Paul Martin

When asked if he'd like to get back the leg he lost at age 25, Paul Martin says assuredly (and startlingly), "No." In fact, he attributes his current successes, passion for life and competitive drive to the sequence of events that began with the loss of his lower left leg.

He's chronicled those experiences in his memoir, One Man's Leg and the startingly funny Drinking from My Leg: Lessons from a Blistered Optimist.

Growing up in a working-class Massachusetts city, he always used athletic competition to deal with some of the personal demons he faced, including a couple of years spent in a foster home. He was even voted "most athletic" in 6th grade. So it's no surprise that after the car accident that cost him his leg, he turned to serious training. Within five years, he'd been voted the US Olympic Committee's Disabled Athlete of the Year. He went on to garner other awards; represent four different national athletic teams-cycling, alpine skiing, ice hockey and triathlon; and medal in the 2004 Paralympics.

Martin says his passion is triathlons and he's completed them in places as diverse as Lake Placid and Malaysia. His most satisfying event was the triathlon he did in Coeur d'Alene in 2005. "It was the fastest I ever went and it was an unofficial world record for below knee amputees," he says. He did his 10th Ironman in 2007.

Martin walks on a Ceterus® foot, and runs on a Flex-Run™ foot module. "Its light weight, smooth rollover motion and natural stride works the way I need it to for running long distances," he says.

Martin wants the people he addresses to know that almost anything that they want to do is possible, and the only person getting in their way is themselves. “If there's something that I want to pursue, I just pursue it,” he says. “I don't worry about failing.”