New Zealand Challenge: David Millar

It has been 20 years since my life was devastated when I suffered a spinal cord injury while playing rugby for a season in New Zealand.  At that time I had just completed a degree at the Scottish School of Physical Education and was playing rugby for Glasgow, and at junior international level.  I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how difficult it was, and still is, adapting to life in a wheelchair.  Unfortunately this sort of story is not too unusual as the type of person who suffers a spinal cord injury, whether it be from rugby, horse riding, skiing, cycling or simply driving a car, is typically young and active.  When I suffered my injury the thought of a cure was a distant hope and progress has been slow.  Currently, however, a number of treatments are on the verge of moving from the laboratory to clinical trials and as such are close to achieving one of the holy grails of medical science – repair of the spinal cord.

In order to raise money to help their development I’m going to return to New Zealand and complete a 300 mile handcycle journey in three sections; from Burwood Spinal Injuries Unit in Christchurch, where I was initially treated, across the Canterbury Plains, along the Lake Tekapo canal system and finally along the Otago rail trail towards Dunedin.  To give you an idea of the size of this challenge; the longest cycle I’ve achieved in one day so far is the 13 miles I completed when I did the Great North Run in 2006.  In this challenge I plan to do a marathon distance on each day and to make it even more demanding only about ½ of the route is on road surfaces with the rest being on gravel and other unsurfaced paths.
 
If you are reading this I am clearly hoping that you will support this cause but before you decide I would just ask to you to take a few seconds to think about how different your life would be if in your teens or early 20s you had been unlucky enough to suffer paralysis and loss of feeling from such an injury.  It is a difficult thing to imagine, but the reality is that every year numerous people are confronted by such a prospect.  Treatments are, however, on the horizon that could make a massive difference to their quality of life and I therefore hope you can show your support by making a donation.

David Millar (1985)

Link to YouTube clip of David's training run last Saturday - the voice of encouragement you can hear is his wife Lynn.