One athlete in Saturday’s Lompoc Sprint Triathlon expects to finish last, but that’s OK with him.

For Sean Cannon, 41, it’s not about winning, it’s about finishing and having fun.

That’s because Cannon realizes that just being able to enter the triathlon is a major feat for someone who in March tore the cartilage and ligaments off the bones of his right knee.

“It’s a goal,” Cannon said of the race. “It’s not to win, just to have fun.”

Cannon said that without a goal, it’s easy to get stuck in a rut. So he decided to make doing the triathlon his goal.

“I’m going to finish it, and I’m going to give Anthony Romero, my surgeon, my T-shirt as a thank you,” Cannon said. All entrants in the triathlon, put on by Lompoc Parks, Recreation and Urban Forestry Department, receive a T-shirt for participating.

Cannon said he injured his leg playing football at Ryon Park. He was covering a receiver when his cleat stuck in the grass, and his body turned but his knee didn’t.

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Because he didn’t have health insurance, Cannon said he owes a lot to the social worker who helped him get scheduled for surgery.

“Yvonne Duvall, who works for the county’s medically indigent program, got the ball rolling right away,” Cannon said. “ So I was able to have the surgery on April 14.”

Cannon’s surgery involved attaching a new anterior cruciate ligament from a cadaver and drilling holes into his bone to try to get the cartilage to grow back.

“I can’t run,” Cannon said. He explained that the pounding from running would damage the bone’s ability to form the new cartilage. So he’ll have to walk the 3.1 mile run of the triathlon.

After surgery, Cannon started going to physical therapy. When he first started there were some exercises he just couldn’t do. So he got the idea to go to the Lompoc Aquatic Center.

“Some things I couldn’t do in therapy, I could do in the water. When you get your body weight off you’re able to do a lot more.”

However, it wasn’t that simple to begin with: “When I first got to the pool, I couldn’t move my leg at all.”

But with persistence, he made a quicker recovery than expected.

The exercises he does he got from his physical therapist, Terri Robinson.

“I’m not doing anything special,” Cannon said. “I’m just doing what my therapist said and using the great resource of the pool.”

And he has been diligent in his efforts, going to the pool twice a day to work in the therapy pool and lap pool: stretching, bending, kicking and swimming.

“My job right now is to get better,” said Cannon. “That’s what my disability check is for, it’s my paycheck to get better.”

And all of this work is paying off. He can now swim the 20 laps he’ll need to swim for the triathlon.

Though he had to buy a girl’s mountain bike at the swap meet when he first started riding a bike again, he can now get his leg over the bar on his regular bike.

“Last week I rode my bike to Buellton and back,” Cannon said.

It is this kind of progress that has inspired some of his fellows in the therapy pool.

“I’ve watched this guy push himself through weeks when every move was painful,” said Jody Steuer, a regular in the therapy pool. “He’s so delighted with his own progress, and he’s certainly been an inspiration to those of us who have considerably less courage and determination.”

Because he’s sure he will finish the triathlon last, Cannon has decided to really have fun with the whole thing by dressing up as Superman.

“I just got this crazy notion — Superman doesn’t’ have a belly, so I thought it would be funny.”

To highlight this, his costume has a deliberately shortened top to reveal the belly he put on while in a wheelchair for three months.

A neighbor helped him by sewing the shirt and making a cape for him, while hairstylist Marne Carothers, whom he met at the pool, showed him how to form Superman’s iconic forelock curl.

“I’m having the best fun with this,” Cannon said.

Amanda Brooks can be reached at 737-1057 or abrooks@santamariatimes.com.

August 8, 2008