Paralympic Dreams

Six months after losing my leg in a motorcycle accident, I was back on the snow. I may be from Alabama, but snow is no stranger to me. My Dad first took me skiing when I was 7 as part of my girl scouts program, and I was hooked! After I lost my leg I thought that I wouldn’t e able to do anything, but my Dad found about the National Ability Center at Park in Park City, Utah.  The NAC teaches people with disabilities how to ski and snowboard. Of course, I tried skiing, and honestly, it was terrifying! I switched to snowboarding, and it was exhilarating! For the first time since my accident, I could do something just as well as other people. Regardless, I never imagined that I would be asked to join Team Utah Adaptive Snowboarding a year later.

This last January, I moved to Utah to train full time with the team. Being only one of two girls on the team, I spent most of my time trying to keep up with the boys. By the end of the season, I would say that I had gotten pretty good at it. In April, I competed in the Canadian ParaSnowboard World Cup. It was easily the most challenging and technical boarder-cross course I’ve ever been on. To top it all off, I was sick as a dog and could barely keep my food down long enough to run the course. I still managed to come in third though, which put my world ranking for this season at fourth place.

Making the podium at the World Cups is amazing, and I’m extremely proud of my accomplishments, but I’ve had my eyes set on even greater things ever since the International Paralympic Committee announced the inclusion of ParaSnowboarding in the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.

I would have never made it this far without support from family, friends, and people I’ve met along the way. Once again, I need everyone’s help to make my dreams come true. My journey to the 2014 Winter Games won’t be an easy or cheap one, and I will need all of the help and support that I can
get.

I have several goals to meet in preparation for the coming season.
A New prosthetic knee and liners: $7,500
Training Expenses: $5,000
Competition Travel and Expenses: $10,500

Please share this with your family, friends, coworkers, organizations, and companies that might be interested in sponsoring a paralympic athlete.

Thank You,

Megan Harmon 

Crowdfunding

Coyote Gulch

It didn't take long for Guy and I to figure out what we should do during his visit to Utah. He's my backpacking buddy from back home in Alabama, so there was really only one thing to do - show him the natural beauty of Utah with a backpacking trip through Coyote Gulch in southern Utah.

Coyote Gulch lies smack dab in the middle of the desert and about an hours drive from any form of civilization. On the bright side tho, there's a stream that runs through the gulch and flows to the Escalante River. There was no way that we were going to carry enough water for four days so plentiful water sources was a must!

I had the whole trip planned out, but somehow things never seem to go quite as planned..... We started out on day one already leaving an hour late. Then the GPS found a "quicker" route, which included driving up and over a mountain on a narrow dirt road, which at times was on the edge of a cliff. I also didn't consider the fact that the last 30 miles to the trail head would be on a sandy dirt road. We'd been driving for a little over an hour and still hadn't found it. Just as I was starting to think we'd never find it or had somehow passed the turn off, the sign for the trail head almost magically appeared.

We had been planning to get in 6-7 miles the first day, but since we were already starting about 2 hours late, it seemed very unlikely. However, I had no clue just how little progress we'd actually make. Our goal had been to get to either where another trail joins ours or the Jacob Hamblin Arch. We didn't actually  make it to the arch until the next day, and considering how long it took us, we had probably only made it 3 miles the first day. It wasn't until later in the second day that we realized why we were making such horrible time. Granted I'm an amputee, and I go slower anyway, but this was just pitiful!

It turns out that we'd been making the mistake of taking the most direct route, which meant that we were walking a good portion of the time through sand. I hadn't really noticed just how much slower it was or how it was sapping my energy until the second day. It took us all day to walk 5 miles, and I was so tired that I was starting to get a little bitchy. Just ask Guy. I was disappointed that we only made it a mile past the arch, especially since the best features were between the arch and the Escalante River. We couldn't stay longer either, because we'd only packed so much food.

We headed back on the third day, and with our new plan to avoid the sand, we actually walked all 8 miles back the car. I was reminded that day of how I need to take better care of my residual limb when walking that far in the heat. I ended up with some small blisters and sores. I could have prevented these tho with some maintenance on the second day.  For instance, I should have wiped the sweat out of my liner during our breaks, and I should have put the sports tape on the areas being rubbed. I didn't do any of this until I started having problems.



Despite all of the problems we had, we still had a lot of fun and got to see some cool things.

The rattlesnake Guy almost stepped on on the first day.

Old Indian Pictographs

Jacob Hamblin Arch

What's Up With Me: Part 2

Our dreams are coming true!! What we've all worked so hard for has finally happened: Snowboarding was added to the Sochi 2014 Paralympic Winter Games!!! This is so incredibly exciting! So many athletes, coaches, and organizations have been worked very hard to make this a reality, and honestly, I didn't think it was going to happen this time around. I figured that many of us would be too old to compete once snowboard was finally a Paralympic sport. So what a surprise it was when I got a text from my coach, Travis Thiele, at 6am yesterday saying that I needed to start training. haha

My next step is get into even better physical shape, so I'm not spending the first month of training getting myself back into shape. If I had the money, I'd also go with Travis to New Zealand for the summer, since it's their winter.


Here's a link to the article: Snowboard Included in Sochi 2014 Paralympic Winter Games

What's Up With Me: Part 1

First off I should update everyone on what's been happening the last couple months.

At the beginning of April, I competed in the Para-snowboard Canadian World Cup in Nakiska, Alberta. This is what all of my training this season has led up to, and I wasn't disappointed!! However, the was a series of problems leading up to the actual competition. First there was rain which ruined the entire race course! The entire course had to be rebuilt the day before the competition, which was supposed to be the training day. Regardless, I didn't get to do anything that day except hug the toilet, because I had a wicked stomach bug. I have honestly not been that sick since high school maybe... so a long time ago. Of course, I wasn't about to let being sick keep me from competing! We all know that I'm tougher than that!

The next day, we all gathered at the top of the newly rebuilt course and anxiously waited to get to slip the course for the first time. Everyone was very nervous and kept saying that the only goal for today was to not get hurt. Maybe it was because I was still trying to hold it together and not puke all over the snow, but I wasn't nervous at all. I was more curious to see what everyone was so scared of.

When I finally got my turn to slip the course, I realized that this was easily the fastest and most gnarly course I'd ever run. Some of the boys were even saying that it was as tough, if not tougher than the X-Games course. Wow!! I loved it though. It was very technical. I couldn't just fly through it. I had to memorize my line and be thinking one or two features ahead.

I'll admit that I was nervous, and I think that I could've done better (tho I always tell myself that), but I still came in third both days.

Bibian Mentel (right) came in first and Sara Dorigatti (left) was second.


Mike Shea, who took second both days for the men, posted this video of his experience at the Canadian World Cup. Towards the end he does a full run of the course. Check it out!!

Been a minute...

I haven't updated this thing in a long time!

I got my eyes set on moving to Utah this winter, and I just hunkered down and did what I had to do to get there in the shortest amount of time possible.

However, I discovered that I'd gotten myself into a bit of a pickle when I didn't take a particular class in the spring that just happened to be a prereq. I was wanting to finish up the rest of my classes in one semester, but there was no way that I could take the prereq and the class after it at the same time. So I ended up calling the dean of engineering and telling him about how I'm an amputee and I absolutely  had to graduate in December because I was moving to Utah no matter what to train for the paralympics (At the time Sochi hadn't said no yet, which is why I was in such a hurry. I wanted to get in as many seasons as possible so I could go to the paralympics). Anyway, long story short, the dean said no prob and gave me a substitute. I ended up taking 19 credit hours, that's 7 classes, in the fall semester. Luckily, I got used to the course load and still managed to juggle all of those classes, my social life and my love life. I actually came out with 4 As and 3 Bs and graduated December 10th from the University of Alabama in Huntsville with a Bachelors of Science in Mechanical Engineering.

On January 7th, my dad and I left for Utah. We road tripped across the country with a cat and arrived on the 9th. I have an apartment in Heber City. It's about 20 minutes from Park City. I started training the next day and have been on the mountain most days since. I'm still only on day 27 of EVER snowboarding. On day 23, I think, I followed Heidi and Ravi down a black diamond. I got a little nervous at the top, but I thought to myself, I can't tell Travis (team manager) that I did a black diamond unless I actually throw some turns down. Otherwise, it doesn't count! So I did it then went back up and did it several more times.

That's Ravi in the picture below. Heidi and I are in the reflection.

We also got 2-3 ft of snow on the mountain last week. I went boarding with Travis, Kate, and Wes and all I heard that day was "awwwww it's bama's first pow."  It was a lot different than I expected! I've never ridden so much powder in my life! It was like relearning to snowboard... so of course I spent a lot of time on my butt. No complaining tho! I kept watching the other snowboarders and saw how excited they were and knew that once I got the hang of it that I'd be having just as much fun as everyone else.

I did also learn some new lingo that day: "the white room." A couple of times I visited "the white room" when I front flipped and my head was under the snow for a moment until I made my full rotation. All I could see was white, hence "the white room".