Paraplegic marathoner on track
Terry O’Neill will race the half marathon in the Christchurch Airport Marathon on Sunday, his first distance event since breaking his neck in 2013.
Terry O’Neill has several marathons to his name, but none like this.
On Sunday, he will line up alongside his fellow competitors in the Christchurch Airport Marathon, the only one in a wheelchair.
O’Neill, 51, snapped his spine while helping a friend prune an old pine tree in 2013.
He clambered out on a limb, ‘‘I shouldn’t really have done it’’, and fell five metres.
‘‘The break that I had in my back was pretty spectacular,’’ he said.
‘‘It was total dislocation of the spine and it totally severed my spinal cord. It was quite a black and white sort of an injury.’’
Once a keen marathoner, trail runner, rower, windsurfer and skier, O’Neill had to find something else. Swimming and gym work temporarily filled the void. Then ParaFed Canterbury gave him a race wheelchair.
‘‘Since my accident it’s the first thing I’ve really felt like . . . O’Neill trails off.
‘‘I finish and I’m absolutely bathed in sweat. You’re working your lungs pretty well.’’
O’Neill will race the half marathon on Sunday; his first since his accident. He will race the full 42 kilometres at the New York Marathon in November.
‘‘It’s something I thought about when I was able-bodied,’’ he said.
‘‘I’ve had some pretty low moments [since the accident]. Something like this, it does good things to your headspace.’’
Training for wheelchair racing has been a challenge. A small headwind or road incline can be a killer. O’Neill found that out the hard way on training rides around the Canterbury Plains near his Ashburton home.
‘‘You imagine somewhere like Ashburton hasn’t really got any hills but [it does].’’
Tailwinds and downhill grades are the upside. Top wheelchair racers can finish a marathon half an hour faster than the best runners.
O’Neill isn’t at that stage yet. He hoped to finish alongside some of the faster runners on Sunday.
He will start one minute before the pack and have a cyclist escort for the entire race – a ploy he used on training rides as well.
‘‘In the racing chair you’re really low. It’s quite a vulnerable situation. It’s very hard to see what’s behind you. Because you’re so low you really want to be pretty careful you don’t get taken out by a car or something.’’
Race organiser Chris Cox said O’Neill would benefit from road repairs to parts of the course in the residential red zone. Potholes had been filled with hot mix asphalt and entire lanes of the material had been laid for runners where roads were uneven and unsafe.
‘‘It’ll be fine for him. He shouldn’t have a problem.’’
Cox said the delay in the old Christchurch police station implosion until 5pm on Sunday was a welcome one. The marathon route went right past the station site on Cambridge Tce and the later start – the implosion had been scheduled for Saturday morning – meant the demolition would not clash at all with the race.
The marathon starts at 8.30am on Sunday. There is no car parking at the start-finish area but runners can store gear in lockers.