Inspiration

LEGEND.

(pic courtesy of Nike / oscarpistorius.com)

I've been thinking a lot recently about climbing performance.  Specifically, just how far I could push my level if I really applied myself.  I've been experimenting with structured training plans and working on my weaknesses. I've taken the time to stretch properly and am looking after my body a bit more. In July I stopped drinking alcohol and have lost eleven pounds of body fat in the eight weeks since (aside from all the other advantages - but that's another blog post).  But I've come to realise that the final ingredient is not physical, it's mental.  Its all about how hard I am prepared to try.  

Thankfully there's been a fair amount of inspiration this year - what a summer of sport it has been.  When the Olympics finished in mid-August, I didn't think it could get any better. I was just grateful I was on holiday in Spain when it came to an end - being out in the sun climbing every day with Lara and Anita certainly helped deflect my sense of loss.  But then we came back to London and the paralympics kicked off.  Wow.  As Channel 4 said: "Thanks for the warm-up". I think the Channel 4 coverage of the Paralympics has been brilliant.  In fact, it was a Channel 4 advert for wheelchair rugby (aka 'murder-ball') that really got my attention - two minutes of slow-motion high-impact crashes between people in wheelchairs, followed by various players listing their injuries from playing the sport (broken hands, fractured wrists, cracked ribs and one player who broke his jaw and fractured his eye socket during the course of a game).  It ends with Kylie Grimes, the only female player on the otherwise all-male GB team saying "how bad can it really get? I've already broken my back."  From that moment on Anita and I were transfixed.

To be clear: I was blown away by some of the achievements on display at the Olympics. Mo Farah running the final 400m of his 10,000m race in 57 seconds (my personal best for a single 400m lap is somewhere north of 1 minute 20), or watching the women's cycling pursuit team breaking their own world record in their heat, and then again in the semi-final, and then AGAIN in the final.  But seeing a Chinese Swimmer with no arms winning a gold medal in the backstroke (defeating several swimmers with at least one arm and a couple with two); a kenyan man with one leg jumping 1.85m in the high jump, or a team of blind football players winning a penalty shoot-out against a non-blind goalkeeper (something Ashley Cole and the rest of the England football team have yet to master) was just mind blowing.  Watching wheelchair basketball last friday at the North Greenwich Arena left me open mouthed at the way in which the players moved the ball from one end of the court to another - marking, passing, dribbling and shooting all whilst piloting wheelchairs at full speed. 

The biggest revelation for me was realising that the paralympics is not about disabled people being allowed to take part in sport - this is sport at an elite level, a level 99.9% of the able-bodied population (myself included) will never get close to.  Ellie Simmonds, who is a dwarf, can swim 100m freestyle in less than the time it take for me to swim half that distance.  Johnny Peacock, a track sprinter with one prosthetic leg, holds the 100m record at 10.8 seconds. He's probably the fourth quickest sprinter (able bodied or disabled) in Great Britain.  David Weir has entered the London wheelchair marathon five times.  He managed fourth once, despite suffering two punctures - every other time he's come first.  At the London Paralympics he won gold medals - destroying all comers - in the 800m, 1500m, 5000m and marathon.  His strength, athleticism and sheer determination are staggering. 

Finally, what to say about Oscar Pistorius? Tonight Anita declared that she is in love with him (I quote: "he makes prosthetic legs look sexy"). I think I may even have a bit of a man crush.  Born with only one of the two main bones in each of his lower legs, his parents were told a few days after his birth that he must have both legs amputated below the knee. Despite this, he excelled at every sport he tried - swimming, rugby, tennis, athletics.  At 15 he ran the 100m at a school sports day. His dad later realised that his time was over half a second faster than the then world record for double amputees.  He went on to win almost everything he entered at multiple Paralympics, including the 100m, 200m, 400m, 4x100m relay at Athens and Beijing.  When he was beaten in the 200m in London it was the first time he has lost a race in nine years (he went on to win the 400m and 4x100m relay).  He's even made the final of the 4x100m relay at the London Olympics, beating a number of 'regular' athletes in the process.  

The efforts of the able-bodied athletes at the olympics at times left me speechless. But some of the feats achieved at the Paralympics made me shout at the television in astonishment.  Blind long-jumpers, sprinters and football players, one-legged table tennis players and high jumpers on crutches, swimmers who swim 50m in under 30s despite starting form a sitting dive because they have no legs.  Don't tell me that David Weir, Ellie Simmonds, Johnny Peacock or any of these athletes are disabled.  They have more ability than I ever will.  It makes me want to go to the gym, to the climbing wall, to put my trainers on and start running - just to see what I am capable of.  As Oscar Pistorius says: "our disabilities do not make us disabled.  Our abilities make us able."  True inspiration.