Vet completes cross-country ride
Tuesday, August 21, 2012 at 1:36PM EAGLE RIVER — Having earned a bronze medal in the 1,500-meter run at the 2012 Warrior Games — an athletic competition that pits U.S. service members against one another — Eagle River’s Mike Sanders is no slouch when it comes to running.
He’s one heck of a cyclist, too.
Mike Sanders on his recumbant. Photograph by Parker Feierbach.
Sanders, an active duty member of the U.S. Air Force, recently rode 3,700 miles across the country with 13 other disabled veterans in the World T.E.A.M. Sports’ 2012 Sea to Shining Sea ride.
Veterans with disabilities ranging from blindness to loss of limbs participated in the biennial event to serve as inspiration for all people — able-bodied and disabled alike — to overcome life’s obstacles.
This year, the group left San Francisco on May 28 and rode bicycles, hand cycles and recumbent cycles to their finishing destination of Virginia Beach, Va., on July 28. The riders crossed 14 state lines and nearly 19,000 feet of elevation.
“I enjoyed a lot of it,” Sanders said. “It made you think of what was really important.”
Sanders, a cancer survivor, doesn’t like the negative connotation surrounding the term “disabled.”
“I like the word adaptability,” he said. “How can anybody say what normal is? I think normal is whatever that person thinks normal is for them.”
Read the full story at the Chugiak-Eagle River Star.
Mike Sanders, left, Henry Riley and Bill Czyzewski lead the team at the July 4th Veiled Prophet Parade in St. Louis. Photograph by Nancy Chamberlain.
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