WONTHAGGI Aquatic and Leisure Centre YMCA health and fitness instructor Darren Thompson fought his way back from a potentially crippling back injury after a 2002 car crash, to achieve his goal of completing a grueling ‘iron-man’ event in December last year. Darren, 33, changed his entire life including his career after the accident and admitted that the journey back to health was not easy. A positive attitude together with his refusal to accept that surgery was the only answer proved the catalyst for success.  “I was working as a chef when I had the car accident and I ended up with prolapsed discs in my back. It changed my life. I walked with a limp and went from very active to completely inactive,” he said.
“For a long time I could barely dress myself. I couldn’t bend down to pick up a piece of paper off the floor. I had to change everything in my life.” He underwent regular physiotherapy until a back specialist told him that he needed surgery that would result in a permanent limit to his physical abilities. “Being only in my mid 20s I didn’t think that was a good enough answer,” he said.“By that time I had got pretty big - just over 110 kilos.” Darren was referred on to a physiotherapist who was also a Pilates instructor and undertook six months of intensive treatment to improve his core strength. He started some light exercise again and regained some movement until an unplanned incident while driving with a mate inspired him in late 2004. “I stopped and gave way to a local triathlon and watched them go by and thought ‘I want to do that’. I made a pact then that within 12 months I would do one.” Darren changed his whole lifestyle including his eating habits and started documenting exercise and food intake. Eight months on, in November 2005, Darren was down to 80 kilograms and successfully completed in his first triathlon. He joined a training group soon after and completed four sprint-distance events (500-metre swim, 20-kilometre bike, 5-kilometre run) for the season, finishing off with an Olympic distance event (1.5km, 40km, 10km). After competing in longer distance events around the country, Darren suffered a setback after he was diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat while training for his first full-distance iron-man event in late 2008. He had electric shock treatment to fix the problem in February 2009 and returned to his grueling sport four months later, and his ultimate triumph came when he completed his first full iron-man event (3.8km, 180km, 42.2km) in Busselton Western Australia in December 2009. |