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Carl Linde is back to do a triathlon after a spinal cord injury

(upbeat instrumental music) - It's tempting to use that first mile as your warmup but prepping your muscles before you hit the run is key for success. This essential pre-run routine only takes five minutes. Hey team, coach Jess here. We're going to start things off nice and easy with a quad and piriformis walk. Draw your heel up behind you and pull it towards your glute. Keep your knees in line. Tuck your tailbone and press your hips forward. Release, step forward and repeat on the other side. (upbeat instrumental music) For the piriformis cradle your leg at the ankle and the knee As you pull it up toward your chest release step forward and repeat on the other leg. You can apply pressure to the knee to deepen your stretch. Make sure you're feeling this in the outer hip. These muscles are often really tight as a runner so this dynamic move will help loosen you up. Next We have a hip opener. Draw one knee up to the chest then open it up to the side. Reset then repeat for 30 seconds. This targets the deep hip external rotators. Now we're going to go into arm circles. Lift your arms up to shoulder height and rotate forward. Hold for 30 seconds then switch directions. This'll get your upper body warmed up and help you connect to those shoulders. Next, the Frankenstein walk. Extend one leg straight out in front of you as you reach opposite hand to toes, keep posture tall repeat on the other leg and continue to alternate. This active stretch really gets into those hamstrings through movement. Moving into a leg crossover plus scorpion. Keeping your shoulders grounded draw your knee to your chest. Then pull your knee towards the ground on the opposite side. Then repeat on the other leg. (upbeat instrumental music) Roll over Draw one foot up and cross it over the body so it's nearly in line with the opposite hip. Repeat on the other leg. This is going to loosen up the lower back hamstrings and hip flexors. Last one up Inchworm. Hinge at the hips then walk your hands out to a high plank. Walk your hands back towards your feet return standing then repeat. This last dynamic move is full body and should really get you warmed up for the run. (upbeat instrumental music) Need a work out to follow your warmup? Check out runner'sworld.com. (upbeat instrumental music)

This man was told he wouldn't walk again. He's doing a triathlon this weekend

When he wiggled his toes after so much trying, “it was a huge event — I started crying.”


It only takes a moment. And Carl Linde’s was in 2014, while he was on a bike ride training for Ironman Arizona. When a car in front of him stopped, Linde didn’t, and went headfirst into the car. “I was conscious at the time, but immediately lost feeling from the neck down. I couldn’t move anything, and I said to God, “Keep me alive—even if I’m not going to be able to walk—so I can see my wife and kids again. Well, he stuck by the deal,” says Linde, now 56. His spinal cord had been damaged in the upper trunk (at vertebrae C5 and C6), and his doctors weren’t sure he would walk again. He could breathe on his own, and he was grateful for that. But he really wanted to walk. “I spent about a month in the hospital really focusing hard on trying to move my toes. I tried every day, and after a few days, my toes started wiggling. It was a huge event—I started crying,” he says. Over about eight months in a rehab facility, he learned to stand again, and move his legs. Today, he doesn’t have feeling on the bottoms of his feet, and has little feeling in his hands. “I was left spastic down my left side,” he says. “My left leg doesn’t really turn over in a running style—it’s almost like I’m dragging it slightly,” he says. He has constant neuropathic pain, so his arms, hands, and parts of his torso feel like they’re burning all the time. But along the path of rebuilding, one day, “I really just wanted to try and do some exercise,” he says. So he tried jogging. He entered some short-distance races, and worked his way up to the Boston Marathon in 2016. Getting back on the bike—and back into triathlonBut a triathlon—a swim, bike, and run—is no marathon. You have to get back on a bike. Outdoors. When Linde earned a spot in the The Verizon New York City Triathlon, owned and produced by Life Time, he knew this was his re-entry triathlon race. He’d put his bike on an indoor trainer for the past five years or so, but the idea of competing in the Olympic-distance race that’s locally known as the “New York City Tri” got him back out on the road. (It will be held on Sunday, July 11.) “I’d always wanted to do that race. When I entered the lottery, I thought, ‘I’m never going to get in.’ But I tried. And I got in. And I said, ‘I’m going to do this.’” Rehab wasn’t easy. Training’s not easy. “Each day, even though there are days when you just feel like you’ve had enough and can’t push yourself any further, I’d go to bed and say, ‘you’ve got the ability to walk. You’re being given gifts back, so if you don’t use those gifts, it’s an insult to God’,” he says. Is there one tip he’d give to people who are injured about coming back? “I’m not sure there is a tip,” he says, pointing out with some regret that not everyone who lies in bed trying to wiggle their toes after an injury like this will have the same response, and you have to respect everyone’s individual circumstance, body, and experience. But for him, “I did desperately want to get back on my feet and was determined to try something. If you have the desire to try something, first overcome the fear that it might not be the same or feel the same. And then try it. It may not work, but if you don’t try, you’ll never know.”

It only takes a moment. And Carl Linde’s was in 2014, while he was on a bike ride training for Ironman Arizona. When a car in front of him stopped, Linde didn’t, and went headfirst into the car.

“I was conscious at the time, but immediately lost feeling from the neck down. I couldn’t move anything, and I said to God, “Keep me alive—even if I’m not going to be able to walk—so I can see my wife and kids again. Well, he stuck by the deal,” says Linde, now 56.

His spinal cord had been damaged in the upper trunk (at vertebrae C5 and C6), and his doctors weren’t sure he would walk again. He could breathe on his own, and he was grateful for that. But he really wanted to walk. “I spent about a month in the hospital really focusing hard on trying to move my toes. I tried every day, and after a few days, my toes started wiggling. It was a huge event—I started crying,” he says.

Over about eight months in a rehab facility, he learned to stand again, and move his legs. Today, he doesn’t have feeling on the bottoms of his feet, and has little feeling in his hands. “I was left spastic down my left side,” he says. “My left leg doesn’t really turn over in a running style—it’s almost like I’m dragging it slightly,” he says. He has constant neuropathic pain, so his arms, hands, and parts of his torso feel like they’re burning all the time. But along the path of rebuilding, one day, “I really just wanted to try and do some exercise,” he says. So he tried jogging. He entered some short-distance races, and worked his way up to the Boston Marathon in 2016.

Getting back on the bike—and back into triathlon

But a triathlon—a swim, bike, and run—is no marathon. You have to get back on a bike. Outdoors. When Linde earned a spot in the The Verizon New York City Triathlon, owned and produced by Life Time, he knew this was his re-entry triathlon race. He’d put his bike on an indoor trainer for the past five years or so, but the idea of competing in the Olympic-distance race that’s locally known as the “New York City Tri” got him back out on the road. (It will be held on Sunday, July 11.) “I’d always wanted to do that race. When I entered the lottery, I thought, ‘I’m never going to get in.’ But I tried. And I got in. And I said, ‘I’m going to do this.’”

Rehab wasn’t easy. Training’s not easy. “Each day, even though there are days when you just feel like you’ve had enough and can’t push yourself any further, I’d go to bed and say, ‘you’ve got the ability to walk. You’re being given gifts back, so if you don’t use those gifts, it’s an insult to God’,” he says.

Is there one tip he’d give to people who are injured about coming back? “I’m not sure there is a tip,” he says, pointing out with some regret that not everyone who lies in bed trying to wiggle their toes after an injury like this will have the same response, and you have to respect everyone’s individual circumstance, body, and experience. But for him, “I did desperately want to get back on my feet and was determined to try something. If you have the desire to try something, first overcome the fear that it might not be the same or feel the same. And then try it. It may not work, but if you don’t try, you’ll never know.”


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