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 6:30 a.m. And we're ready to start the day I wake up and I removed the charger off of my knee to begin putting on my prosthetic.

The 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 and I also like to include water and make sure that we always have sense.

After doing some work, I look forward to getting to the track and starting my real job, so to speak actually in my mid twenties is when I received my very first microprocessor knee, I could do things that I wasn't able to do in terms of the lifting and the squatting going up and downstairs and steep hills and it's completely waterproof.

It was the first time I ever walked in the ocean or anybody of water with two legs.

The knee has computers in it.

It has gyroscopes, it has a loading sensor and it's going to pick up your every movement what kind of inclined 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 knees fully charged, 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 Think about two years and I've taken over 12 million steps already.

And so it's pretty amazing.

When I arrived at the training center, I usually start with a warm up.

The warm up can be 30-40 minutes and it involves usually a couple of warm up laps, jog, slow jogs and then we move into what we call a dynamic warm up, which can be high knees, abc, 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 to 303 203 1 hundreds 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 you're 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 um nuts to the track.

I like seaweed chips even like things that are a little bit saltier just because you tend to sweat out a lot of the sodium and then we moved 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 ply.

Ohs Izzo's stability drills and work maybe some arm drills working on speech of pumping your arms.

That's usually the end of the strength workout.

I want parents that have Children when they see somebody with a disability to not shushed 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 like after it was, oh, it wasn't so bad.

They're just like me, you know, and it really helps to normalize it three o'clock is when I finished training and I start my cool down, which is jog slow, jog, very, very slow jog and when I had my first prosthetic here in the States, I was eight years old I had just your basic mechanical like I wanted it to be skin tone.

So I would have this like cosmetic cover over it because I wanted to be able to go to school and look like I had to anatomical legs.

I don't know who I thought I was fooling but I think it was just something that made me feel like 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 like 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 2013 U.

S.

National championships and beat all the girls that previously the year before had beaten me at the trials so often we think of success is coming overnight and for me it wasn't until 2000 and 16.

So six years from when I started doing track till I made my first paralympic team typically from 3 to 4 I go and see the physio or the athletic trainer for treatment.

So that can be anything from getting a Q.

Or manual treatment such as cupping or laser therapy, an ice or hot bath, a combination of the two.

After physio, I come home and make a smoothie or 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.

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 and maybe once a week like a chicken.

66 30.

I'm usually winding down and watching sports.

Oftentimes eating dinner as I watch sports in the background baseball or 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.

So 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 in for a revision or to get a further amputation.

So it's really critical that you take care of your residual.

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 9 to 10 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.

Mhm.