Run 4 CMT: June 2021

Friday, June 25, 2021

Leon's Triathlon, The Good, the Bad and the Uglt

"Be who you are and be that well, be who God made you to be and be that well." - St. Francis Desales

When I signed up for Leon's triathlon, I did so because it was a para-triathlon development race. That means there were points towards Paralympic qualification. The current Paralympic champion is a 22 year old stellar athlete. She is the current gold medalist from Rio. Five years ago the single leg amputee and neuromuscular categories were combined. Since then I have had no route to the elite competition in triathlon. There is no way anyone with a neuro impairment can keep up with someone with a single impairment.

I know I have no hope of qualifying, but I wanted to keep competing with the hope of going through classification. If I am classified as having an impairment by USA Triathlon, I can compete as a para-athlete at a World Championship. I've already qualified as an age group athlete for two races in Townsville, Australia in 2022.

I am really tired of being locked out of a system that is supposed to include athletes like me with neurological impairments. To even go to classification I have to meet a time standard of about 1:34 for a sprint triathlon. By luck last year I qualified at Leon's. That meant I can if I want, I can go to the Para-triathlon National Championship in Long Beach in July. I would be able to go through classification.

There are two problems with that option. One I am now retired and living off of savings until I start to tap retirement investments. When I added up the expenses of going to Long Beach it was about $4000. It did not seem worth it for a classification I might not make it through. So I decided not to go to Long Beach.

A few weeks before Leon's it was announced that the Pan American Triathlon Championship (PATCO) would be coming to the Pleasant Prairie triathlon. That is only 30 minutes from home. There would be classification offered. I got in all my paperwork and took the Safe Sport training module. I had just two hoops to jump through, a neurologist visit and some tests. I asked for a couple day extension from USAT. I was turned down. I had not done it earlier because the cost of the doctor visit and tests would have been close to $1000. So I had been unwilling to take that gamble along with expenses of going to Long Beach. It is doubtful I will make the time standard going forward. So dream of competing in para-triathlon at the elite level is done for now. That is the bad news at least for now. There is no telling what might unfold in the future.

It did not make sense any longer to do a para-developmental race. I was also only a month out from my car accident. I had not been able to swim much. I decided to drop down to the PC open sprint race which had a 500 meter swim instead of the 750 meter swim.

The race itself was pretty routine. I like this course because both the bike and swim are really flat. The swim is in a small lake and is usually really calm. It was a really hot and humid day. So while the race was uneventful, it was still a tough event. I used my triathlon bike and my back was still sore from the auto accident. On the run I passed a young lady running in braces. I asked if she had CMT and she said she was still being diagnosed.

After the race I met fellow ambassador Kimee Armour and Sue Reynolds. I had talked with both many times on-line and it was nice to see them in person. The best part of triathlon is meeting old friends and making new ones.

The one hitch in the day came at the awards ceremony. The last time I did Leon's I took 2nd in the PC division and did not stay for the awards. I sat and waited for the awards in the hot sun. It seemed to take forever. Then once they got to the awards, the announcement was made for my category and they mentioned one athlete but not me. I went up to the stage and was told by the volunteer if we did not read your name you did not win. They were almost rude about it. I was directed to the room off stage where the timing and results were located. The timer could not find me based on my number and then could find my name but no results. It took almost 90 minutes to clear it up. Then I found out after all that there was no medal for the age group and PC Open athletes. To say the least I was not happy. I got no medal, and no chance to stand on the podium. I think I got a bit ugly with the timing guy. That fighter in me that helps me such a good athlete, showed itself in not the best way. I am not exactly proud of it. So Leon's and the events leading up to it were a mix of the good, the bad and the ugly. This time I was the source of the ugly and will have to do better next time.

I finished with a time of 1:38 which is 4 minutes over the current standard.

This weekend I will be competing at Pleasant Prairie. I have decided to not do the PC Open race here either during PATCO. I felt better by changing over to Duathlon. I need three races to qualify for All American status. I just would not have felt good not being able to race at PATCO since I have done so in the past. Even if I had gotten my medical records together, most likely I would not have passed through qualification. I am looking forward to the race. Swimming is the one activity that still really bothers my back. So Duathlon will be a nice alternative to the triathlon for many reasons.

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Chris Wodke

Founder & Manager Team CMT

www.run4cmt.com

Chris is a triathlete and long distance runner. She is a three time participant of the Boston Marathon. In 2012 she finished 2nd at Boston in the Mobility Impaired Division. She was on the course in 2013 when the bombs exploded.

She has appeared three times at the Paratriathlon National Triathlon Sprint Championship. She was the 2012 and 2014 National Champion Paratriathlon Open Division Champion.

In 2014 she was the PC Open Champion at the Duathlon National Championship and at the Aqua bike National Championship in 2016. She represented Team USA at the Aquathon ITU World Championship in Chicago in 2015i, Cozumel in 2016 and Denmark in 2018. In 2018 finishing 5^th in the 60 to 64 age group.

In 2014 she represented the U.S. as a paratriathlete at the Pan-American Triathlon Championship in Dallas, Texas. She has won state championships in cycling and triathlon as a senior Olympian. In 2017 she placed 2^nd in her age group at the Winter Triathlon National Championship, earning a spot on Team USA for the World Championship.

In 2020 she was named a National Ski Patrol Subaru Ambassador and a USA Triathlon Foundation Ambassador.

She travels around the country raising awareness of CMT.

She is the author of the book, “Running for My Life” that details her experience as a CMT affected athlete and the book “Soup Sundays, A Journey Toward Healthy Eating”.

http://www.henschelhausbooks.com/catalog/memoir-biography/215-running-for-my-life-winning-for-cmt-9781595982827.html

You may visit her author page at:
http://www.amazon.com/Christine-Wodke/e/B00IJ02HX6

Team CMT is a group of athletes and supporters working to raise awareness and to find a cure for CMTWe currently have 239 athletes in 41 states. We also have members in Australia, Canada, England, Finland, Vietnam, Iran, Scotland, France, Turkey, Poland, Norway, Mexico, Wales, Ireland and Sweden!. If you wish to join us visit our web site; www.run4cmt.com or www.hnf-cure.org

CMT or Charcot-Marie-Tooth is the most commonly inherited peripheral neuropathy. It affects over 155,000 Americans (as many as MS). It is a disease of the nerves that control the muscles. It is slowly progressive, causing loss of normal function and or sensation in the lower legs/feet and arms/hands.

Symptoms include; muscle wasting in the lower legs and feet leading to foot drop, poor balance and gait problems Atrophy in the hands causes difficulty with manual dexterity.

Structural foot deformities such as high arches and hammer toes are common.

Poor tolerance for cool or cold temperatures and many people have chronically cold hands and feet.

Additional symptoms may include fatigue, sleep apnea, breathing difficulties and hearing loss.

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Saturday, June 5, 2021

Act Two-

"I'm happy about who I am and what I am. I can't wait to find out who I'll be tomorrow." - Joyce Dewitt, Actress

I have been thinking about retirement for months. Every time I met with my financial advisor he would say " You know you can retire". The last time we met, I told him I was one bad day from retiring.

Well that bad day came the Thursday before Easter. When you have enough money to retire it is difficult to put up with day to day work issues and to get up at 5 am each day. It has been tough for me this past year because I started a new job right as the pandemic hit. It has been really challenging trying to learn a highly technical job while being remote from my team. One of the things that had been a constant in my career is work even with challenges was fun. This job was just not fun anymore.

It felt strange to turn in my notice to retire. I figured out it was because I had not chosen to leave a job for over 20 years. I was laid off from my job with a local utility company after 19 years. I was also laid off from the two jobs before that. Those breaks in employment showed me I would have no problem finding things to do once I stopped working.

I started working the day after high school in 1976, washing glassware in a lab. I continued working there through most of college. I had been promoted to a lab tech and there was a mix of full time employees and college students. All the other college students were engineering majors. They told me how fun the classes were. I had started as pre-med and for many reasons decided to give engineering a try. I loved it! What they did not tell me was how much work it was.

I graduated engineering school in 1982 during the middle of a huge recession. Employment and inflation were double digits. I ended up going back to work at the company I worked in college. I was doing research on materials for humidity sensors for HVAC systems. My big accomplishment was working with an intern to develop a computer program that reduced the time we needed to analyze data from over a week of calculations to a few minutes.

The photo you see at the top of the blog is from my next position. I was a research engineer working on semi-conductor materials. I had a secret security clearance. I helped to build the equipment in the picture. This photo was used on a cover of a brochure for our research center.

The photographer entered it and won a contest at EPCOT. It was on display there for over a year. It also appeared on the cover of Design News. I loved this job until I got a new supervisor. He was single and decided I should date him. I was only one of five women working as engineers in a staff of 150. It was my policy not to date anyone at work ever. He did not take it well and took away all my work. It was really a terrible situation. His boss, the man that had hired me, asked me what was going on. To my regret, I did not tell him what had happened. It was something that was not talked about in those days. It was not the only incident of harassment that happened at this company. The women engineers would trade stories. What made the situation even worse was he was my advisor for my master's thesis. Right in the middle of the project he washed his hands of me. He would not ever read the thesis. He refused to help with anything. I was on my own. He also was on the committee when I presented my work. It was as awkward as it sounds.

Early on in my employment one of my male co-workers pulled me aside to tell me he did not want a bunch of male visitors to the lab. Apparently he viewed me as some type of distraction. In a meeting early in my career, the manager of my department stated in a meeting " When I look at a male engineer, I know he has to be here." Wow, that really has to make you question your career choice and your place of employment. With that kind of leadership, it is not surprising the work environment was not great for female engineers. At the time I think less than 5% of engineers in the U.S. were female.

So I was transferred to a different work group. I had spent years getting my graduate degree in semi-conductor materials. So now I was going to be working in a pilot production facility to assemble circuit boards. The guy running the lab was very dis-organized and I was brought in to turn around the quality. He refused to train me. He tried to set me up to fail. This time when the manager who had hired me asked about it, I told him what was going on and that he was telling anyone that would listen that I was incompetent. I took matters into my own hands and started a local chapter of the professional society governing the work. I attended many seminars and got up to speed. I turned the lab performance around. By then I had a new boss and the day I hit my quality goals, he took me out of the role and gave the management of the facility to one of his hunting buddies. I took my skills and moved on to another company. I learned quite a bit in the 9 years, but it was time for a change.

I then worked as a production manager for company that did contract circuit board assembly. They had 50 employees and 30 of the employees reported to me. The place was not making money and their quality was a mess. I wore many hats there, safety officer, trainer, production manager. Without going into all of the details I used my knowledge and experience to help the company make a profit for the first time. The problem was I was single and in my 30s. The President of the company was also single. He used the company as his playground. He made it very clear his interest in me. At the end of a record production month, I was fired. It was shortly after turning down his last advance. I chalked it up to experience and was ready to move on. The problem is they were giving me bad reviews that I knew cost me at least two jobs. A friend inside the company told me she overheard several of the managers talking about doing it and laughing about it. I filed a discrimination suit with the EEOC and they found cause. We settled. The problem was that my reputation was now so damaged I feared I could not find a job in my field.

So I ended up working as a Product Safety engineer for two years until the company ran into financial trouble. I learned so much about risk and the legal world. I did training about product safety and liability. It was because of that experience that I decided to transition into training as a career.

I used my technical background and experience doing training to a job as a technical trainer. I helped them set up a program for their designers. We were able to lower the training time from 5 years to 2 years. I went onto to be a supervisor of training and procedures. The role of the department was to deal with outages and hazards on the electrical system. I felt like it was such important work. I developed all of their training programs, helped develop 125 procedures. The people were just the best, but my fellow supervisors engaged in outright harassment of my employees. When someone came to me, I felt the accusations were try based on what I had experienced. I knew reporting it would hurt my advancement. I felt morally my obligation was to my employees. Things needed to change and they never would unless someone reported it. Things were better for a bit and again the same problems occurred. I again took a stand for better treatment. I am sure I was branded as a troublemaker. The employees being harassed were all women and it was done by men.

I moved on to become a manager of performance and improvement for a group of power plants. I led the effort to update over 3000 procedures over four years. I trained many writers and proofreaders using course materials I developed. It was another assignment were there were few women. I think less than 10% of the staff was women. That as always leads to challenges. I compared working there being a serf. The Lords were the plant managers. What they said was the rule and no one should challenge it. Sometimes that silence put the company at risk and I felt when it put safety at risk I had to challenge it. That did not make me popular. After 19 years I was downsized when three of the large plants I supported closed.

I was lucky to find work as a Technical Writer at American Transmission Company. I saved the best company for last. They end up on best places to work in Milwaukee for a reason. They really care about their employees. Every person I worked with was talented and nice. They truly hire the best and create a great environment. My last position was as a System Protection Specialist work with sub-station relays. My boss was extremely nice, my co-workers could nor have been nicer. It was hard to leave but it was time.

My career went by so fast. It seems it was over almost as soon as it started. I faced many challenges. When I had a toxic boss, I vowed to be better and got the training I needed to be ready when my turn came. When one career option disappeared, I retooled and got ready for the next opportunity.

I could still work, I continued to interview right up to the very end. I just sensed for now it was time for Act 2. There have been my highs in my career and also incredible challenges being a woman in a mostly male occupation. I wondered many times if I made the right career choice. On whole I think I made the right choice and I proud of the work I've done.

I will still be busy with training, travel and projects around the house. I am also thinking over self-employment options using my training and technical skills. I am excited about Act 2, act 1 will be a tough one to beat!

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