Seating Position

I had a crazy summer.  It is hard to keep you updated while I am on the road.  Moving into conditioning season, I have more time to bring you up to speed with my summer.  Check back for more updates soon!

After my training in California, I headed home to finish a project that we had started in the fall.  My position in the racing chair is different than most because of my body make up.   Most wheelchair racers sit on their knees.  They then lean over on their knees.  The key is to keep the athlete's shoulder in line with the section between the hand rim and the front tire.  I cannot sit on my knees or lean over as far as others.  My torso is short enough that it is hard to keep my shoulder in alignment and lean over enough.  The problem with my old position was that I was not aerodynamic enough.  In order to cut down on wind resistance, we had to get me flatter.

Seat Mold

Dad working on aligning the custom seat.

Dad and I have gone round and round about this problem.  We had already approached Sterling Tool and Die and Clear Creek Designs to help us make a custom seat. The idea was to create a seat that fit me exactly so that we could put me anywhere without worrying about any pressure sores.  The team at Sterling created the hardware for the seat and Tim Vetters at Clear Creek created the core and foam of the seat.  Although we did not end up using the end product, it was foundational to finding the best position we could.  We would have never found the current placement that we have without their work.  Part of the reason that I was able to have the times I had this season was because of my positioning.  I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who helped me with the seating position.

After final welds!

Cut into pieces

Another part of getting my seating position correct was also cutting my chair and decreasing the cage size.  Once I was in the right position, we found that the chair was wide enough that it interfered with my arms.  We found a very brave welder who was willing to cut my racing chair.   Many thanks to Rob Mitchell for his work!