Southeast Wheelchair Games: Day 2

Hi All,

Tonight is our last night before we leave Myrtle Beach. We had a great time at our competitions today and I met a lot of really cool people. Before I tell you about the people I met, I'll tell you how our team did.

I threw the shotput, javelin, and discus today. Because I was expecting to be in a lower class, 32 (not 57), I was forced to throw a shotput that was one kilogram heavier than what I was practicing with. (A 4K instead of a 3K). Despite that setback, my best mark was only .08 meters off from my average 3K mark. My mark for that was 3.84 meters. All things considered, I have to be satisfied with that!

Our javelin that we were practicing with was an old model and was deemed "illegal" because the balance point was too far back. It was not my best javelin day, but I managed a mark around 11 meters.

I probably threw the discus farther than I ever have before - it was a good time to peak! My best discus throw was around 11 and a half meters!

My two teammates that threw, Rohan and Jake, all did very well. Both of them should medal in their respective categories! The more exciting thing for both of them today was the powerlifting competition. Jake's best was 315 pounds (a US Record for his weight class) and Rohan set the American Record (North and South America) with a lift of 350 pounds!

Tomorrow, Maggie will race in a series of track heats and she are already pumped for that.

I met a lot of cool people today like Scott Winkler, one of the Paralympic Athletes that was injured in Iraq who competes in shotput and discus. Scott has a great sense of humor and truly enjoys life! He gave us pointers on how to improve our throwing and hung out with us for the whole day. We also met a Paralympic athlete named Orlando Perez, a Puerto Rican Wheelchair Basketball player, who had a great time. He was enjoying everything and tried throwing everything and powerlifting for he first time just for the fun of it! I also had dinner with Lance Landback, the two time gold medal Paralympic swimmer. He was pretty cool, too.

One of the many things I love about the Paralympics is the unity it has among all athletes - it does not matter how good you are, the Paralympic athletes want to mentor you to your own definition of success. We would not have athletes like Scott Winkler, Orlando Perez, Lance Landback, or Maggie Redden (one of the Penn State athletes) come to an event like this if we were able bodied. They would be too busy training for their own, higher level meets instead of coming out to give us a hand.

Tonight, we had dinner with Orlando, Lance, and a few people that we had never met before. We talked about everything from track and field to skiing to how bad the karaoke singing in the restaurant was. It was a great experience!

I will upload pictures tomorrow and update you on how Maggie does!

- Tracker
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"It's not what you can't do....it's what you CAN do!" - Anonymous