By Jodi Hersey
Special to The Weekly
USA Triathlon coach Janet MacDonald is known for helping Maine athletes improve their
swimming techniques as well as running and biking speeds while training for various triathlons, but now the Bangor native is taking her skills to Florida to assist the Challenged Athletes Foundation, or CAF, an organization that helps disabled athletes compete and reach their personal goals.
“We’re going to be doing swim and video analysis for the athletes and bike fitting that may involve working with a hand cycle. It depends greatly on the disability of each individual person,” said MacDonald. “The Challenged Athletes Foundation has grants that help people get adaptive equipment for the sports they wish to pursue, which can include a carbon fiber leg or prosthetic.”
MacDonald is just one of five U.S. coaches working for the CAF Paratriathlon Camp this May
under the direction of USA Paratriathlon coaches Mark Sortino and John Murray. All athletes who attend the camp, do so free of charge. Coaches are required to pay for transportation to and from the camp while on-site housing is provided to all coaches and participants.
“This is going to be new territory for me,” she said. “Working at Camp Capella [in Dedham], I had my share of working with adaptive equipment in water and how to maneuver someone in, but once they were in there, their goal was to swim recreationally. But these folks are going to get in and race, and they face a challenge the rest of us don’t.”
As a four-time Team USA aquathlon qualifier, MacDonald is especially looking forward to
helping athletes improve their swimming abilities.
“Swimming is one of the sports that you don’t get to use the adaptive equipment because it
doesn’t swim well. That’s going to be a lot of fun watching what they can do now and working with that to get them to their goals,” said MacDonald.
MacDonald has been intrigued by paratriathlons since she attended one in Hungary in 2010.
“I watched a paratriathlon at the world championship level in Budapest and that was just
spectacular to see all the different ways these folks were accomplishing the same goal. It’s
very inspiring,” she said.
Whether it’s in Maine, Florida or even abroad, MacDonald hopes to continue helping all athletes discover their capabilities.
“It’s always good when you do anything to help a person achieve a goal but these [CAF athletes] are just such good people. Clearly if there is an athlete who wants to do a paratriathlon that’s local, I’d be the first one right there,” said MacDonald.
For information on the Challenged Athletes Foundation, goto challengedathletes.org.