One of New Zealand’s leading high-performance sports doctors is swapping his stethoscope for walking poles to trek the length of the country to raise funds in support of Huntington’s Disease research.
Dr Bruce Hamilton has resigned from his role as director of performance health at High Performance Sport New Zealand, where he has been since 2013, and will set out on the Te Araroa Trail on October 26, just three days after packing up his office.
Hamilton grew up in Gisborne and his mother Dianne still resides there.
Over three decades he has been the medical lead or team doctor for five Olympic Games – three times for the Kiwis with the New Zealand Olympic Committee and twice for Great Britain.
He has worked at Commonwealth Games, Winter Olympic Games, Paralympic Games and world championships, helping hundreds of athletes achieve their sporting dreams.
Hamilton has won numerous awards and fellowships and worked with the best in their fields across the globe.
Having dedicated his life to elite sport, Hamilton is applying the same ethos to his 3000km journey but says his medical background will probably just make him more paranoid about every niggling pain.
He has previously been intensely private about his family’s experience with Huntington’s Disease, a condition that causes nerve cells in the brain to decay, affecting a person’s movements, thinking ability and mental health.
It’s a genetic and progressive disease that robbed his father of his adult life and with a 50% chance of transmission, has also popped up in Hamilton’s generation.
“I separate my private life from profession life quite brutally in general, but now having opened up on what has been a taboo topic for me for so long has been quite cathartic,” he said.
“I am super-pumped to be helping the New Zealand Huntington’s Disease Association raise its profile and funds to support research. The walk will hopefully do me as much good as the association.”
Hamilton has always enjoyed the outdoors and spends lots of time on the water, but walking or tramping have not featured highly in his life.
“I became academically interested in the history of walking and its medical and health intersections over the last four to five years. At about the same time, the Te Araroa Trail started to become more well known, and it got me interested.
“I’ve had almost 12 years in my role, which has been great, but needing to keep stimulated and new challenges have always attracted me. I knew it was time to move on.”
The idea of taking up to four months out to do a physical and mental challenge like this appealed to him, but he knows it is going to be tough.
“Staying physically in one piece will be challenging, especially given the body doesn’t quiet respond to load the way it used to. I feel I am coming to this quite late and the logistics of getting down the country are significant and will be a constant work-on for an inexperienced tramper like me.”
He has done nothing specific in preparation for the trip aside from walking a l ot more than he ever has, although not as much as he had hoped before setting out.
Hamilton has also had to learn about social media content and posting, which has been a whole new experience – @brucewalksnz on Instagram.
His extensive experience with elite sport may help a bit.
“High-performance athletes are quite literally the one-percenters who have spent years adapting and extending their body’s limits. That’s not me, but a common feature of athletes that I’d like to mirror is that they all have bad days, but successful athletes find a way to work through it and find a way to succeed ... I will need to keep in mind that bad days are part of the process.”
As he travels the country, he’s looking forward to learning more about New Zealand history and he’s got “a bunch” of New Zealand sport- and health-related history research he is hankering to dig into as well.
“My immediate and extended family, along with friends and colleagues, have all been so supportive. It’s quite humbling.”
Any funds raised – through https://givealittle.co.nz/org/huntingtonsauckland - will go directly to supporting retreats, workshops and conferences where researchers, clinicians, caregivers, patients and families will collaborate on a New Zealand approach to combating the challenges of Huntington’s Disease.
-Diana Dobson is a Gisborne-based freelance writer and photographer with extensive experience in media communications.
