76-year-old Vancouver man not letting Parkinson's get in the way of athletic feat

David Walker, a 76-year-old Vancouverite, is doing something few people his age would consider — a triathlon. He also has Parkinson’s disease.

This summer, he plans to do a triathlon at Vancouver’s T100, completing the sprint distance of a 750 m swim, 20 km bike, and 5 km run. His goal is to finish with a “big smile” on his face. And then he said he will retire from triathlons.

Walter isn’t a novice: he has been a triathlete for about 12 years, and has been participating in endurance sports for most of his life. He has run for six decades, participating in renowned races like the Boston Marathon. He then started Gran Fondos (long-distance road cycling). Eventually, he started swimming.

“And then it all of a sudden hit me, let me do triathlons,” he told Daily Hive.

Walker couldn’t swim, and so got a coach to help him. Once he improved, he started with a small triathlon. He kept up with the sport, doing longer and longer races, all the way up to an Iron Man, which consists of a 3.9 km swim, 180.2 km bike ride, and a marathon to complete it.

Walker did his last half Ironman (1.9 km swim, 90 km bike ride, and a half marathon) in a relay three years ago, when he was starting to fight the effects of Parkinson’s.

And last June, he completed what he thought would be his last: the Vancouver T100 Triathlon. A video of him crossing the finish line got two million views on Facebook.

“It was tough,” he said of the race. “You saw the finish. I think the stresses to the body are relatively significant with Parkinson’s.”

“But I like to be able to retire from things rather than letting those things beat me,” he said.

In a post-race interview, the T100 organizers asked him if he would race again if they returned to Vancouver.

“And I said, ‘Yeah, don’t tell my wife, but yeah, if you come back.’ And thankfully, they’re coming back,” he said.

So this August, when the T100 returns, Walker will participate again, this time representing those with Parkinson’s, as he’s teamed up with Parkinson’s Canada to both raise awareness and money. (His fundraising page is here.)

He plans to start his “serious training” in May, which will include four runs, three swims, and about four bike rides each week. For safety, he’s recruited a former lifeguard to help him train while open-water swimming and to join him on the swim leg of the race. He will also have a cyclist and a running coach beside him on those portions of the race.

“Because of falls and postural instability, I have to watch that I do all three so that I get lateral movement. I get a lot of rigidity with the Parkinson’s, and so the swimming is critical to help me keep my shoulders loosened up,” he said.

“Training is just a little bit more challenging these days.”

Getting the diagnosis

Walker was diagnosed with Parkinson’s four years ago, but likely had it two to three years before that.

His first symptoms were caught by his track coach, who pointed out that his left arm wasn’t swinging when he was running. Walker didn’t go to the doctor until about two years later, after he had dinner with guests and his fork was shaking heavily.

When he received the Parkinson’s diagnosis, he said he felt “shock, confusion, almost denial.”

The disease is a degenerative neurological condition which is caused by the loss of dopamine-producing cells in the brain, according to Parkinson Canada. Its symptoms include slowness of movement, tremors, rigidity, and lack of balance. It can also cause fatigue, speech and writing difficulties, sleep disorders, loss of smell, depression, and cognitive changes.

“But very quickly, in a few days, it clicked over. ‘Okay, this is it. I need to live with this. And now what do I do to live well with this?’ And that was my focus in the last four years.”

He kept doing triathlons because of how important exercise is for people with Parkinson’s. While there’s no cure and it’s a progressive disease (“every day you get up, you’re going downhill”), exercise can help mitigate the symptoms.

He also takes medication, eats well, and practices meditation. He’s currently finishing up a six-month research intervention at Pacific Parkinson’s Research Institute, where he and a group of people with Parkinson’s meet on Zoom to exercise three times per week, attend a mindfulness class once per week, and attend a Mediterranean cooking class every other week.

The disease makes his body rigid and his movements smaller. As the day progresses, he said it can look like he’s stumbling. He takes shorter steps, which is a significant change to his running, since his stride is shorter.

“Now I’m still feeling like I’m training for a marathon, but I’m only doing one tenth. And yet it’s still really hard with the stiffness and the slow movements. … You have to accept that you’re [going] less distance.”

While Walker has a positive attitude and outlook on life, he said having Parkinson’s is challenging.

“It’s not just the outward expression, but there’s a lot of inward stuff going on. I started to drool. Insomnia is increasingly present. Restless leg syndrome. My face turns into a mask because the muscles slow down during the day. And all these things, that’s shitty. That’s just shitty,” he said.

“But life is still sweet. Life is so sweet,” he said. “With good friends and a wonderful place to live, here in Vancouver. And wonderful things to do and to learn. As I keep learning, I grow. So life is still sweet.”

Since his diagnosis, he’s taken up new hobbies, including photography and sketching. He writes poems and posts them on Instagram.

Walker recently figured out that he had about 230,000 ‘yesterdays’ and about 2,000 ‘tomorrows.’

“I want those 2000 tomorrows to glitter, to be positive, to be optimistic. And that’s why I want to squeeze all the juice out of life, in today, in this moment.”