Making Waves of Impact: How Scott Uses Swimming for Good

by Deion Clifton

Scott Allender has participated in endurance sports all his life. Scott started swimming in high school, participated in his first triathlon in 1990, and ran his first marathon in 1994; the US Marine Core Marathon. He ran the USMC marathon five years in a row and wouldn’t run it again until 2014, the 20-year anniversary of the first time he ran it. “I had fun doing all that stuff,” he notes. While his marathon days are behind him, maintaining a regular training regimen may be more vital to him now than it’s ever been.

“I had this disease present itself to me,” Scott explains. “It’s a genetic problem I’ve had all my life; I just didn’t know about it,” Ten years ago, Scott was diagnosed with hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP), a category of neurodegenerative disorders that cause uncontrollable muscle spasms, producing weakness and stiffness of the legs over time. “[HSP is] the main focus of everything I do,” he adds, “I just make the best of what I got.” In the years since his diagnosis, Scott’s had to work harder and more regularly just to maintain his health. While his disease weighs on him some days more than others, in a way, it’s also given him an excuse to spend more time doing the activity he loves most: swimming.

Despite now using two canes to get around the club and a walker at home, he’s an ace in the water. “When I go out to the pool and I jump into the water, the minute I’m in the pool, I don’t have gravity affecting my legs,” he says. You can often catch Scott in HAC’s outdoor pool swimming laps. Though he continues to swim for his health, he views his pool workout as one of the best parts of the day. “Now, I can’t kick very well,” he adds, “so when I swim, it’s all arms, but I am the most comfortable when I’m in the water.”

Swimming different types of strokes has allowed Scott to maintain and even increase muscular strength, too. In 2018, he challenged himself by getting comfortable with swimming butterfly and, in return, strengthening his core. In 2019 he logged greater than 300 miles in the water as a U.S. Masters Swimming athlete. In response to all of his achievements he says, “I never planned to do the things that I did, they just evolved over time.”

All the training he does in the club helps prepare Scott for open-water swims with his brothers. “I have two brothers in Oregon. They’re both open water swimmers. We don’t swim in the swimming pool, we swim in lakes and rivers, and that’s a lot more fun.”

This past July, Scott even participated in an 11-mile open water race called the Portland Bridge Swim. In this race participants will swim 11 miles under all 12 of Portland’s Willamette River bridges, which run through downtown and beyond. To qualify for this event, swimmers must have completed a 5K swim in 1 hour, 40 minutes or less in a calm body of water. Only 100 participants per year have the opportunity to swim in this event and Scott’s had the opportunity to do it three times now; twice as a relay and once solo this past summer. During his most recent attempt, Scott finished 13th overall in his category in just over six and a half hours.

Scott continues to use his powers for good, swimming for charity events and working hard to exceed fundraising goals. “I used to get a lot of donations. I’ve probably raised $30,000 for multiple sclerosis over the years, a 15-year period or so.” So when he heard about Frozen Frogman, a charity swim event benefiting the Travis Manion Foundation hosted right at HAC in the pool where he swims every day, he was eager to sign up and challenge himself personally while fundraising for a good cause.

“I’ve always had good luck [receiving donations],” Scott says. The support slowed, however, as he was gearing up for the 2020 Frozen Frogman event. “I was getting no donations.” To get more friends and family excited to contribute, Scott decided to up the ante: “For every $10 donated, I’ll do an IM.” An IM, or individual medley, is a workout that entails swimming all four competitive strokes, butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle, the length of the pool. The added challenge worked, helping Scott raise $600 for the Travis Manion Foundation that year. He completed his 60 IMs, as promised, putting him well over the five kilometer mark.

Scott has swam in the last four Frozen Frogman events, swimming twice in one of them. In 2022, he signed up for the one mile and 5K swim. “Since I missed a year [due to COVID], I signed up for both.
I did the mile on Saturday and the 5K on Sunday,” he reflects. “I did the mile butterfly.”

Scott jokes about everything. He consistently pokes fun at his condition. He firmly believes in a quote he received from his trainer, Dewey Lightcap. “He says, ‘the moment you stop making fun of yourself, others take up the task,’” Scott recalls. There’s a shirt he likes to wear as a knock on himself. It’s a spin on the brand, New Balance, and shows a character falling with text that reads, No Balance. “The first day I wore it here, I was seeing Dewey for my training session, and I walked in, and he just stopped, looked at me, and broke out laughing.”

Scott loves working with Dewey because of how down-to-earth and knowledgeable he is. “First of all, I am super lucky to have Dewey; I can’t say enough good about Dewey because I started to see him in 2019, and I don’t think I’ve ever done a duplicate of a workout. And I was seeing him once a week until last year. Now I see him twice a week.” He continues, “And he’s got a really good sense of humor. It’s wacky enough to meet my wacky sense of humor.”

He’s bought into the work needed to maintain the leg strength to stay upright, even going as far as to purchase or create makeshift materials to continue his training from the comfort of his home. “What’s funny is that my problems are all permanent. I’m not going to get better from this. So, over the years I keep accumulating things, I have my own little home studio of workout gear,” he chuckles. After being introduced to the earthquake bar, Scott just knew he had to have one. However, the bar was a bit out of his price range, so he cut down some bamboo from his mom’s yard to use instead. “I’m just gonna put some straps on the end with a little loop, and then use carabiners to clip on weights so it’ll dangle on the wobbly bamboo.”

His favorite machine at HAC is the power plate machine because it helps activate the muscles and increase bone density. He raves about this to HAC members and feels good about being able to help them, too, if only just a little bit. “Where I am right now…if I can help somebody else, that eases my burden. I feel good about doing that, so I try to do something like that.”

Scott has always been a giver. He recognizes hard workers and rewards them for their efforts at every opportunity. He goes out of his way to perform little acts of kindness wherever he goes, from bringing donuts and hot chocolate for the lifeguards to buying orchids for the front desk that members and staff alike can enjoy. Scott’s perseverance, sense of humor, adventurous nature, and charitable heart inspire us with every visit, and we’ll be cheering him on through future races and fundraising efforts, both inside and outside of HAC’s walls.

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