Positive thinking the driving force as Lee makes major strides for Tokyo

ON A RUN: Para-athlete Alex Lee hits top gear during a training near his home at Ballyloughane Strand, Renmore, Galway. ‘All I can do is focus on myself and getting my times down,’ the St Joseph’s College teacher says. Picture: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

ALEX Lee didn’t do a whole pile last Sunday. There was a small bit of training. Nothing too strenuous, though. A recent bout of shin splints has lent itself to a light enough workload for the time being.

But the little bit he did was significant. It was a reminder of the road travelled, of the hurdles overcome.

Exactly four years ago last Sunday, Alex Lee lay on a bed in University Hospital Galway after having his right leg amputated below the knee.

It was the 13th of 14 surgeries he would undergo during a six-week stay at the hospital.

What brought about amputation was the broken leg he suffered while lining out for Mervue United during a Connacht Junior Cup game on March 13, 2016.

It was to prove his last outing in the Mervue strip, a club he featured regularly for during their stint in the League of Ireland’s first division.

There were, of course, dark and difficult days following the loss of his right leg, but he wouldn’t allow himself get bogged down in the negatives of what he could no longer do or what had been taken away from him.

To his credit, he’s packed a fair amount into the last four years. And there may well be more to come if he can get himself onto the plane for next year’s rescheduled Paralympic Games in Tokyo.

After learning how to walk all over again, and later returning to work as an Irish and Geography teacher at St Joseph’s College in Galway city, Lee wanted to get back into a routine of exercise so as to rebuild his fitness.

Establishing himself as an international para sprinter did not feature on any grand plan of his, but such were the improvements the Galway native made in a remarkably short space of time that he found himself wearing the green singlet at last November’s World para athletics championships in Dubai.

The logical next step is to compete at a Paralympic Games, and that remains the goal even if a new date on the calendar has had to be circled.

TO get there, he’ll need to shave four tenths of a second off his 100m personal best of 11.92 and close to a second and a half off his 200m best time of 24.92.

A help on this front will be the new blade he was fitted for earlier this year. His first running blade, which he has had since the beginning of 2018, was geared more towards a recreational runner than someone wanting to power down the home straight at one of the biggest sporting events on the planet.

“This time last year, the world championships wouldn’t have even been on my radar. My goal last year would have been just to get my times down and see what happens. We had actually earmarked September for me to get a new blade, but then I qualified for the worlds so we had to put it back until after that,” the 30-year old explains.

“The leg I am after getting is specifically for sprinting. I competed at the national indoors there at the end of February. My 60m and 200m times were similar to what I did last season, which was good in the sense that I only had the new blade for two weeks, whereas last year, I would have been running with a blade that I was extremely comfortable with.

“Two weeks ago, I sat down with my coach Brendan Glynn, via Zoom, and we planned out a training block for the period ahead. I’ll sprint three days a week and I have a shed by the house with plenty of weights in it so I’ll do my S&C work there.

“All I can do is focus on myself and getting my times down.”

It was this very focus which served him well four years ago.

“I left the hospital in a wheelchair around a week after the amputation and subsequent skin graft, and my first goal was to get fitted with a prosthetic. I constantly had goals to reach; get a prosthetic; go back teaching; get a leg that would allow me go jogging. These goals and targets helped me along the way. It meant I wasn’t dwelling on the past or the negative side of [amputation].

“When I think back on four years ago, I tend to think about how far I have come. I can do a lot of things that four years ago lying in the hospital I wasn’t able to do. I just focus on the positives.”

And well he should.