Triathlete returns from brain injury with a mission
In the spring of 2012, Greg Shimizu’s restaurant, the Pourhouse Bier Bistro, was finally finding a solid footing on Whyte Avenue after two years of slowly building clientele. The business had reached a point Shimizu felt he could jump back into triathlons, but within a few months everything was falling apart.
On June 18, 2012, while riding his bike down the ring road around the Alberta legislature in Edmonton, Shimizu was hit by a van pulling a U-turn. He remembers nothing of the accident. A few months later, he was diagnosed with a mild traumatic brain injury.
Five years later, on Saturday at the ITU World Triathlon event in Edmonton, Shimizu, 53, will race his second triathlon since the accident and is raising money for Edmonton’s Brain Care Centre. It has been a difficult road back to competition.
“It’s like being in a sinking canoe with all your possessions around you,” said Shimizu about life since the accident. “What are you going to grab? ... What are you going to hang on to? And you can’t hang on to too much.”
Shortly after the brain-injury diagnosis, Shimizu decided to continue training and finished a triathlon in 2014.
“Once (the 2014 race) happened and was done, it was kind of like that was almost the last string I was hanging on to at the time,” said Shimizu.
He was struggling to sleep because of chronic headaches. He was forgetting how to spell words and struggling to dial a telephone. He would leave clothes at the dry cleaner, forgetting he ever owned them.
In 2015, unable to properly manage it any longer, Shimizu sold the Pourhouse. But he said he’s one of the lucky ones.
This past March he settled a court case related to the crash which will keep him financially secure and bring him “back to square one.”
Friends he’s met through the Brain Care Centre aren’t all as fortunate.
Although you can learn to cope with the symptoms of a brain injury, they never go away, said Shimizu. Without a support system and financial security, everything can fall apart. You can lose a job while caught up dealing with menial, day-to-day life.
On Saturday morning at Hawrelak Park, Shimizu plans to race in the age-group sprint triathlon race, a 750-m swim, 20-km bike and 10-km run.
“I still try and do these things. I still try and make things happen, but it’s just way harder. You’ve got to change all your goals and all your dreams,” said Shimizu. “Part of you is gone.”
It’s like being in a sinking canoe with all your possessions around you. What are you going to grab?