- The first time I ever ran was at 14 years old.
It was the first time that I didn't feel limited
in my life and that I felt free.
Hi, I'm Scout Bassett,
sprinter and long jumper and here's everything that I do
in a day in preparation for the Paralympics.
Good morning self, it's 6.30am
and we're ready to start the day.
I wake up and I remove the charger off of my knee
to begin putting on my prosthetic.
First thing that I do is make myself a cup of coffee.
And then after that, I usually make myself a little,
light breakfast, maybe apples with peanut butter or banana.
After breakfast, I like to get some work done.
So that might be answering some emails
or catching up on some projects
or things that I'm working on.
On race days, I always make sure I have my competition leg
and I have my race kit already packed.
I also like to include water
and make sure that we always have snacks.
After doing some work,
I look forward to getting to the track
and starting my real job, so to speak.
Actually, in my mid 20's
is when I received my very first micro processor knee.
I could do things that I wasn't able to do
in terms of the lifting and the squatting,
going up and down stairs and steep hills
and it's completely water proof.
It was the first time I ever walked in the ocean
or any body of water with two legs.
The knee has computers in it and it has gyroscopes,
it has a loading sensor and it's gonna pick up
your every movement, what kinda incline surface you're on,
and of course, there's a battery in the knee
so it's heavier and if you want to see
if the knee's fully charges, there's bars,
just like on your phone.
The app, it tells you how many steps you've taken
on the knee.
I've only had the knee, I think about two years
and I've taken over 12 million steps already,
and so, it's pretty amazing.
[bright music]
When I arrive at the training center,
I usually start with a warm up.
The warm up can be 30 to 40 minutes
and it involves usually a couple of warm up laps,
jogs, slow jogs and then we move
into what we call a dynamic warm up,
which can be high knees, A, B, C skips, lunges.
It could be accelerations, build up, strides,
all active warm ups where you're working and warming up
all the muscles needed.
We don't normally stretch until after we've done
the dynamic warm up and then we move into the start
of the actual work out.
An example of a workout that we did this week,
two 300's, three 200's, three 100's
and all of the rest in between each of those intervals
is just a walk back recovery.
Sprint at 300, then you walk 300,
so whatever distance you run
is what your walk back recovery is.
So it's under an hour.
For lunch I gravitate more towards plant based foods
and meals just because there's not a lot of breaks
in between workouts, so it's hard to eat things
that take a long time to digest.
So usually I bring nuts to the track.
I like seaweed chips,
even things that are a little bit saltier
just because you tend to sweat out a lot of the sodium.
And then we move to typically the weight room.
The first half of the strength workout
is the power lifts, the Olympic lifts that you think of,
bench press, dead lifts, squats and then the back half
of the strength is core, plyos, ISOs, stability drills
and work maybe some arm drills,
working on speed of pumping your arms.
That's usually the end of the strength workout.
[uptempo music]
I want parents that have children,
when they see somebody with a disability
to not shush their child, not pull their child away
because that really indicates to the child
that there's something to be afraid of.
I think more times than not,
the person is going to want to share,
to have an educational moment because that really helps
the child to realize afterwards, oh it wasn't so bad,
they're just like me, and really helps to normalize it.
[bright music]
Three o'clock is when I finish training
and I start my cool down, which is jog,
it's slow jog, very, very slow jog
and when I had my first prosthetic herein the states,
I was eight years old.
I had just your basic mechanical leg,
I wanted it to be skin tone.
So I would have this cosmetic cover over it
because I wanted to be able to go to school
and look like I had two anatomical legs.
I don't know who I thought I was fooling,
but I think it was just something that made me feel
a little bit more secure and not wanting to stand out.
And then around 14, actually when I started running
is when I realized I needed to get rid of that
because a running prosthetic,
there's nothing anatomical about it.
That was a big moment for me in my life
when I had to realize I just wasn't gonna be able
to hide it.
I tried out for the 2012 Paralympic games,
went to those trials and came in last place.
Of course I thought about quitting,
but then I just worked my butt off that following year
and came to the 2103 US National Championships
and beat all the girls that previously,
the year before, had beaten me at the trials.
So often we think of success as coming over night
and for me, it wasn't until 2016, so six years
from when I started doing track,
'til I made my first Paralympic team.
Typically from three to four, I go and see the physio
or the athletic trainer for treatment.
So that can be anything from getting acu
or manual treatment such as cupping or lazer therapy,
an ice or a hot bath, a combination of the two.
After physio, I come home and make a smoothie or a shake.
I love using sliced bananas, just a dollop of peanut butter,
a plant based protein powder and water
or a little bit of almond milk.
That's really my go to.
[blender whirring]
And then I usually do stretching or yoga,
usually around five o'clock.
Then after stretching, I start to make dinner
and have dinner, usually by six o'clock.
I love making sauteed spinach.
So just using a little avocado oil,
some garlic and little salt and pepper
and sauteing that, but usually some sort of sauteed
or steamed veggies, a grain of some sort
and then some sort of protein that's plant based
or a fish and maybe once a week, a chicken.
Six, 6.30, I'm usually winding down
and watching sports, oftentimes eating dinner
as I watch sports in the background,
baseball, an NBA game or football.
Then after I watch a little bit of TV,
I start preparing for the next day,
setting my clothes aside, packing my snacks
and fuel for practice the next day.
Before I get into bed, I clean my liner
with water, alcohol, soap.
I also will wash and clean my actual residual limb
and that's really important because it's easy,
especially if you're an athlete and you're sweating,
to get bacteria on the skin or in the liner.
So it's really critical that you clean
both of these every night, you never want to have to go on
for a revision or to get a further amputation.
So it's really critical that you take care
of your residual limb.
I might read for a little bit or start doing some meditation
about half an hour typically,
and then I'm usually asleep by 9.30.
I like to get between nine to ten hours of sleep,
is when I feel fully charged and then I wake up the next day
and do it all over again.
Okay, that's everything for today.
It's 9.30 and I'm going to catch some sleep. Night.
And that's it, that's everything that I do in a day
in preparation for the Paralympics.
[upbeat music]