Know Your Madisonian

Another feather in her cap, for Cap'n Kimmer, From Sunday's Wisconsin State Journal:


Know Your Madisonian
Wisconsin State Journal :: LOCAL :: D5
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Interviewed by Heather LaRoi

Name: Kim Virden\ Age: 46\ City: Madison\ Family: No children, soon to have a dog\ Occupation: Systems administrator at TDS Corp.

Volunteer activities: Organizer of the local Achilles Track Club for disabled athletes.

"My athletes have survived strokes, traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord injuries. They have multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy or epilepsy. They may be visually impaired, amputees, or have Parkinson's or other medical conditions. Achilles meets once a week for a workout. This means walking, running, handcycling, whatever the individual is able to do. We also participate in mainstream run/walks throughout the year."

How she ended up doing this: "After reading Trisha Meili's book, 'I am the Central Park Jogger,' I learned about Achilles International Track Club. When I discovered there wasn't a chapter in Wisconsin, I spoke to the New York-based founder and president Dick Traum and started the Madison chapter three years ago. We now have about 50 active members."


Why is what you do important?

"I really love my group of folks. They have become my family. It's great seeing folks get active again and form very special social bonds after surviving a life-changing medical problem or disease. It gives them new goals, new friends, and a new outlook on life something to live for. This makes my heart grow and grow."

Hobbies: Downhill ski racing, cross-country skiing, marathon running, kayaking, biking, swimming, camping, hiking.

Right now I'm reading: Bob Woodruff's book, "In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing"

Person I admire most: "Lance Armstrong, for surviving cancer and going back to be world's greatest bike racer"

Favorite way to spend free time: Movie and dinner with friends

If I could change one thing about Madison: High property taxes

If I could convince people of one thing: I would convince them that we all have different beliefs and thoughts on how we should live our lives to make ourselves happy. The world would be boring if we were all exactly alike.

- For more on Achilles Track Club, visit www.achillestrackclub.org.

Cap'n Kimmer and an Old Achilles Member

The language of friendship is not words but meanings. ~Henry David Thoreau


Cap'n Kimmer and Doc George

May Birthdays

A bit late, but with the best of all wishes for a Happy Birthday MONTH to our Achilles May Babes!

• Judy E. May 10
• Deb S. May 19
• Carlee the dog, May 23

Take a look at these links!

Check out these groups at their websites!

• Madison's Spinal Cord Injury Group - We plan, We go, We conquer!
• Outdoors without limits - A life changing experience
• Playground support - FIRST Boundless Playground

Parkinson Walkathon - April 16, 2008

More photos to come, and here is one to tantalize you....

Celebrating Strength With MS - 4/23/08

Celebrating Strength Event

Date and Time: Wednesday, 4/23/08 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM
Location: Madison, Crowne Plaza Hotel
Program registration begins at 6:00 PM and the program will start at 6:30 PM.
Complimentary light dinner will be served.
Register for this free seminar online or by calling 1-866-955-9999.

We welcome you to participate in a dialog of hope and health for people living with multiple sclerosis (MS).

Learn about Biogen Idec's commitment to MS and how we are transforming discovery into care.

Join others at this program and learn as Drs. Mary Forester, Natasha Frost, and Christopher Luzzio explain about treatment options and infusions in MS.

Get Well Pat

Dee, Vortex, Kelly, and Henna

The Great Bubbles Get-Away

Celebrating Bob's big 50 Party, he and Rene' went off for a weekend....Up North somewhere....

HOPES RUN

• The 10th Annual HOPES Walk for Awareness on Saturday, May 5, 2008, at Olin-Turveille Park.
• HOPES stands for Helping Others Prevent and Educate About Suicide.
  
• It is a 3 mile walk.
  
• Registration ($25) will begin at 8:30 a.m. and the walk at 10 a.m. with a light lunch to follow.
  
• Each year the names of our loved ones lost to suicide are read aloud during the opening ceremony. Our many faces of suicide quilts are displayed at each of our walks. There is a drawing for donated prizes, along with musical entertainment.
  
• Funds raised support both prevention efforts and services to survivors
• Sponsorships by making donations payable to HOPES
  

For more information, check out www.hopes-wi.org.

April Birthday Babes

Happy Birthday to our Achilles members:

• Allegra R. - April 11 (boy, do I remember that day!)
• Barb W. - April 25
  

"The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day.
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
a cloud come over the sunlit arch,
And wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March."

- Robert Frost

Birthday Bash!

Zoom Zoom

Capt'n Kimmers Steamboat Springs, CO. Ski Event

She brought home a Silver Medal, being 2nd in the nation for the fast and older women!

The photo on the right is at the top of the hill on Saturday before the racing.
The photo on the left is on the podium, after Kim gets the medal.

Deb Armstrong, a famous Olympic racer, put the medal on Kim and Phi Mahre, another famous Olympic ski racer, shook her hand!

Way to go, Zoom Zoom Kimmer!

Walk MS

May 4, 2008 for the Wisconsin,
Madison - Walk MS 2008!

Start and finish location:
Monona Terrace
Lower level in the Exhibit Hall

Check in-Time: 9:00 a.m.
Start Time: 10:00 a.m.

At approximately 9:45 a.m. there will be an exiting program with wonderful entertainment to kick off the morning!
Walk MS will start after the program.

Route:
We have a NEW route this year that is
beautiful, scenic and safe!
Route maps available soon. Please check back.

Parking:
There is FREE parking on the streets near Monona Terrace.
Monona Terrace also has plenty of parking for a nominal fee.

Team Photos:
Team photos can be taken prior to the start (during registration) and after. The photographer will be stationed outside the Exhibit hall.

We will provide all participants a healthy snack bag upon their return to take home. In order to ensure that we use the money raised by our Walk MS participants toward our mission, we have chosen to provide a take-home snack bag in lieu of the lunch we have provided in years past. We appreciate your understanding and thank you for supporting the decision to move our hard-earned fundraising dollars toward our mission.

Download our Registration Instructions to help you in the registration process

Experiences of a Stroke

This is an unusual posting for our blog - but please take the 18 or so minutes to watch the video. It is an amazing first-hand account of a neuro-scientist describe her own stroke experience.

Click Here

Achilles Quotes Wanted!

Dear Achilles Athletes, Volunteers, Guides, family members,

It is almost spring which means race season is just around the corner!! JUNE 22nd is HOPE AND POSSIBILITY !!!!!

Achilles staff members are in the process of putting together proposals to help underwrite many of our programs and athlete sponsorships.

As you know Achilles is celebrating 25 years and we would like to include some quotes from Achilles Athletes, volunteers, guides, and family members.

If you would be so kind to submit no more than a short paragraph or less including some or all of the following...

• a little anecdote about an experience with Achilles.
• or what it means to be part of Achilles?
• has Achilles changed you as a person? how so??
• why do you like Achilles?

We are adding more and more Achilles athletes to our roster on a daily basis and want to be able to provide sponsorship opportunities as much as possible. In order to do that.. we NEED your help!

Please send all quotes to Genna at ggriffith@achillestrackclub.org by Friday March 14th.

By sending your quotes you are giving us the permission to use this potentially in Achilles related materials and proposals for marketing and fundraising purposes.

We truly appreciate your input and support!!!!!


Genna Griffith :)



__,_._,___

March Birthday Babies

A big, warm Happy Birthday from the Achilles Family to these March Birthday Babes:

• Kelly McCourt - 3/3
• Alice Mathis - 3/10
• Jim Cunningham - 3/15
• Bob Cromer - 3/28
• Juddy Rossa - 3/30

Kathy D and Ski for Light

Love to Run (Ben Kweller)



Kathy, Jim, and Little-E are in Bend, OR for the program is called "Ski for Light".

The humans participated (sorry Elizabeth) in an awesome x-country ski program for the visually impaired and physically disabled.

Below is a link to a great story that was in the local Bend, OR paper.

Please read it as it was just an awesome program/trip. On the bad side I have to report that poor Kathy fell and hurt her knee and is currently hobbling.

First report from the doctors in Oregon was she "sprained" her MCL (Medial collateral ligament). But Kathy has an appointment on Friday with a local doctor who will look at it again and confirm it's not worse.

Send Kathy some good, healing thoughts!

On a positive note - great news is Kathy took 3rd place in her race division.

Congratulations Kathy - yea, yea, yea!!!!!

http://www.bendbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080218/SPORTS05/802180371/1013&nav_category=

Here is the article, but please check the link. Very cool photos.

Close your eyes for a moment. Imagine day-to-day life this way, without of sight. Then take yourself outside onto the nordic trails at Mt. Bachelor ski area. The announcer calls your name, and then the name of your guide — the person who will lead you through every move — and you are off on a 5- or 10-kilometer ski course. You are skiing by the eyes of your guide.

With the 33rd annual Ski for Light program, blind skiers did just that. They hit the ski trials Saturday at Bachelor for the week’s finale of races. During this past week, nearly 300 Ski for Light participants — skiers and guides — gathered from around the U.S. and seven different countries to ski, train, learn, laugh, overcome obstacles, and — above all — work as a team.

“The team effort is what makes it so special. It takes a pretty good skier and an excellent guide, and that’s what I had,” said the visually impaired Scott McCall of Atlanta, who finished third in the 10K Saturday with ski partner Byron Oberst of Bend. Ying Chan of Essex, England with guide Allen Takahashi was the top male finisher in the 10K, followed by second place John Sandell of Kristiansand, Norway, with his two guides Per Grimstad and Irene Larssen.

“It really is a team,” said McCall. “Too often, I think, we give too much credit to the blind skier and don’t recognize the precision that’s involved in guiding.”

“It’s just like dancing, you learn your partner and you know when to go fast and when not to,” said Oberst.

McCall has been cross-country skiing for about 25 years and during that time has been aided by more than 30 guides. He said he feels that this year, he and Oberst were a perfect match.

Since its inception in 1975, Ski for Light has attracted skiers of all levels of experience, from beginners to advanced competitors. And while many participants are longtime ski racers — some of them former Paralympians — the event is less about winning and all about camaraderie.

“(The bonding) is my favorite part of the whole experience,” said Nancy Stevens, a blind skier from Glenwood Springs, Colo., who teaches the guides how to lead the blind and mobility-impaired skiers. “And coming up with the whole communication system that’s going to work really well,” she said. “And just the friends that you make here. It’s just a really fabulous group.”

At age 47, Stevens was the second female finisher in the 10K Saturday, behind Robin Van Lant of Louisville, Colo. Stevens is a triathlete and cross-country ski racer. Ski partner Brook Yates, originally of Breckenridge, Colo., is involved in a travel-study program to become an orientation and mobility instructor and a teacher for the visually impaired. She will spend the next few years traveling the country to follow her career passion.

“Part of our (Ski for Light) mission statement is that it’s recreational-based and not competition-based. So this race that you see here is all very much about fun and it’s fun-spirited. It’s not cutthroat.”

“Unless you’re Scott McCall,” Stevens added, joking about McCall’s competitive nature.

While the majority of skiers were visually impaired, there were a handful of mobility-impaired skiers, one of whom lives in Redmond.

Carl Backstrom was paralyzed from the waist down about 20 years ago in a motorcycle accident, but continues to partake in all sorts of recreational activities. He is on the board of directors for Oregon Adaptive Sports, an organization that takes frequent ski trips to the two Central Oregon downhill ski resorts, Hoodoo and Bachelor.

Backstrom completed the 10K race Saturday on a ski sled, using just his upper body to complete the 6.2 miles.

“A lot of it is more technique than strength,” Backstrom explains. “Especially for me with these sit-skis. When you are pushing uphill, instead of using your arms and rocking ... I focus on alternating muscles groups as much as I can.”

Just about every skier at the Ski for Light festivities at Mount Bachelor had an inspiring story to tell. Some participants have been involved in the program for 20 to 30 years — either as a guide or visually/mobility-impaired skier — traveling all over the world to various Ski for Light venues. Some were learning to ski for the first time.

What all the skiers had in common though was their ability to push beyond obvious physical obstacles.

“It was one of those life changing weeks for me,” said Oberst. “Just to see these people who can’t see, accomplish so much of independence and the ability to ski a very difficult course that they cannot see — following our lead. I’m just in awe of their ability.”

Katie Brauns can be reached at 541-383-0393 or kbrauns@bendbulletin.com.

ING NYC Marathon Alert

If you are a Madison Achilles member interested in participating in the ING New York City Marathon on Nov 2, 2008 please contact Capt'n Kimmer BEFORE applying online for a Lottery spot.

Meet Jean Driscoll

You are invited! Please mark your calendar

Meet Jean Driscoll - Olympian, Paralympian, author & advocate for persons with disabilities around the world

When: Wed., March 12th, 5 to 6:30 p.m.
Where: at Huegel Elementary School
2601 Prairie Rd, Madison, WI 53711

(Prairie Rd. is off of Raymond Rd. between Whitney Way & McKenna Blvd.)

Jean was born with spina bifida, and despite this fact, she has won the Boston Marathon eight times and is the only person in the 100 plus year history of the event to achieve that feat.

Sports Illustrated for Women recognizes Jean as one of the top 25 female athletes of the 20th century. www.jeandriscoll.com. Photo is from Ms. Driscoll's website.

Sponsored by Capital City Harley-Davidson, MADISON SCHOOL & COMMUNITY RECREATION, Madison’s Spinal Cord Injury Group, The McBurney Center, UW Health, UW Accessibility Advocates Student Organization, and other sponsors

To RSVP for services or to ensure adequate disabled van-accessible parking, please contact Monica KamalRossa at 608-288-0340 or xena-rolls@charter.net