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Female, 31
USA
Last Login: Jul 2, 2008 08:07 PM
About
On Saturday September 1st 2007, the BMX and mountain biking worlds suffered a tremendous tragedy. While competing in the Jeep King of the Mountain finale in Beaver Creek Colorado, one of the greatest athletes the sport has known, Tara Llanes, suffered a horrific crash during the first run of her semi-final heat. Tara was rushed to Vail Valley Hospital, then airlifted to Denver Health Hospital a short time later. Following seven hours of surgery to the back and spinal cord, it was determined she had no feeling from the waist down.
To make donations, mail your checks or money orders to:
Tara Llanes
Road to Recovery Fund
4068 Green Ave
Los Alamitos, CA 90720
Please mark on your check "Tara Llanes Road to Recovery Fund"
To make donations, mail your checks or money orders to:
Tara Llanes
Road to Recovery Fund
4068 Green Ave
Los Alamitos, CA 90720
Please mark on your check "Tara Llanes Road to Recovery Fund"
Latest Blog Entries
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Sat,28 Jun 2008 - Posted at 08:30:00 PM
Mon,23 Jun 2008 - Posted at 04:30:00 PM
Tue,10 Jun 2008 - Posted at 01:30:00 PM
New JEEP!!
Read Post...Mon,23 Jun 2008 - Posted at 04:30:00 PM
Project Walk
Read Post...Tue,10 Jun 2008 - Posted at 01:30:00 PM
Injections
Read Post...
Video
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Blog
Sat,28 Jun 2008
New JEEP!!
Posted at 08:30:00 PM
Hey everyone. I'm back and here's what's been going on. I've pretty much stopped going to Casa Colina, which is where I've been going to therapy for about the past 6 1/2 months. There were a few reasons, but the main one is that I felt that I had outgrown it. I think it was where I needed to be right when I left Craig, but I just feel like it has become a bit complacent and I don't do anything new or different. Project Walk is where I feel I need to be right now. Project Walk. When I first was looking at a new place for therapy I went onto their website and looked at some of the clients they've had there in the past and the very first one on the list is a guy name Aaron H. His level of injury is the same as mine so I clicked on his name and there was a video. Here is the link Aaron's video to their clients. Go to the first name Aaron H. and I promise he'll blow you away. His video just gives me that much more hope. This past week I went down to Project Walk and they worked me pretty good. I was doing a lot of crawling, standing in the standing frame while hitting a punching bag, sit-ups, stretching, and hero's. Hero's are pretty damn hard. Basically you get in the standing frame and they pump it up just a tiny bit and then you put your hand on the bars in front of you and pull yourself up. The goal is to ultimately use your glutes, quads, and hamstrings to pull you up, but in the beginning it's mostly my arms. More specifically my triceps. Let me just tell you that my triceps were burning by the time I hit 30 and we still have about 30 to go. Yeah, they are mercilous and I love it! This last week was really great because we were really concentrating on my glutes and I could feel them firing. Sometimes just because I feel them firing doesn't mean that everyone else can see them firing. However, my therapists could not only feel them they could see them working, which was HUGE for me! I'll keep working on making them stronger. One of the days I didn't have my regular trainer and the first hour we did a lot of stretching, which is great and I KNOW that it is super important for me but I was really wanting to work hard and break a sweat. So the last 15-20 minutes of therapy they had me wrestle with Kirk. Kirk is their resident UK strong man. I figured I could take him. So they had us sit with our legs in a V in front of us overlapping and then it was game on. I had to try and push him down while he did the same to me. Let me preface this by saying he's about 6 feet tall weighing in around 180 lbs, but that's no match for my 5'5" about 112 lbs. I grabbed onto his arms and just went for it. He kept using one arm to hold me and then would hit my abs and yell, "come on tighten them!" and "is that all you've got!". It was all I could do to not laugh as he was absolutely manhandling me. Then in between a bit of that I would sit up and he'd put his hands out so I could do a bit of boxing with them, but in order to work on my balance he would move them on occasion as I was going in for the kill and of course I would fall into him and feel like a jack-ass! All in all I think I held my own pretty good and I was sweating my ass off. Mission accomplished. Bri (Bree) asked me if I broke a sweat and I said yes, but had a huge smile on my face and couldn't wait to do it again. I think she thinks I'm nuts, but at least they're getting to know me a bit and know I don't want it easy. I'm not there to sit and talk about the weather. I want to kick ass! In other news just a couple days ago my mom took me down to therapy, but she wasn't feeling so hot. She looked pretty pale and wasn't talking much. She ended up going to the ER and was admitted. I was pretty worried, but she is okay now and had a minor surgery this morning and should be out of the hospital by tomorrow. Guess she felt I had all the attention! Here is some really great news from this past week. I was asked by the crew at 48 Straight (they put on the Jeep KOM events) if I wanted to announce the Jeep KOM races this year. I off course was so absolutely happy and honored to do it. They are like family to me so we'll have a great time. Jeep KOM Summer Series. Also I have some other great news regarding Jeep. I FINALLY GOT MINE!!! Holy crap I picked it up today and it's so sweet! I've decided to call it Optimus Prime. Yep, that's the name of it and if you heard the engine when I start it you would know why. If you don't know who Optimus Prime is you need to go watch Transformers, which I thought was going to be a totally dumb movie cuz' I hate those kinds of movies and it ended up being awesome. Okay, slightly off subject here. Okay the car is amazing. It's black and is fully loaded. Jeep had it sent to Mobility Specialists to have the hand controls put in. Thank you Dan! Then they sent it back to the dealer where I picked up the manual, keys, etc. Thank you Jeff! I'll posts pics hopefully later today. Jeff at the dealership had a smile on his face when he said to be careful because it is made for speed and I had a smile on my face because that's all I look for in a car is speed. hehe. Seriously though it's got a handmade hemi engine. What!!?? Bananas!! Here check it out...Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8. It feels pretty good to feel like I've got my independence back, but it won't be completely the same until I can use my foot pedals. I also got a phone call from Dave Mariette over at Hot Shoppe (Hot Shoppe Designs) and the new hoodies are done! I'll pick them up early next week and get them out to everyone that pre-ordered them. Again I am soo sorry for the delay, but I wanted them to get done right. Thank you for your patience. I want to say thank you to everyone from the movie The Collective (The Collective ). More specifically Andrew Shandro and Jamie. They had a screening of the new film up in Vancouver I believe it was and they donated all the money from the screening to my fund. That was just so unbelievable to me. I really want to thank all of you and because of you I can afford another month of therapy. One last thing. I just want to thank Go211 for being so great. I just started working with them a few months ago and they helped out with the auction and they did a great job. So I just wanted to say thank you for the support and for believing in me. Go211.com. Anyway, that's the scoop for now. I promise I will post pictures SOON. Hopefully by tonight or tomorrow. Until then thank all of you for your support. P.S I am going to start working on another fundraiser at Interbike so I just want to let you all know. tara Never Give Up!
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Comments
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Bshwalker |
Posted on: Jul 4, 2008 04:08 PM
Good news, indeed! Congrats! Both on the jeep and your continued success with your therapy. Later. |
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Emily Glenn |
Posted on: Jun 21, 2008 01:15 AM
g my initial rehab at Shepherd center in Atlanta. Be careful with these places - most use us to win grant money for their programs, but don't deliver what they promise. Ask to meet the success stories and specifically ask how many of their "success stor |
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Emily Glenn |
Posted on: Jun 21, 2008 01:13 AM
Sorry you're bummed about project walk. I'm a para and did the tour of all the "cutting edge" spinal cord facilities - project walk, kennedy Kreiger and the Miami Project. In the end, I couldn't brace walk much better than I did following my initial reh |
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Emily Glenn |
Posted on: Jun 21, 2008 01:12 AM
Sorry, these are in parts... start at the bottom... stories" are still walking after a year. Studies show that 80% of people who learn to brace walk or (in my case, partially brace walk) end up choosing a chair after 12 months |
