Life Without Limits, A

by Wellington, Chrissie

  We lost ourselves in a bubble of family and celebrations, which carried on over to lunch the next day. It meant that Tom and I returned to Boulder on 1 May full of the joys and ready to take on anything.

  May is usually when the weather in Boulder starts to warm up. Not so this year. There was torrential rain day after day from the moment we arrived.

  After two weeks, this was still going strong. One Saturday, I was out on my long ride and only three or four minutes from home. I was in the time-trial position, with my arms on the bars. Unbeknown to me, the sleeve of my rain jacket had become caught on the armrest. When I lifted my arm to sit up on the bike, the sleeve jolted my handlebars, my bike flipped and I hit the deck. Hard. Muppet!

  My hip was badly bruised, and I had broken a rib. My next race, Ironman 70.3 Kansas, was in four weeks’ time.

  I have written elsewhere on the subject of how a good, conscientious athlete should deal with injury. If I remember rightly, the gist of it is, above all else, rest.

  Well, do as I say, not as I do. Here I was again, pushing the envelope. I was on the turbo-trainer the next day. That was relatively painless, other than getting on and off it. I needed Tom’s help for that. But swimming was a different matter. For a week or so, I couldn’t swim more than two lengths because of the pain. Still, I gave it a good go. Soon, I was putting myself through four kilometres’ worth of pain in the pool. And running was hard. I did all my run training before Kansas on the elliptical. Despite the suboptimal preparation, the race went well. For the third year in a row I trotted down the Yellow Brick Road in first place.

  Back in Boulder, it was time to focus on regaining full fitness for Challenge Roth in four weeks’ time. No more stupid pratfalls. Not even I could keep having them. Surely.

  A week later, I was heading out on an hour-long run on a trail close to our house. I like trail running, but there’s no doubt it doesn’t suit my accident-prone nature, and I prefer not having to look down at my feet the whole time. So much so that on this occasion I made a conscious decision: ‘I’m fed up with watching my step,’ I said to myself. ‘I’m bloody well going to look up and enjoy the scenery.’ Muppet!

  Barely a few yards into my run, I tripped on a rock and went flying. Out came my hands to brace myself for impact. I had a nasty gash on one of my legs and surface wounds on the other and on my elbows. I decided to carry on and attracted some dodgy looks from other runners, what with the blood dripping from my elbows and down my legs. After a quick shower I went for a swim, but my wrist really started to hurt. The next day it hurt again in the pool, and when I went for a ride in the afternoon it was so painful I simply couldn’t operate the bike.

  We were about fifteen minutes into the ride – me, Tom, Dion, Matty Reed and his wife – and I had to stop. In tears, I told them I couldn’t do it. I turned round and took myself off to hospital for an x-ray.

  Tom said to Matty on the ride: ‘Chrissie will go to hospital now and find out that she’s broken her wrist. And, when I get home, she’ll be on the turbo.’

  That’s exactly what happened. I had two little fractures in my right wrist, just where I’d broken it the year before. It didn’t need a cast, but they gave me a splint. Riding outdoors was impossible for a week. Swimming was very painful. I wore a wrist guard while running.

  But I never doubted I would race. By the time I left for Germany, the wrist was a lot better, although dragging my bike box was painful. It was the disruption to my preparation that worried me most. I had barely done any cycling outdoors since my first fall mid-May. Most of my running had been on the elliptical. There had been precious little swimming at all. And, as always at Roth, everyone was talking about world records. I was feeling the pressure. I couldn’t see how I could improve on my race here the previous year, where I’d set the world record. That seemed to me like the perfect race, and here I was this time, secretly carrying a broken wrist, having had my preparation disrupted by that and the broken rib I’d picked up two months earlier. Oh, and, because of roadworks, the bike leg was to be 2km longer than usual. When people talked records this time, I just smiled and said I would do my best.

  It was a particularly violent swim in the canal. At Roth the best age-groupers start with the pros, so there are a lot of competitors in what is a relatively narrow stretch of water. But I was pleased with my swim – Roth is a wetsuit race, so my wrist had some support from that, and I didn’t feel it once. I came out of the water in first place. I wasn’t so happy with my bike, but a split of 4hr 40min 39sec was enough to keep me twelve minutes ahead of Belinda Granger in second. In terms of world-record pace, though, I was three-and-a-half minutes down on the year before.

  I really went for it on the marathon. The conditions were perfect – warm and dry – and I just pushed and pushed. I later asked Dave if he’d ever had a kind of out-of-body experience during his years as an ironman, when your legs almost feel as if they’re not connected to your body. He replied that he had. That was what the last 3km were like for me. I was pushing so hard that in a strange way it felt easy. My legs were so fatigued that they just didn’t hurt any more. It was the first time I’d felt like that. Crowd support does wonders for you in these situations, inspiring you on when all rational thought is telling you to slow down. In so doing, it moves you onto another level of consciousness – yes, like an out-of-body experience.

  I turned into the finish arena amid pandemonium. When I looked at the clock, I saw why. It was reading 8hr 17min. By the time I’d run round to the finish line and reached for the tape it said, 8hr 18min 13sec. A new world record.

  I stayed down longer than usual after I’d done my Blazeman roll over the line. I was too emotional to get up. I thought last year’s race had been perfect. Here, I’d shaved off another minute from my own world record. It felt even better than smashing it had. What made it so special was that I’d had to fight for it. In view of my preparation and the concomitant doubts over whether I could improve, the euphoria was all the more intense.

  My marathon split was 2hr 44min 35sec. It was the second fastest of the day, behind the men’s winner, Andreas Raelert. And Andreas had just annihilated the men’s world record. Having stood for fourteen years, it had been broken only the weekend before by Marino Vanhoenacker at Ironman Austria, where Tom had finished in an impressive fourth place, with a 2hr 44min 48sec marathon (thirteen seconds slower, Tommy!). Marino’s mark of 7hr 45min 58sec wasn’t destined to last long, though. Andreas won Roth in an incredible 7hr 41min 33sec. But my marathon split was less than four minutes slower than his. I was right in there among the best men. ‘The fifth man is a woman’ was one of the headlines the next day. I’d come fifth overall – my best performance at a major ironman.

  Roth is one of my favourite races, but I feel such pressure there, more than anywhere else. Not only do I have to try to win, but I’m also expected to break the world record. People don’t ask me whether I’m going to do it; my doing it is offered as a statement. The only question is by how much. I don’t have that kind of pressure in Kona. There, it’s a straight race against my fellow competitors.

  Contrary to popular belief, I don’t receive performance bonuses from my sponsors for world records. Brett thinks I’m financially incentivised to break records, and he doesn’t approve of the way I push myself to the limit in these races. He feels I should do enough just to win, to save myself for the next fight. But the next one may never come. This is the only way I know how to do it. I give everything in training, and I give everything in every race. Even if it were for a penny, I would do it that way. I couldn’t live with myself if I hadn’t tried my hardest. And Dave is of the same mindset. He used to race like that himself. Do justice to the training you’ve put in is his mantra. It’s not records I chase, it’s self-improvement. And that cannot be done by taking it easy.

  I was as overjoyed with my race at Roth as I have ever been. It brought home to me that there is no such thing as a perfect race. However perfectly you think something h
as gone, there is always room for more ‘perfection’. What was clear, though, was that, muppet injuries notwithstanding, I was in the shape of my life.

  So everything was set for Kona. I was much more sensible in the days following Roth than I had been the year before. Tom and I returned to the same hotel in Germany. This time we really did luxuriate – no long bike rides through the mountains, and then, when we returned to America, no two-hour workouts with a high-class marathon runner. With Kona three short months away, and acutely mindful of what had happened the year before, I was determined not to leave myself open to illness or fatigue. The injuries that had blighted my preparations for Roth had cleared up, and, as July turned to August and August to September, everything was in place. In August, I’d won Timberman 70.3 for the fourth year running. I was ready – and itching – to mount the mother of all assaults on that famously punishing course in the lava fields. This meant that, barring any mishaps before then or on the course itself, if anyone wanted to beat me they were going to have to produce something spectacular.

  Barring any mishaps? I should have known better. Maybe I should make another joke here about Muppet, but no, I really don’t feel inclined even now to make a joke about what happened next, so close did it come to ruling me out of Kona for a second year running.

  It was a beautiful day in Boulder, Saturday 24 September, exactly two weeks before the race. Everything had been going so well; my spirits were high. Tom and I had been for a 5km swim in the morning. On the way back from the pool, I’d spoken to my mum and dad on the phone: ‘Everything’s great! We’re just off for a ride. See you next week in Hawaii!’

  There were five of us heading out on our bikes – me, Tom, Drew Scott (Dave’s son, who was preparing for his first Kona), Curt Chesney and Sam Rix. We then met Tyler and Nikki Butterfield at the first set of lights, which swelled our number to seven.

  Nikki and I were at the front, chatting away, taking the usual route out of Boulder. I know it like the back of my hand. Nikki and I were talking about her success in a recent race and the importance of bike-handling skills. I was musing about how crap mine were. I felt my weak cornering and descending had cost me time in Roth, where my bike split had been relatively disappointing.

  As we were talking we approached a corner ourselves. It’s one I’ve taken hundreds of times. There was a car at the junction, so we took it at a sensible speed. I was up on the hoods (sitting upright). It was a dry day. I turned to the left.

  Suddenly, I was on the floor in agony. It happened too quickly for me to be able to impose much order on the feelings and thoughts that rushed through my mind or on the chain of events that had led to this crumpled, bloody mess on the road. My first thought was ‘Kona’. Thereafter, they came thick and fast. Why am I on the floor? I’d taken out Drew’s bike, and he’d come down hard, too. And then the pain kicked in. I cried out in agony and despair. I felt sure my elbow was fractured. My hip had taken a pounding and felt much the same way. My ankle had twisted awkwardly out of my now broken pedal. Cuts and grazes don’t hurt initially, but I could see vicious wounds from my left ankle up my leg to the hip, and on my hands and elbow. My cycling shorts were torn and my shoes scuffed.

  Within a few seconds I was surrounded by my biking partners and a group of onlookers. Tom had gone off ahead to ‘use the facilities’ and wasn’t there. Somebody pointed out that my front tyre was flat. It wasn’t pancake flat, and I had felt nothing on the long straight that preceded this corner, but that had to have been the cause for the crash. Taking this corner was a simple manoeuvre I’d executed countless times before and often much faster. Maybe someone with better handling skills could have righted the bike once it had started to slide, but I couldn’t. It just happened too quickly.

  A mother and daughter were passing by in their car and stopped to help. The mother, a lady called Heidi, was dressed in her pyjamas. A little earlier, her daughter, Karen, had swung by unexpectedly in her new car and persuaded Heidi to come for a ride.

  ‘But I’m still in my pyjamas!’

  ‘Doesn’t matter! No one’s going to see you! You’ll be in the car!’

  Little did Heidi know that not only would people see her in her pyjamas but she would end up in a book! Karen and Heidi were wonderful and drove me to hospital. Nikki escorted me, with Tom racing to meet us there once he’d returned to the scene to find out why nobody had caught up with him.

  I was x-rayed extensively. Nothing was broken. ‘Are you sure?’ I asked the doctor. The pain was so intense, far worse than the injuries I’d suffered earlier in the year, both of which had been fractures. But the results were clear. I wept with relief and knew then that I was going to be racing at Kona, come what may. How I would do it, I had no idea.

  I was in quite a mess. The abrasions, or ‘road rash’ as we cyclists call it, were really nasty. It wasn’t just a graze, they’d said at the hospital. The top layer of skin had been taken off. It was the equivalent of a second- or third-degree burn. They applied anaesthetic to the wounds, which was excruciating, and then they scrubbed them, before wrapping them in bandages.

  I rang my parents for the second time that day. ‘You know how I said I was going for a ride . . . ?’

  Their first thought must have been about another futile (and expensive) trip to Hawaii, but they never mentioned it. I was the one who brought it up.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’ll be racing.’

  ‘You just get yourself better,’ said Dad. ‘We can talk about that later.’

  There was no way I was going to let my parents down this time, or any of the other friends and family who were making the trip. Not after last year. I was going to be on that start line, whatever it took.

  The next day I didn’t feel too bad. I walked to Dave’s house to see Drew. The poor guy had broken the navicular bone in his wrist. He was racing in his first ironman in two weeks – at Kona, the scene of his father’s greatest triumphs – and here he was, nursing an injury.

  The day after that, though, was when it hit me like a truck. I woke up feeling very nauseous. I was going to go for a swim that morning. Tom took one look at me and told me to go back to bed. I did nothing that day, and my leg started to swell up and turn bright red. By the next morning there was a red vein-like line branching out from my knee to my groin, a sure sign of infection. I went to Flatirons for a swim and managed two lengths. It was excruciating. The sensation was the same as when my broken arm had become infected the year before – a deep, throbbing, pounding pain. I had to be lifted out of the pool, whereupon I sat by the side in tears. I couldn’t walk, so they got me some crutches, and I hobbled inside to lie on a sofa. They covered me with a blanket because I was overcome with fever and chills, hot and cold. Eventually, Tom and Dave carried me out to the car. There were eleven days to go . . .

  The antibiotics I was prescribed worked well. The infection had spread throughout my leg, but the next day I was well enough to do a two-hour session on the turbo. Over those few days, I was on a rollercoaster of fear and hope. There were times when I felt much better (‘Tom, I’m fine! I’ll be racing!’) and others when I despaired (‘Tom, my body’s a wreck. How on earth . . . ?’). His reply was unfailingly supportive. My fitness hadn’t gone anywhere; my strength hadn’t gone anywhere. I’d done all the hard work. I should appreciate the extra rest. We would get me to that start line.

  Tom was preparing for the biggest race of his life, his first Kona, and now he was having to look after me as well as himself. Preparing for any race is an emotionally tense time. You’re on edge, and butterflies flutter in the pit of your stomach. For me to throw this spanner in the works made me feel insanely guilty. I’d taken Drew down with me physically; now there was the danger that my crash might affect Tom’s race as well.

  I was meant to fly to Kona the Wednesday after the crash, but my leg was pussy and swollen, and I couldn’t move my elbow properly, so couldn’t carry anything. I changed my flight to Friday, then again to Saturday – bett
er to stay in Boulder near the army of wonderful professionals treating my various ailments than to head off to humid Hawaii. By Saturday, the infection had gone and I flew, but my wounds weren’t healing. This was troubling everybody, and I received conflicting advice. To cover or not to cover? For the most part I opted for the former and kept it moist.

  But the road rash was the least of my worries. The skin pain I could handle. It smarts like crazy when the sweat or the piss dribbles into the wounds, but it is a superficial pain. Far worse had been the night sweats and the fever of my infection, and the bruising to the hip and elbow. The hip, in particular, was becoming a problem because I was compensating for it with an altered gait, which was transferring discomfort to my right leg. For the most part though, I was able to run and bike. It was my swim training that was severely compromised.

  As the plane came in to land at Kona Airport, I looked out over the volcano. I could see the Queen K. snaking its way through the lava fields and I felt the excitement rise up in me. For a split-second, I forgot my injuries and was moved by that naked instinct for the race. Even when I remembered my condition, I thought, ‘I still have a week to get ready for this. Then bring it on!’

  It was a beautiful day in Hawaii. Arriving felt just as special as it had ever done – that special smell, that unique feel about the place. John and Linda greeted me in the traditional fashion, placing a lei around my neck. Then it was back to theirs for a delicious ahi tuna steak, another tradition, with Tom.

  At this point I felt very relaxed, but true to current form that changed very suddenly. My leg was starting to swell up again due to the flight and the road rash was causing me pain. That evening I was building my bike in the garage of the condominium. A journalist appeared at the door and asked if she could take my photograph. I was by then suffering a turn for the worse and felt as if my personal space was being invaded. I said no. She was decidedly unimpressed with my reply, but she left. Suddenly, everything seemed wrong, and I broke down in tears again. Somehow, for a moment, it felt as if the very fabric of my beloved Hawaii had become corrupted, as if even this perfect haven of positive energy was turning against me. The doubts and fears flared up again, the questions crowded in – how was I going to do this? I lost my temper with Tom for no reason and threw myself on the bed to cry. That was the way it was in the fortnight between my injury and the race – the days were peppered with wicked little about-turns in my state of mind.