Oakley OM Foundation Sunglasses

BONNER PADDOCK once again is making the most of an NHL lockout. During the ’04-05 lockout, Paddock, while employed by the Ducks, was urged by Owners HENRY and SUSAN SAMUELI to explore more about his cerebral palsy. Paddock became involved in United Cerebral Palsy of Orange County and decided to become the first person with CP to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. This time around, Paddock wanted to be the first person with CP to complete the Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii. He finished the 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike and 26.2-mile run with a most unusual yet inspiring dance as he crossed the finish line. Paddock, 37, now serves as Senior VP/Marketing & Partnership Activation for Young’s Market Company. Below he discusses his heroic effort, which thus far has raised almost $1M.

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By Theresa Manahan, Staff Writer
Sports Business Daily

About 1,850 of the 2,039 participating athletes had sprinted, skipped, jogged, walked, rolled, staggered or collapsed over the line by 11:30 p.m. when only a precious 30 minutes remained in the 17-hour window to complete the day’s grueling 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride and 26.2-mile marathon run.

First-time competitor Bonner Paddock, 37, of Newport Coast, was not yet among the finishers.

A hundred of his supporters, many wearing blue, oversized sponge cowboy hats, had wedged themselves into the rowdy, crowded spectators’ chute in the 400 yard-long closing stretch of Ali’i Drive.

His friends at home in Orange County, following the event’s live streaming video and checking for Paddock’s OM Foundation Facebook page updates at 2:30 a.m. Pacific Time, searched for the athlete in Bib. No. 1421 who was attempting to become the first person with cerebral palsy to complete this event.

“He’s close… Keep an eye on the live Web cam” read the most recent OM Foundation Facebook page post.

Event volunteers were tossing freebie Timex hats, Bonk Breaker bars and PowerAde T-shirts into the electric crowd that banged red TYR ThunderStix with a tribal beat, charging the ebony night and urging the last of the competitors through their final yards of the marathon.

In came a 69-year-old woman patting herself on the back as she jogged over the line. Then a 77-year-old Japanese man whose cramping body contorted him into the shape of an upside-down ‘J’ in his closing steps before his collapse into the arms of two medical team workers.

A Canadian police officer with his left leg in a brace limped across. An Australian psychiatrist relished the finish, running back to high five spectators three times before crossing the line, with the John Travolta pose in “Stayin’ Alive.”

Still no Paddock at 11:35 p.m. while the slap-happy public address announcer, Mike Reilly, was draping leis around the late finishers and enthusiastically shouting each name, age, hometown for the crowning pronouncement, “You ARE an Ironman!”

Reilly told the crowd that 82-year-old Lew Hollander, the oldest athlete in the field, and a fireman named Rob, who was completing the marathon in his firefighter’s coat, turnouts and tank, were a mile away.

Then, at 11:38 p.m., without Reilly’s build up, Paddock surprised everyone.

Racing home was a bolting, fist-pumping, high-stepping, finish-line stomping Paddock in his red, skin-tight, sleeveless singlet; red and white-framed Oakley glasses; teal Asics running shoes; and a blue cowboy hat that he had pick up in the final stretch.

“Bonner Paddock, Newport Coast, you are an Ironman! Look out!” shouted Reilly, dodging the charging Paddock, who, panting and smiling and crying, rushed toward a finishing embrace.

He hopped in celebration and relief and pure joy, holding his hat on his head, his upper arms marked black with a sweat-smeared “1421.”

Paddock threw his arms around Greg Welch, the 1994 Ironman World Champion who had trained him for the past 20 months of 1,500 workout hours and 30 lost pounds.

The emotionally spent Paddock buried his head on Welch’s shoulder hard enough to knock off the cowboy hat.
Welch lifted Paddock left hand high as if declaring him a champion.

“Are you happy or what!” Reilly shouted. “There he is. The only man who finished this race with cerebral palsy. Bonner has cerebral palsy. He battles it every day but he just finished Ironman!”

The crowd cheered louder for Paddock who registered in No. 1871 place on the digital board above the line, posting a time of 16 hours, 38 minutes, 35 seconds. He made the window with just 21 minutes to spare.

“One more time for Bonner Paddock,” Reilly urged. “You are an Ironman! Wow.”

NBC will broadcast the 2012 Ironman World Championships on Oct. 27 at 1 p.m.

With cerebral palsy-stricken legs that don’t do an eggbeater kick, Paddock completed the 2.4-mile Pacific Ocean swim in a choppy Kailua Bay in 1:24:51.

With his disability affecting his balance and equilibrium, he pedaled through the hilly, hot and often windless 112-mile bike course along Queen Kaahumanu Highway in 8:00:02.

With his body wearing down, he walked up the hills and jogged the flats through the night and the loneliness of lava fields along the Kohala Coast to survive the 26.2-mile marathon in 6:51:28.

“The stories that come out of Ironman are incredible,” said Welch, who is the sports marketing director for Foothill Ranch-based Oakley. “If this guy gets to the finish line, it will be one of the most talked about finishes of all time.”

Paddock had climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in 2008, becoming the first man with cerebral palsy to summit the world’s largest freestanding peak (19,340 feet). He pressed on through pain and exhaustion, inspired by the children with disabilities who had never known what it was like to take their first step.

He promised the children and families he has gotten to know through United Cerebral Palsy Orange County that he would complete the Ironman.

“We did it! Never quit on your dreams!” he wrote Sunday.

Paddock, a senior vice president for marketing for Young’s Market Company in Tustin, has raised more than $500,000 for his OM Foundation (www.1man1mission.org/donate), which develops early learning centers for children with disabilities and funds organizations including United Cerebral Palsy of Orange County and Light in Africa.

Just before midnight in Hawaii, Paddock again proved he can live a life without limits.

By MARCIA C. SMITH
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Contact the writer: masmith@ocregister.com

IRVINE – The slight limp is there when he walks, the left toe of his leather shoe scratching the pavement, his right heel dragging. This crooked, unsteady gait is a lifelong reminder of the mild cerebral palsy that Bonner Paddock can’t hide.

He has had 37 years to adapt to the complications of the brain and nervous-system disorder caused at birth when his umbilical cord nearly choked him to death.

His lower legs have always been gimpy, ankles shot and toes cramped and curled. His equilibrium comes and goes like light from a bulb with a short, forcing him to correct his balance continually by sighting his surroundings and knowing up from down, floor from ceiling and base from summit.

He has tripped, stumbled and fallen all his life. He can’t count all the times he skinned his elbows and knees. He broke his arm — twice — as a child, trying to catch himself.

The best part of Paddock’s story is that he always, stubbornly, gets back up — often with greater determination and a bigger chip on his shoulders despite “the hitch in his giddy-up,” he says.

Paddock, who grew up in Mission Viejo and lives in Newport Coast, earned a soccer scholarship to Concordia, using the same quick reflexes he uses to correct his every motion to play goalie.

He ran the OC Marathon in 2007. He climbed Mount Whitney for practice and then Mount Kilimanjaro in 2008, becoming the first person with cerebral palsy to summit the world’s largest free-standing peak at 19,340 feet. Unassisted.

The next impossible — or “crazy,” depending on whom you ask — task on Paddock’s to-do list is the Ironman World Championships, the triathlon billed as the world’s toughest one-day sporting event, on Oct. 13 in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii.

He is entering the race — a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride, a marathon-length 26.2-mile run — not to win but to finish and to complete it for everyone who has never been able to take a step.

His greater goal is to raise $1 million for his 3-year-old OM (One Man, One Mission) Foundation, which develops early learning centers to help children with disabilities and funds organizations including United Cerebral Palsy of Orange County and Light in Africa.

“With proper training and my belief in myself,” Paddock says, “I believe I can do it. I’m ready, antsy, like a wild horse just wanting to kick through the stable door.”

He will make us all believers.

DRIVE TO SUCCEED

Paddock, a San Diego State graduate with a degree in business management, has a career. A former senior director of corporate sponsorships for Honda Center and the Ducks, he has been the senior vice president of marketing for Young’s Market Company, a Tustin-based distributor of fine wines and spirits, since 2010.

But that is just work. It pays the bills, affords him a few luxuries. It’s not what has driven him through life or gets him up at first light for the past two years to swim 4,000 yards in the pounding, 65-degree Pacific Ocean or pedal a stationary bike for four hours in his garage to train for the rigorous Ironman.

His motivation runs much deeper, diving back to the early childhood when he was the slow kid who tripped over his own feet at the playground and was mercilessly teased by his classmates and two older brothers because of a clumsiness he couldn’t control.

He was a frustrated child, sometimes so angry after falls that his teachers complained about his tantrums. His brothers, Mike McConnell and Matt Rinn, never cut him slack and let him stay on the sidelines.

Paddock always figured out some way to be valuable to a team. In Little League, he became a switch-hitter; in youth basketball, a savvy 3-point shooter; and in soccer, the goalie because all the other kids wanted to score.
“I’ve got to give Bonner credit,” said McConnell, an All-American swimmer at Arcadia High. “He never gave up no matter what the doctors said.”

Growing up, seven doctors gave Paddock seven different diagnoses, each trying to fix his legs with walking therapies, braces, flat-soled saddleshoes and lower-body casts.

On his 11th birthday, one doctor told his family that he had degenerative syringomyelia, that he’d be in a wheelchair by age 15 and dead by 20. A few months later, UC Irvine neurologist Arnold Starr correctly diagnosed his CP, and “I felt like I got my life back,” Paddock recalled.

Until his 30s, Paddock did everything he could to avoid association with his disability. He hid it when he could. He used his quick, self-effacing humor to get him out of the occasional embarrassing tumble.

But during the 2004-05 NHL lockout, when Ducks owners Henry and Susan Samueli urged staffers to take up philanthropy, Paddock made a call to the Orange County chapter of United Cerebral Palsy and arranged to visit children at a therapy center.

Some sat in wheelchairs, unable to walk. Some mumbled noises, unable to talk. Even in their condition, they smiled, laughed and reached to touch Paddock’s hand.
They touched his heart.

“Why me?” wondered Paddock, realizing the miracle of his limited motion that he had before then considered his curse.

So he ran the 2006 OC Half Marathon cold to raise money for UCP-OC. Near the finish, he met Steven Robert, a father who picked his 6-year-old son, Jake, out of a wheelchair and carried him across the line.
“Jake had CP, and his father ran because Jake couldn’t,” Paddock said. “That night of the marathon, Jake died.”
With “Jakey Bear” written across the bottoms of his sneakers, Paddock ran the full 2007 OC Marathon and raised $30,000 for UCP-OC.

With a beaded necklace bearing Circle of Life pendant symbolizing all the children who’ve inspired him, Paddock climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and contributed all $260,000 in donations to his OM Foundation charities.
His harrowing and emotional journey was beautifully chronicled in the documentary, “Beyond Limits,” narrated by late actor Michael Clarke Duncan.

Struggling and spent, Paddock found strength in remembering the children who had sent him good-luck letters and drawn him Crayola pictures. For them, he staggered and reached Uhuru Peak.
“It took my body two years to recover from Kili,” Paddock said. “The joke after Kili was ‘What are you going to do next?’ I knew I had one more big thing I wanted to do.”

ANOTHER QUEST

It was around January 2011 when Paddock began researching the Ironman triathlon and contacted Greg Welch, Oakley’s sports marketing director and the 1994 Ironman World Champion.

“Will you train me?” Paddock asked in an email. “There’s no way I’m doing this without you. I need all your expertise.”

After meeting Paddock and watching “Beyond Limits”, the Australian Welch said, “Absolutely, mate!”
This wasn’t an easy decision for Welch, who understands that the Ironman is not just about the staggering distances.

“It’s about the elements — 90-degree heat, 90 percent humidity and tradewinds from 15 to 45 knots, hills and climbs in the terrain — all on a body with CP,” Welch said. “I know Bonner is mentally strong but this is still going to be very, very tough. This is going to be about survival.”

Welch contacted his sponsors to get Paddock equipment, including TYR “Freak of Nature” swimsuits and Cannondale Synapse road cycles. He designed a progressive, 20-month, five-day-a-week training plan to build Paddock’s confidence and endurance.

Paddock got permission from his employer to train weekday mornings. He met with Young’s Market board chairman Vern Underwood, who was so impressed with Paddock’s commitment that his company donated $250,000 and offered to match every employee’s contribution to OMF (1man1mission.org).

Paddock dedicated himself to daily training: four-hour sessions on a stationary bike in his garage and in silence; 60- and 90-minute swims at heavy and slower paces in the UC Irvine pool and the ocean near Crystal Cove; long hours of uphill walks and downhill jogs; 4-, 6- and 8-hour cycling rides along the Santa Ana River Trail; and weightlifting.

Welch, worried about Paddock’s balance on two wheels had Paddock training on a stationary bike for six months. He had Paddock meet with a swim coach to improve his stroke because CP made his legs like a deadweight rudder in the water.

Swim, bike and run filled Paddock’s calendar to prepare him for the 2.4-mile swim segment that begins and ends at Kailua Pier, the 112-mile bike race loop on the Queen Ka’ahumanu highway along the Kona Coast through scorching lava fields to Kohala Coast and the Hawi village; and the marathon course that travels the bike route through Kailua-Kona and finishes along Ali’i Drive.

Paddock, who will wear Bib No. 1421, is entered in the general competition, not the physically challenged division. For extra stability, he will ride a 10-pound bicycle, which is a little heavier than a triathlon bike, and run in thicker soled, more supportive Asics Gel PS Trainer 17s.

“Bring it on,” Paddock said, not wanting assistance during the transitions or special allowances for his condition.

“I wouldn’t have trained him unless I knew he could do it,” Welch said. “He has prepared himself, doing almost all of it on his own.

McConnell, Paddock’s brother, set the pace during many swimming sessions and accompanied him when Paddock completed the Ironman 70.3 Hawaii Half Ironman with overall time of 7 hours, 52 minutes to qualify for the world championships.

“It’s crazy but it’s Bonner,” said McConnell, who attended a send-off rally for Paddock on Wednesday at the UCP-OC headquarters at Irvine.

Paddock’s most loyal fans were there holding up a banner they painted with the message, “Go Bonner! You can do it!!” surrounded by dozens of their handprints.

Red-haired Ashley Arambula, 9, of Laguna Hills, who has cerebral palsy, looked up to Paddock from her wheelchair and asked, “Can I be your partner?”

“You already are,” Paddock, kneeling down, told her.

Ashley clapped. Her Ironman event, she told her mother, Monica, “is to walk one day.”

His eyes glistening with the beginning of tears, Paddock limped to the podium and promised the crowd, “I will do this.”

For everyone.

By MARCIA C. SMITH
COLUMNIST
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Contact the writer: masmith@ocregister.com

Sitting across from super-fit Bonner Paddock, who’s gearing up for this year’s most prestigious (and grueling) Ironman in Hawaii on October 13, you’d never know that he has to conscientiously fight just to stand upright every second of the day.

Ever since his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck like a noose and deprived him of oxygen at birth, the 37-year-old Californian has been living with a mild case of cerebral palsy, which has most affected his equilibrium and eye-foot coordination.

“I don’t know if I’m leaning to the right or left unless my eyes are locked onto something that is straight, like a wall, beam or door frame. I just pick a spot and try to get there without swaying,” Paddock says. “I fall in my closet a lot on mornings when I’m tired and not concentrating.”

When you don’t know up from down, how do you commit to swimming 2.4 miles, biking 112 miles, and running a marathon back to back . . . to back? For Paddock, the attempt to become the first person with cerebral palsy to complete the famous world championship triathlon—known to most as simply “Kona,” or the Super Bowl of triathlons—without assistance is more than about defying the odds and making history. (See if Kona falls on our list of The 20 Best Triathlons in America.)

Paddock’s goal is to raise one million dollars for his foundation One Man, One Mission, a nonprofit that’s dedicated to building much-needed centers around the globe for kids with disabilities.

And he doesn’t care that he could lose five years of his life doing it.

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Bonner Paddock is competing on Oct 13th in Hawaii. He’s running, biking and swimming for miles and miles even though he has Cerebral Palsy! He’s doing it to help disabled kids both here in California and in Africa.

By Kendra Mahon

Bonner Paddock is living proof that anything really is possible. After a string of incorrect diagnoses, a physician identified Paddock with cerebral palsy at the age of 11. He was told he most likely wouldn’t live past his early 20′s, a prognosis he has squashed with remarkable strength and numerous accomplishments.

In honor of a friend’s son who passed away and had been living with a severe case of CP, Paddock ran a marathon, raising $30,000. “A light bulb went on and I realized if I could go and do these physical events, it’s a great way to raise money for all these families that need help paying for services,” Paddock says. “I have a gift and I need to do these physical things that most people living with CP can’t do, to give hope to these kids and families. Somehow I can do all this stuff, so me experiencing a little pain here and there is nothing compared to what they’re going through.”

In 2008, Paddock took things to a whole new level when he became the first person with cerebral palsy to summit Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, as well as the highest free-standing mountain in the world. Documenting his journey in the film Beyond Limits, Paddock realized the powerful impact he could have on raising funds and awareness to those living with disabilities. A year after his extraordinary climb, Paddock founded the One Man, One Mission Foundation, with the purpose of developing learning centers to aid children with disabilities like cerebral palsy.

Read Complete Article: http://ironman.com/columns/my-kona-bonner-paddock

Won’t you please join us for this wonderful event!