One Handed

On Life with One Hand by Keiron McCammon

This Too Shall Pass

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An

“On Your Own”

Half Ironman

The world has certainly changed since my last update on March 11th. Who knew what was just around the corner?

Back then, my first race of the season, a Half Ironman in Florida, was five weeks away. I was deep into my training for the Ironman World Championship in Kona, scheduled for October 10th. Today.

That was over half a year ago and what feels like another world entirely.

As you can probably guess, my race in Florida did not happen. The World Championship in Kona was initially postponed until February next year and then canceled entirely. There is no World Championship today, like so many other things, a victim of the global pandemic.

Yet I’m reminded of when I was hospitalized in 2006, after having flown into power lines on my paraglider and been electrocuted.

After being medevac’d from Colombia to Miami, and once I was off the critical list and out of ICU, I was faced with an uncertain and indeterminate future thousands of miles from home.

Despite having just launched my first startup barely weeks prior, my life was now on hold as one surgery rolled into another, and the days came and went with no end in sight.

After the amputation of my left hand, I was left with a left arm that would not have been amiss if hung like a joint of meat in a butcher shop. It was so terrifying that I refused to look at it; whenever it came time to change my dressings, I turned my head aside.

What kept me going through my ordeal was the faith that this, too, shall pass. I had survived shorting across power lines and knew that whatever pain and emotional turmoil I then experienced would be but a dim and distant memory in the not too distant future. Of this, I was certain.

So for all of you that have struggled and continue to battle day-to-day as you navigate this pandemic, know that this too shall pass; nothing lasts forever, good or bad.

While I may not be racing in Kona today, I know my day will come, fingers crossed, this time next year. I chose to focus on what I can control, and ahead of me lies another twelve months of training and preparation…one swim, bike ride, and run after another.

I wish everyone continued good health through these trying times, my thoughts are with you…may you thrive throughout what is left of 2020 and beyond.

P.S. I do want to say a special thank you to a couple of dear friends, Lyndon and Graeme, who have been super generous in these uncertain times, helping me jump to over $46,000 raised so far for the Challenged Athletes Foundation. As you can imagine these are tough times for charities. Shout out to Sam, Fred, Alan, and Marvin as well, thank you for your support. I’m not far from my goal of $50,000, you can donate online here and remember Kerry and I are matching your donations dollar-for-dollar: http://support.challengedathletes.org/goto/kona-2020

P.S.S And while races were all canceled this year there was no holding back my best-of-friends Curt Cronin as we completed our own Half Ironman around Lake Tahoe in August (he only started his triathlon training this year). As you can see from the photo above, with the swim behind us we’re all smiles on our way up and over Emerald Bay.

What Does it Take?

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When people find out that I’m training for an Ironman the conversation invariably steers towards the training that it takes to be able to complete a 140.6-mile race.

Now, while I’m not “mister speedy” out there, I thought I’d share a little of my preparation for the Ironman World Championship this October in Kona, Hawaii.

Things kicked off in October last year as I started to get back into training with my coach Paul Kinney (Kinney Multisport).

Paul has been my coach since I started doing triathlons in 2008. Having a coach is critical to me. The accountability keeps me honest, and I don’t have to think about my training, I just have to do it.

My overall training regime consists of swimming three times a week, biking three times a week, and running three times a week.

I also add in yoga three times a week as I find it helps keep me injury-free.

So that’s twelve workouts crammed into six days (Mondays are nominally a recovery day, though, I still do yoga), with longer distance workouts at the weekend.

The duration, distance, or intensity of each workout builds week-over-week for three weeks and then the fourth week is a recovery week with lighter intensity workouts.

This four-week cycle repeats month-after-month, ad-nauseam, until race day (twelve months for me this time, though typically it’d be more like nine months).

To make everything a little more concrete, here’s my training schedule from last week (my first race of the season is five weeks away, Ironman Florida 70.3, and I’ve just finished my penultimate four-week cycle before the race):

WorkoutDurationDistance
MondayRest Day
Yoga1:00:00
TuesdayBike1:00:1519 miles
Run0:10:431.12 miles
WednesdayYoga1:00:00
Swim0:44:022,000 yards
ThursdayBike1:00:1518.4 miles
Run0:55:385.82 miles
FridayYoga1:00:00
Swim0:44:142,000 yards
SaturdayBike3:26:1055 miles
Run0:46:044.7 miles
SundaySwim0:47:492200 yards
Run1:50:0711 miles
14:25:17119 miles

Over fourteen hours and nearly one hundred and twenty miles, and that’s for a Half Ironman.

As it gets closer to October most of the above times and distances will increase, (particularly the weekend workouts), as I build towards being ready for the 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, and 26.2-mile run in Kona. By then I’ll be training over twenty hours and covering closer to two hundred miles a week.

You may be thinking, “wow, there’s no way I could do that.”

That’s certainly what I said to myself when I first started doing triathlons and saw these “crazies” who were training for their first Ironman.

“Why would they want to do that?” I’d exclaim to anyone willing to listen.

And yet here I am…as with many things in life, it’s a gradual progression that starts with an incredulous first step.

Thank you to everyone who has donated to date to help me reach my goal of raising $50,000 for the Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF) by my 50th birthday next February.

I’m up to $17,524 already!

A big shout out to Alex, Julian, R2, Cynthia, Bob, Brian, Claire & Sean, Patricia, Stefan, Seph, Lynne, James, Jordan, Victor, Hershy, Christine, Kat, Chris, and Marla, thank you for your support.

Can you help? Kerry and I will match you dollar for dollar.

You can donate online here:
http://support.challengedathletes.org/goto/kona-2020

Fifty @ Fifty

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It has been a while since I last wrote. Maybe it’s age, but it’s astounding how easily a year or two can slip by, and believe me it’s been a busy couple of years.

When last I wrote it was June 2017 and I had completed my third Ironman at Lake Placid, putting in a personal best at age 46.

Fast forward a year to August 11th, 2018 and Kerry and I were renewing our vows, celebrating 18 years of marriage with friends & family in Kerry’s hometown in England. Her Dad finally getting to walk his only child down the aisle.

Then, come August 2019, we were both racing at Ironman 70.3 Boulder before heading off on a month-long Safari in Africa, traveling through Namibia and Botswana.

Now, it’s 2020 and the beginning of a new decade, and it has been a decade since I completed my first Ironman and set out to be a shining example of the power of the human mind, body, and spirit, inspiring others to overcome that which stops them from reaching their highest potential.

This year, thanks to my wonderful wife, I get to compete at the Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii – the birthplace of Ironman triathlon – fulfill a dream I’ve had since completing my first 140.6 mile Ironman in Cozumel.

To commemorate this grand challenge, and to give me the encouragement not to quit, I’d love to raise $50,000 for the Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF) by my 50th birthday a year from today.

Can you help me? To donate online, click here.

Kerry and I will match you dollar for dollar.

And should your company have a donation matching program, then we’ll also match their match…so every dollar you donate could equate to four times that going to CAF.

Why do I support CAF (aside from my personal connection as an upper limb amputee)?

  • 21 million people live with a physical disability in the USA
  • 50% of adults with a disability get no aerobic exercise
  • Children with disabilities have a 38% higher obesity rate

Most insurance companies do not cover adaptive sports equipment, which many individuals with physical challenges simply cannot afford alone.

This is where CAF steps in and offers support through grants, camps & clinics, and mentorship to individuals with physical challenges who want to get involved in sports and be active.

Since CAF was founded in 1994, it has:

  • Raised over $112,000,000
  • Provided 26,000+ grants
  • For 103 different sports
  • In all 50 states across the US
  • And in 70 countries worldwide
  • Reaching an estimated 20,000,000 people with their message of hope and inspiration

On April 19th I’ll be competing at my first race of the season, Ironman 70.3 Florida and will be sure to post a race update!

Why Write?

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“What are you writing about?” The common response I hear upon telling someone, “I’m working on a book.”

When confronted by a blank page, “what am I going to write?” Is the foremost thought in my mind. What? What indeed.

In persistently asking “what” is it at all possible I’m grasping at the wrong end of the stick?

In Simon Sinek’s TED talk titled “How Great Leaders Inspire Action”, he expounds that people don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.

And while buy in this context relates to marketing and sales, I believe the message has broader applicability. He explains how most businesses or brands focus on communicating their value based on what they do, as he says, “we make cars that are faster than anyone else,” or, “…are more fuel efficient…”, or, “…can fit more people.” He continues, explaining that some brands in an attempt to differentiate themselves, tell how they do it. Very few, though, are clear about why they do it. The purpose, cause or belief that underlies their existence. Those brands that do, however, are the brands with the cult-like followings; the raving fan customers that queue for days to purchase or experience the latest new thing.

Take Apple, a brand Sinek uses as an exemplar, imagine if Apple marketed like this:

“We make great computers, they are beautifully designed, simple to use and are user-friendly, want to buy one?”

Nothing unusual with this message, as he says, it’s the way most of us would communicate. It starts with what they do and works inwards.

Apple, though, does not market like this; instead, their message is:

“With everything we do we believe in challenging the status quo, in thinking differently, our products are beautifully designed, simple to use and user-friendly, we just happen to make great computers, want to buy one?”

What a difference starting with why makes. Sinek states that Apple “consistently thinks, acts and communicates from the inside out.” They start with why, and as consumers, we feel it. Just compare the brand appeal of Apple to someone like Dell, who also happens to make computers and other consumer electronics.

I believe, there is something akin to Sinek’s why when it comes to writing. On the outside is what we write: fiction or nonfiction; books or plays; poems or sonnets; essays or articles. The topics we enjoy, the stories we like to tell, the genres to which we gravitate.
Some may know who it is they are writing for: children; teenagers; or adults. Those in love, those not. Those who enjoy science fiction, those who read romance, those that enjoy thrillers or are in need of a laugh.

How many though, know why they write?

“Because it’s my job,” doesn’t count and doing it for fame and fortune is perhaps a little hopeful.

Why is hard. It’s fuzzy. What we do is so much simpler, more concrete, easier for us to verbalize. Digging deep into our psyche to uproot our seemingly unconscious motivations and desires is effortful. It doesn’t come naturally to most. But, what if, before putting pen to paper, instead of asking, “what am I going to write?” You ask instead, “why is it I write?” How different would that be?

What is it that drives you, that compels you? What sustains you as you sit staring at the blank page or pound away tirelessly to shape a paragraph, rewrite a sentence or change a word for the umpteenth time?

Are you writing to right a wrong, to set the record straight? To make a difference in the world—leave a dent in the universe, as Steve Jobs would say? To share a story that is burning up inside of you. To educate, to entertain, to inspire, to shock, to elicit a smile or cause a tear to shed. To be the best damn writer, poet, playwright the world has ever seen.

“Enough already!”, I hear you scream, “it’s because it’s who I am.”

Now that’s a powerful statement. There is no more powerful a driver of human action than our beliefs about who we are. When your why becomes part of that, part of your identity, there is no challenge or obstacle, or blank page or recalcitrant phrase or awkward word that can stand in your way.

I’d posit that the Greats knew why they wrote. Shakespeare knew why he wrote. I couldn’t image the great bard explaining prosaically to someone that he’d just met in a pub in Elizabethan England:

“I mostly write plays, in them, I capture the essence of the human condition, want to see one?”

No, he would say:

“I am the chronicler of my time; I see the truth of what it is to be human, endlessly interesting and impossible to reduce to a simple formula, my plays capture the essence of the human condition, want to see one?”

Perhaps what makes great writing is not what is written, but why it was written. Is it not our passion, our drive, our purpose that brings life to the page, that seeps into every word we choose, the phrases we construct and paragraphs we write, grabbing the reader by the scruff of the neck and shouting, “read on, read on, I wrote this just for you!”

Writing is an arduous task, as the saying goes, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it; but if you have a powerful enough why anything is possible. It’s not what you write; it’s why you write that matters.