The memorial service was great. It was the hardest speech I have ever deliveried. I am thankful that I was able to share some words and memories of my ”Beautiful Lady”, I will continue to miss you “Ladda Potata”! I felt all the support and love from all my great friends and family, Brooke and I are truly blessed.
It has been a long week with the passing of my mom. I just wanted to share with everyone the memorial program… it really captures the wonderful beautiful lady that was my mom. Mom, thank you for all that you have done for me and our family…you will be physically missed, I will honor your spirit, and will listen to your guiding voice. May you finally rest in peace and walk and talk with the angels.
Details:
A memorial service is planned for Tuesday, April 6th at 4:30 PM at Peachtree Corners Baptist Church, 4480 Peachtree Corners Circle, Norcross, GA, 30092. In lieu of flowers, the family has established a trust for Louise’s daughter Michelle, who has spent the last few years as Louise’s primary caregiver; donations can be sent to 1657 Olivia Way, Auburn, AL 35226.
After 70 miles and 5000′ of climbing I feel more like myself! Maybe I can return to top fitness this year? All of the men on the team are really riding well and they are all much improved from 2008. The first part of the ride was very animated with a good dig on wild cat canyon. I was able to climb with the 135lbs’ers and the amazing climbing tandem of Dave/Clark, thanks to Mari for bridging me back on the climb. Mari Holden, Silver Medalist 2004 Games, is training with us. Mari will be riding as a tandem pilot this year. I guess you could say that our program is going in the right direction! We also have found a young guy, Reese, who is a double bk amputee and he is amazing. Reese climbs like its his job! He is going to well in the sport if he decides that’s what he wants to do. I am excited to be with the team and training again.
Today we are meeting with a nutritionist? I am a bit nervous about learning what I already know….I have a problem with food and discipline. I am going to commit myself to changing my lifestyle and diet.
If you want to see what Team Williams has been up to, Brooke update her blog!
http://brookeandron.blogspot.com/
Ron
It’s good to have the 2009 season of injuries and set backs behind me! I am looking forward to a successful 2010 cycling season! For the last 10 years I have been privileged to start my season off with a training camp is SUNNY San Diego. This year we are actually holed up in a hotel in Alpine, California. The goal of this National Team Camp is to get in some good base miles and climb!
Personally, I have been waiting for this camp since I have not been able to ride with many folks, and I’ve been wanting to test myself since making my way back from injury to fitness. This whole comeback thing has taken many forms in the last ten months. I have had moments of greatness and moments of deep disappointment. One moment of greatness was riding the PINHOTI Trail with my good friends Cleve Blackwell and Trey Woodall. We rode our MTB bikes for about 8 hrs and climbed over 13,000′! I felt great on that ride and my mind was happy and clear. A moment of disappointment came on the first day of bike camp yesterday. The first day is always a measuring stick…all the guys are excited to be together and everyone wants to test themselves. I am no different and I personally needed this day of judgment.
I am the oldest male rider on the team and I am happy in that role as I feel that I bring the team leadership and experience. That title starts to get real heavy though when you race up a 30 minute climb with a couple of 20 year olds! It was about 20 minutes into this climb when I had to let the boys go and enter into my own personal pain cave! It’s been years since I have been there. When I was in the cave I started to think about a lot of things…am I too old? Where is my fitness? Do I still have something wrong with my lungs? How are those guys climbing so well? Then I said… all that is BS! I am out in California riding my bike, I have a beautiful wife, a successful career, and countless blessings, and not I am NOT too old! At that moment the pain was not as great… my mind was clearing and motivation came storming in.
I think Brooke (the wife) has been trying to motivate me and I didn’t even realize it! Since we returned from our NYC trip she has been planning meals to cook at home. She has also been going to the gym in the mornings before work. Each time she goes she asks me if I want to go to the gym with her, and I have been saying no!? Well now, I am going to say yes! This change has been building for many months and I have been making excuses and making some bad decisions.
Thanks Brooke for leading by example and giving me the time to attend bike camp! Thanks to my teammates for taking the National Team seriously and raising the bar!
Its been a long week!, originally uploaded by ronswilliams123.
Enjoying a nice cup of coffee at home! We are in a recession, sorry Starbucks.
95 degrees + 80% humidity= red clay legs!, originally uploaded by ronswilliams123.
All is right with the world. I have a new camp bracelet! Its a long story. I will have to share it sometime.
Think before you print this e-mail. By not printing it, you preserve precious natural resources. It’s another step in growing green. The information in this communication is the property of Southwire Company and intended only for the use of the addressee.
The wrist is still very stiff, but I am able to ride outside! I have
missed riding my bike, but the down time has been good. Brooke and I have
gotten to spend a lot of time together and we were able to buy a new house!
That probably would not have happened if I was racing my bicycle very
weekend. The new house is awesome and we are all settled in thanks Brooke’s
mom Barbara! Barbara and Brooke are a great house decorating team. Well I
am off to ride my bike!
Finally! The cast is off. I now have a splint and rehab twice a week. My wrist is very stiff, so it’s going to take some work!?
Brooke and I had a great weekend in Athens,GA at the TWLIGHT!
I usually race, but with a broken wrist, the only thing I was ride was the bench and this bulldog! There’s always next year………………
The bones are healing great! Ahead of schedule. I get the X Fix off next monday!!
The Good News is that the arm is healing very well! The Bad News is that I have to wear the X-Fix for four more weeks??! Dr. Lourie was very happy with the way that the “big” bone came back together. I was surprised when I saw the X-ray that he did not have to use a “plate”! The screws in my wrist will come out and I should have a full recovery. Brooke was there for the visit so that she could hear straight from the doctor exactly what things I was allowed to do… I guess she knows me pretty well? I tested her in the car on the way home when I said, “I think I can ride my rollers with the arm!”
Here is a slide show—it shows the x-fix and blood and gore-beware!
RD9, originally uploaded by ronswilliams123.
I have been up and down lately. I am not one for patience or inaction? My
DR..wife keeps telling me to slow down and take it easy. Taking it easy is
not as “EASY” as it sounds. I also called my coach, jim lehman, and he had
the same advice take it easy and finish watching “Entourage!” I am taking
it easy until my follow up with Dr. Lourie on the 14th.
I am at 73% today. Did 30mins on the stairmaster and 1 hrs spin on the
trainer.
Enjoy a clip from the “ARM!”
IMG00064.jpg, originally uploaded by ronswilliams123.
Finally getting out and exploring auburn and lee county…..plenty of dirt roads!!!
Not many people get to meet the president of the united states. I on the other hand have had the awesome opportunity to meet cliton, bush, and bush! A few weeks after our return from china the USOC flew all the Olympians and paralympians to the white house to meet president, George Bush. The white house visit is a lot of fun. We all gather in the rose garden and the president delivers a speech thanking all of the Olympian and paralympians for representing the US in the 2008 games. The most fun part of this whole trip to me is meeting fellow Olympians. It is great to share stories and get to know the able bodied versions of ourselves. I had a chance to meet the future of US Cycling, Taylor Phinney! This guy is awesome and he is going places. I also got to meet miss shawn johnson, she was great and know we are BFF!
I am getting settled in in Auburn, AL! I hope to make this the cycling capital of Alabama. The roads are great for riding and Auburn University provides great scenery.
I know that it has been some time since I have last posted. I guess I needed some time to get my thoughts in order. The last few days have been a blast traveling around China with Brooke and company. We have experienced a lot of things that not everyone gets to do, so for that I am very thankful. It was my bicycle that bought me back from cancer, and it is my bicycle that has helped me ride through life. I am not sure where my bicycle will take me next but I am sure it will be an adventure. Brooke and I hit the ground running when we get back home… Well we don’t actually have a home anymore since the movers are coming on Monday to move us to Auburn, Alabama. I guess you could said that the Williams family is starting a new chapter in more ways than one. I need to figure out what’s next for me and my life with the bicycle… Brooke is starting her career as the best doctor ever, we are starting a new life in Auburn, and I need to get my Southwire life back on track! Just writing this today is making me emotional; I did not do what I set out to do here in China. But as I step back and think, I feel that maybe I have done what I set out to do! My goal has always been to promote the ability of disabled athletes through elite sport. By my competing in the Paralympic Games I hope that I will inspire a future “Ron Williams.” Maybe a “poor sick child” from Camp Sunshine will see what I have done and decide that he or she too can accomplish great things. I am so thankful for my purpose in this life and I will continue to help others ” Make a Plan and Plan to Make it!!”
Now that my eyes are filled with tears……….I am out.
PS. Rob thanks for this comment:
Dawg,
So, the race didn’t turn out like you wanted it to, but As Teddy Roosevelt once said…
“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” Teddy Roosevelt
Nuff said.
Dawg
“The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.” Olympic Creed.
It is all over. I am done. Things did not go like I had planned, but I did have a chance to race with the best cyclists in the world. Not sure what happened in my road race… I was caught up behind a crash, but that is not a good enough excuse. My competitors were better than me today. That is a tough thing for me to accept. I do not know how I could possibly train any harder? The road race featured three different categories for the first time. I was competing against many guys with two good legs! And those two good legs were very strong. The European style of racing is very different from the racing we do in the USA. The euro go all out from the gun until the field is crushed, and then they attack some more. One positive thing were the crowds at the venue and along the course. I have never competed in front of so many spectators.
Thanks to everyone for you support!
I am going to enjoy the rest of my time in China. I am off to see the great wall!
Well I crushed my competition, except for the 4 guys that crushed me!! Not sure how I feel about it right now, but hopefully I can put this behind me and focus on tomorrow’s race. I wish I had some better news.
T minus one day! Friday is my Time Trial. Four years of training will be on display as I race my GIANT bicycle againist the best cyclists in the world. I am feeling good about my chances to win a medal. “Make a Plan and Plan to Make it”………I have put in the work, I have made the sacrifices, and I have the ability to WIN! The venue is going to be a blast to race at… there are grand stands and large jumbo screens to catch all the action. I will be wearing a race radio, and my coach Jim will be in the team car behind me coaching me through my effort.
I saw an amazing thing today while walking to eat breakfast… Only at the Paralympics will you see a one legged person pulling a person in a wheelchair who is guiding a blind person! We all have issues… it’s how you decide to handle them.
Today’s training is light with a lot of rest before the big day.
Nations Slide Show
I know you wanted to see all the different nations that are here! I tried to take a picture of each nation’s shirt! With over 150 different nations I still have some work to do.
(you can turn off music by clicking on the speaker icon in the upper left hand corner)
I am not sure where all the time goes!?! The past two days have flown by, yet I can’t really remember what I did! We have been training a lot on the road course/time trial course. Each time that I ride the course it seems to get a little harder. I have been dialing in the course as much as possible… I like to break the course down in sections and work on how I can ride each section. It is during that process that I keep finding more hard sections than easy sections. The course is either climbing, rolling up a false flat, or winding through a fast technical section. All of this should play into my favor for the time trial!
With this being my third time at the Paralympics I should be use to the down time! We keep a schedule while we are here but there is still a lot of free time. It during the downtime that my mind likes to work me over. I have been working towards this goal for many years, and I just do not want to screw up. I want to have the best day I can have on my bike and I want that result to yield a medal!! Now that the competition has started here, athletes are winning and they are losing. It has been said “that’s why we race!” because any one thing can happen and everyone has a chance to win. My time trial is on Friday, and Friday is the day that I am going to ride like the wind and stand on top of the medal stand!
Brooke and Barbara visited the Village yesterday. It is nice to have them here in China. We enjoyed some McDonald’s for lunch. We had to sneak them into the dining hall! Brooke does not like to break the rules! After lunch we decided to take a trip outside the village to a place called Silk Street Market…so a small group of us piled in a couple of taxis and were off like a herd of turtles! Now, I have seen my share of traffic living in Atlanta, and I have experienced traffic in LA, but I have never seen or experienced traffic like we did going into the heart of Beijing!! It was bumper-to-bumper or bumper-to-back-of-left-quarter-panel the whole trip. The way that the Chinese people drive is very different. They do not respect the lane that they are in and they like to use the HORN. If people drove like that at home there would be a ton of road rage! Here the people cut each other off and blow the horn, yet nobody seems to get upset. I also noticed that most of the cars on the road are new models. While we worked or way into Beijing you can not help but notice all the tall buildings. The buildings look like NY City but for miles and miles and miles and miles. There are many skyscrapers of all shapes and sizes. We passed one building that looked like a pair of pants! I guess with over a billion people you have to have a lot of buildings.
The Silk Market was an experience. It is a building with floors of copy cat items ranging from polos, electronics, golf clubs, jackets, silks, pearls, watches etc. You name it and it was in the place. You have to be ready to negotiate and ready for high pressure sales. The salespeople in each shop do not want you to leave their stall without buying something. They will use every bit of English they know in a effort to sell their goods. Brooke is great at this whole process. Brooke, armed with a calculator, starts the bidding. It goes down like this: “Sir, Sir, Mr American, you like my stuff? You need a some pearls to take home to family? Come in, Come in I give you best price…you my favorite… I give you best price. Where you from, where you from?” When you get down to the price of the item, it’s like a game of Texas hold’em. The salesperson types the price on her calculator in yuan. Then you immediately take that number and divide by 2 on your calculator. Then divide by 6.8 to get the US $$. Then you decide how much you really want to pay for the item and make an offer via your calculator. It is a very fun process! Brooke and I were in one shop and we were haggling over a silk top for Brooke. After about 15 minutes of back and forth I said, “Let’s go… you don’t need that!” So we walked out of the shop. We were half way down the aisle when the salesperson came running after us shouting, “Wait, Wait, I give you best price.” We stopped and Brooke started to haggle again in the middle of the aisle. Brooke won! She got the silk top for 80% off the original price!
Today, it’s back to the road course for some more training.
I am working on gathering the information so that you can watch the action on the internet. ParalympicSport.tv seems to be the best place so far to view coverage of the games. I will also post updates that we get from US Paralympics
Located under FEATURED CLIPS click on the UPDATES and Schedules Link
Brooke and Barbara are in CHINA! They made it safe and we had a chance to grab a quick dinner together. It was my first time out of the protected bubble that we live in at the village and along the Olympic green. Chinese is a hard language to fake!! It is equally hard to read the symbols (signs). Brooke is whiz at traveling and she always seems to have everything figured out so that she can hit the ground running. Brooke picked a meeting place for us, and I hopped in a taxi…minutes later I spotted Brooke and Barbara standing in front of the famous “Drum Tower.” We ducked in the first restaruant we saw with “tablecloths.” We ordered the things that we recognized from the menu. We ordered Beef, Hot and Sour Soup, KungPo Chicken, and fried rice with veggies and eggs. Our meal was good and cheap! The three of us ate for about $12.00! After dinner we each hailed a cab and it was time for bed! I hope that they sleep well tonight.
Last night we marched in the opening ceremony! It was incredible. This was my first time to march at the opening, so it was very special. The birds nest was packed! 90,000 people where there to welcome the teams to the 2008 Paralympic Games. The best part of the show was when thousands of Chinese kids dressed at FROGS rocked the house dancing. They were amazing. They have been replaying the opening on paralympicsport.tv
Here is a clip from what i did today
Sorry for the weird posting… I am tired and need to sleep!
So I am up at 3am china time! I can’t sleep anymore!! I hope that I get adjusted to the time change sooner rather than later…. Since I have some time, I will share with you some news and updates. First, sadly my blog is not going to be as exciting as usual while I am here. The IPC, they are the people that run the Paralympic Games, have some very strict blogging rules that all athletes must follow. Click below and read them for yourself.
If you can understand the legalese let me know. From what I gather it basically said that I can’t tell you anything or show you picture or cool clips of anything! This is a shame because there are a lot of amazing people and stories that will go untold because the mainstream media does not cover the Paralympics. If I were running the IPC, I would encourage blogging to help build the base of support for Paralympics, then once Paralympics is a household name/brand I would sell it to the highest bidder!
Now that is off my chest…………….yesterday we rode the road course. The course is very good with a few very challenging sections. The course winds its way around a large dam that is located north of Beijing. We will be doing laps around the 12km course. The start-finish area is actually located on top of the dam. It features a very cool grandstand and spectator section. If you had a chance to watch the triathlon during the games, the start-finish area is the same. The main feature of the course is a 2km climb that works its way from the bottom end of the dam to the top. Once we reach the top of the climb the course winds slightly up hill around a large lake and then works its way back to the dam area. The road is rarely straight in any section… that could encourage some break aways. I think that the course is going to be harder than the racers think, and the race will be won by the person who manages their effort the best!
Last night we participated in our flag raising ceremony at the international zone of the Paralympic Village. It always warms my heart to witness the raising of the American flag on foreign soil! Our Chinese host did a great job with the ceremony and I think that all the USA Athletes are ready to GET IT ON!!
The Paralympics are amazing and it is incredible to see all the different athletes from over 140 different nations. Yesterday while I was eating lunch I thought to myself, “If you think that you have it bad, you should just sit and watch 4000 disabled people from all over the world enter the dining hall at the Paralympic Games.” I also thought, “Dang, I am going to get run over by all these wheelchairs!”
Have a good day, I am off to find Coffee…………..
Clip of our marathon travel Day
Its not my cappuccino, but at least its coffee!! Wow, yesterday was a long day of travel. 30ish hours of no sleep and go here and wait, then go there and wait, but I am now officially settled into to the village. The bikes are good and all my luggage made it. I have not seen much except for the airport and the village, but from what I have seen… wow! This place is very nice with greens and flowers blooming all around. All along the highway were banners showcasing the Paralympics and billboards featuring Paralympic athletes. They even have window boxes full of flowers every mile or so along the roadway. The best way I can describe the overall scene is that it looks like a fancy Chinese restaurant with ponds, gardens, and manicured flowers.
I slept great last night! I could have slept standing up at Rolling Stones concert I was so tired.
Today we are checking out the road course.
Until then. Ron
So after 25 hours of travel we made it!! Flight was good and all the luggages made it!!
Depart, originally uploaded by ronswilliams123.
I am officially on the plane headed for beijing. I scored an exit row!!
