It was supposed to be 1000 vertical meters in a little over three miles. I’d never done 1000 vetical meters (3300 vertical feet or so), but after the first day it seemed manageable, especially in three miles. I didn’t realize just how steep and unrelenting it would be. Each turn presented another almost impossible, steep, loose rocked climb. Water bars of loose rock, spaced about a time and a half of my wheel diameter proved to be the most challenging part. I had to pick a line each time knowing that any slight miscalculation would stop me dead.

 The first fifteen minutes of the day’s climb are always the worst. I feel like I won’t make it thorough those first few minutes, but once I do I start to find my rhythm. That second day I never found my rhythm. It was a relief when Dean, the head guide, said that we couldn’t make the second camp and needed to stop. The sun went down at 6:30 pm. With the memory of the previous night’s sapping cold, I couldn’t wait to get into my sleeping bag.

We’d proposed splitting the days in half all along. With just a thousand feet of vertical left, I was sure that the next day would be easy. I’d finish in the light. It would be a recharge day. I took that belief with me as I started the third morning. Almost immediately I was forced to the winch. The trail was too steep. I couldn’t pedal without slipping. With the winch I moved forward, but it was slow moving, and we were still on the approach. This was supposed to be the easy part. The top was supposed to be difficult, and I couldn’t even see it yet.

Plugging away all day long I felt like I’d made some ground, but all those times that someone said that lunch rock was five minutes or ten minutes away slipped into an hour or more. Finally Dean presented me with a choice. I could continue, but we’d risk not seeing the whole mountain. We’d come to scout–to learn as much as we could, but I didn’t know what the decision would bring. I decided to ask for help.

My team and the porters pulled and eventually carried me through a part of the trail that had been wiped out be the rains. There’s no way that I could have made it through that part on my own. It was far too narrow. I seem to arrive at camp in a moment and that’s when the singing starts.

Jambo…Jambo. I don’t recognize many of the words. It feels much more free form, though I hear Kilimanjaro, bicycleta (or something like that), American. For the first time our porters and guides share in my climb. I sit in the middle of the circle wondering how obvous defeat could turn so quickly into victory.

 I had started with the aim of climbing unassisted. I figured that the mountain would teach me something I needed to know. Unassisted could mean isolation. My indepence could keep me separate. By asking for help I brought the team together.

With the help of the team and porters I made it to 5000 meters or 16,500 feet. We saw enough to prepare for next year. I saw enough to know that another try will be the most difficult thing I’ve tried. Each time I thought that the trip would become easier it became harder. Rolling to the top was more like rock climbing than hiking. I solved problems the whole way. Physical fatigue was a part but the mental fatigue was worse. Even going back down was a struggle. The path was rougher than I could imagine. I rolled over boulders at least three feet tall. I had thought that down would be easy, yet I could barely keep pace with the walkers.

 If I wanted a challenge and I did, I’ve found it. The next few months will be a huge challenge, and then there will be many days on the mountain. I can’t imagine the lessons I will learn then.