Antarctica- marathon on the ice

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 21:31:00 -0600

Antarctica- marathon on the ice:

BY NOLAN PETERSON

Everest Climbing Gear—Then and Now - National Geographic

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 09:09:24 -0600

Everest Climbing Gear—Then and Now - National Geographic

NATO summit shuts down Chicago universities

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 17:35:00 -0600

NATO summit shuts down Chicago universities:

BY NOLAN PETERSON

Universities have announced plans to cancel classes and events at their downtown campuses during the NATO summit next month. Transportation problems and security concerns connected with the summit have prompted the scheduled changes, which will affect more than 65,000 students.

A woman of courage

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 16:54:00 -0600

BY NOLAN PETERSON

Breast cancer, bleeding in the brain and a broken collarbone.

Lying in her hospital bed in July of 2008, Tasha Huebner faced serious challenges. One year later she would be standing on the starting line of the Ironman Wisconsin triathlon facing a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike race and a full 26.2 mile marathon- all on the same day. Huebner’s body is not indestructible, and her mind is not immune from fear or dark imaginings, but she is immune from ever uttering the words: “I can’t.”

In June of 2008 Huebner was training for her second Ironman triathlon. The Ironman is considered the toughest one-day race in the world, pitting athletes against a 140.6-mile course to be completed by swimming, biking and running without rest between events. “When I first started doing triathlons I thought the Ironman was completely insane!” Huebner said. “But the more you train the more the Ironman seems logical – it changes your way of thinking.”

Huebner completed her first Ironman in 2007, and she was hooked. She signed up for an Ironman race to be held in Madison, Wis., in the summer of 2008 and committed to the intense training regimen for a second time.

Then there was cancer. In July of 2008 Huebner was diagnosed with breast cancer and began treatment to rid her body of the disease. Huebner defiantly continued to train for the Ironman, determined to prove that even with cancer her willpower could carry her through the arduous event.

“I am incredibly stubborn,” Huebner said. “I was going to do that race even if it killed me.”

Then there was the crash. While training on her bike just weeks before the race Huebner crashed and suffered serious injuries. She broke her collarbone and suffered a traumatic head injury that resulted in bleeding in the brain. Huebner made light of the seriousness of her injuries: “If you’re going to get an injury I suggest you injure your brain. Despite everything I had going on I was just in la-la land.”

Huebner’s injuries were serious, and her plans for the 2008 Ironman were definitively ended. Even to this day, four years later, Huebner still suffers short-term memory loss as a result of trauma her brain suffered during the crash. “It’s all fuzzy and I still don’t have any short-term memory,” Huebner said. “It took me months before I could function.”

Huebner underwent one operation to simultaneously repair her collarbone and remove the cancer that had invaded her body. Months later she completed her radiation therapy and was declared to have “no-evidence of disease” by her doctors in December of 2008. She had beaten the disease, but her mind was still recovering from the head injury. Huebner admits that her body was exhausted from the ordeal of the radiation therapy. “Cancer steals from you, it makes you feel disfigured, it makes you feel like crap, it just takes so much from you,” Huebner said.

Huebner said she gave the disease an identity. She envisioned it as an enemy that was trying to disrupt her life and conquer her spirit. Huebner was determined to prove that cancer was not going to get the better of her. While still recovering from her radiation treatment she signed up for the 2009 Ironman Wisconsin.

It takes at least nine months to properly train for an Ironman triathlon, and due to the rising popularity of the event it’s necessary to sign up a full year ahead of time to ensure a spot in the race. Huebner didn’t want to miss her chance to race in 2009. Her body would just have to be healthy and ready to go. Cancer wasn’t going to get the best of her this time.

“It was really, really, insanely hard to start training after the radiation,” Huebner said. “I felt like crap and was tired all the time, but I thought, ‘Ok, you stupid freaking cancer, you’re not going to get the best of me.’”

Nine months later Huebner was on the starting line of Ironman Wisconsin. It was a cold, windy and rainy day – miserable conditions for the race. Huebner was unfazed by the weather and ready for the ordeal ahead. She had trained hard and overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles to be standing on this starting line. For her, the training was the real challenge, and the day of the race was the reward. It was a chance to celebrate the rediscovered strength of her body and her unconquerable fighting spirit.

“You see this super-long day stretching out ahead of you, and you think, ‘What am I doing here?’” Huebner said. “You just take it one thing at a time. You’ve done so much training that it’s not hard to find that focus, you’ve already won the battle.”

A little over 13 hours later Huebner was once again dubbed an “Ironman.” Ironman athletes often describe the race as a life-changing experience. Many claim the race breaks them down to their most raw, exposed state and shows their true strength of spirit. It is an experience not often replicated in the modern world. For Huebner, the race itself was not the goal, nor was it the singular accomplishment that it had been the first time she had crossed the finish line in 2007. In 2009, Huebner had proven herself an Ironman long before she took the first stroke of the swim.

“The second one was such a huge personal victory just to show up because I knew what it had taken to get there,” Huebner said. “When I got through the training on top of everything else I was going through that year, plus the miserable weather, I realized I was kind of a bad ass.”

Huebner might have been declared free of cancer in December of 2008, but she decisively conquered her arch-nemesis as she crossed the finish line of the 2009 Ironman Wisconsin.

Huebner is now 43 years old. She has shown no evidence of cancer since completing radiation therapy in 2008. In 2010 she underwent reconstruction surgery, and she still takes medicine daily to lessen the likelihood of the disease re-emerging. Her next goal is to cycle the Alps this summer and to continue doing triathlons.

According to Huebner: “I had an epiphany on my second Ironman. It was a long day, and the rain was pouring. I wondered why I gave up so much to do this race. Life is so short, is this really worth it? But I realized that no one else cares if you finish or not, I wasn’t out there to impress anyone. I did it for myself.”

A journalist with the goal of turning my personal experiences...

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 16:36:00 -0600

A journalist with the goal of turning my personal experiences from travel and the military into greater awareness for my readers and listeners.

http://www.nolanwpeterson.com/

Outrageous adventures and unusual experiences

Antarctica- marathon on the ice

Everest Climbing Gear—Then and Now - National Geographic

NATO summit shuts down Chicago universities

A woman of courage

A journalist with the goal of turning my personal experiences...