This weekend, I had the good fortune to participate in a distance runner's workshop led by a popular former Olympian and still active marathoner. One of the participants is an amputee who runs with that really cool looking prosthetic that acts like a shock absorber and causes her to bounce a little on the strike. She was asking for resources to help her train with others like her for her first half marathon (that we're doing together in November), and she was concerned about the imbalance that she is still feeling with her prosthetic.
Our workshop leader related a story about a runner he knows who had his good leg purposefully amputated so that he could have the prosthetics on both sides. The prosthetics actually give the runner a certain advantage of not feeling the same amount of impact that non-amputee runners feel (which is why the fellow who tried to get the IOC to let him qualify for the Olympics was turned down). The point of the story was to discourage the young woman from even entertaining the thought.
It struck me as totally nuts for someone to even think about an unnecessary amputation. Then again, the human mind is still a very mysterious world.
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This weekend, I had the good fortune to participate in a distance runner's workshop led by a popular former Olympian and still active marathoner. One of the participants is an amputee who runs with that really cool looking prosthetic that acts like a shock absorber and causes her to bounce a little on the strike. She was asking for resources to help her train with others like her for her first half marathon (that we're doing together in November), and she was concerned about the imbalance that she is still feeling with her prosthetic.
Our workshop leader related a story about a runner he knows who had his good leg purposefully amputated so that he could have the prosthetics on both sides. The prosthetics actually give the runner a certain advantage of not feeling the same amount of impact that non-amputee runners feel (which is why the fellow who tried to get the IOC to let him qualify for the Olympics was turned down). The point of the story was to discourage the young woman from even entertaining the thought.
It struck me as totally nuts for someone to even think about an unnecessary amputation. Then again, the human mind is still a very mysterious world.
June 9, 2008 - 5:36pmThis Comment
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