Novice kayaker sprints onto Paracanoe team

MORRISVILLE --

Before she even starts to paddle, Ashley Thomas has to make a few adjustments to her kayak.

As the 48-year-old nonprofit director swings herself from a bar stool into her K-1 sprint kayak, she's careful not to hit her legs against the edge of the boat.

"I have to put on these rubber coverings over the edge so I don't bruise myself too much," said Thomas, who has minimal movement in her legs.

She then balances herself in the kayak and ties her legs together, because it's difficult for her to keep them stable on the water. Then she places an arched platform under her ankles and an inflatable pad, about the size of a sheet of paper, to provide relief for her legs.

After all that, Thomas is ready to train. Four times a week, Thomas paddles at Morrisville's Lake Crabtree with her coach Stephen Knight from the Triangle Paddle Racing Club. Knight began working with her about 4 1/2 weeks ago, and it wasn't much earlier than that when she discovered her kayaking talent. A month after her first time climbing into a kayak, Thomas is a member of the U.S. Canoe/Kayak Paracanoe team, preparing for next month's International Canoe Federation Sprint World Championships in Poznan, Poland.

Thomas will be racing in the 200-meter sprint event in the four-day competition, scheduled to begin Aug. 19.

"Since I've always had minimal movement in my legs, I never thought I was sporty," said Thomas, the executive director and founder of Bridge II Sports, a Triangle nonprofit that offers athletic opportunities for physically challenged children and adults. "I'm pretty good at basketball, but growing up, I was always the kid who didn't play. But here I was, I had an opportunity to compete, so I thought, 'I might as well take it.' "

Thomas was born with spina bifida, a birth defect that occurs when a portion of the neural tube - the embryonic structure that develops into a baby's brain and spinal cord and the tissue that encloses them - fails to develop or close properly, causing spinal-cord defects. Thomas' case was not severe enough to require insertion of a shunt, however, and it has not prevented her from leading an active life.

Thomas had her first kayaking experience on June 25 in St. Mary's, Md., while attending an "Adapt to Achieve" conference sponsored by Disabled Sports USA.

Thomas was learning about how to make canoeing and kayaking more adaptive for people with multiple sclerosis and other disabilities. Interested in trying the sport herself, she went out on an outrigger canoe.

"I had so much fun that day that I came back the next day and saw a kayak sitting there and said, 'I'll go on that one!' I paddled around and gained balance quickly, and within 10 minutes, I was doing turns," she said.

"I knew I wanted to go out in the river, so during our free time that afternoon, I found a guy on the [U.S.] kayak team, and we went back and forth probably 1,500 meters, and on the fourth pass back, I saw five people standing in the water who told me, 'What you did there, that was amazing. Are you sure you haven't done this before?' "

Two of the women who had watched her kayak on the river were coaches of the U.S. Paracanoe Team. Later that evening, they asked her to think about joining the team. She brushed it off, thinking they were just being "very sweet and polite."

But after hearing from a friend that the two coaches were thinking of ways to recruit her, she made the leap.

"She's a great person to work with, and it's very rewarding," Knight said. "Not just because she's an adaptive athlete, but because she's a novice, and we throw all this new information at her, but she's always enthusiastic and ready to learn.

"A racing boat has a rudder that kayakers use to balance the kayak with their feet, but Ashley can't. Still, she has great balance. For sprints, people generally start young and train year round, but we only have eight weeks to prepare. But, I'm very confident she'll do well and will be competitive."

Sometimes she has difficulty scheduling practices around her day job at Bridge II Sports. But the nonprofit's mission meshes well with this new pursuit.

"Bridge II Sports changes your perspective on things and the way you see the world," Thomas said. "The best thing about being an adaptive athlete is knowing that there are people behind you and that you're not alone, and that's what Bridge II Sports does."