Life Without Limits, A

by Wellington, Chrissie

  Over the coming days people started arriving from the UK – my cousins, Rob and Tim with their partners, and on Monday my parents. Mum and Dad brought out some morale-boosting items. I had about thirty-five handwritten messages of support from the children at Feltwell Primary School. Georgie had driven to meet my parents at the Travelodge in Heathrow to hand over a cushion that she’d made for me. On the front it read, ‘Go, Girl!’, and on the back, ‘road rash rocks’. And, of course, Mum had brought me a pot of Marmite.

  Training-wise things were OK on the road, although my hip was still very painful and the raised levels of sweat in Hawaii made my flesh wounds sting horribly. My swim training, however, had been virtually non-existent. My elbow was by now feeling better, but there was no power in that arm.

  On the Monday, I went for a 4km swim, my first hard session in the water since the crash. Towards the end my pectoral muscle was hurting badly, and it continued to deteriorate over the course of the day. I went for a ride that afternoon. It felt as if someone was stabbing me with a needle just above the left breast and into the underarm. Deep breathing was excruciating, as was riding on the hoods. Fortunately, that day Dr Mike Leahy arrived, whom I owe more than I could ever repay. He is an ironman athlete himself and has pioneered a technique called Active Release Therapy. Since the accident, one of the upper ribs, although not broken, had become misaligned. Mike treated it, and now started to work on what he said was a damaged pectoral muscle. I went to bed that night in huge discomfort. I couldn’t lie on my left side anyway, because of the abrasions, but now I couldn’t roll over at all.

  The next day I was on the treadmill, which was fine as long as I didn’t breathe too deeply. Then I went for a swim. I managed a kilometre, by which time I was crying into my goggles. The pain was unbearable. Tom lifted me out of the pool. I was convinced I’d broken my rib. Every breath hurt and I couldn’t move my arm properly. I was in agony. That was to be my last swim before the race, which was now only four days away.

  I called Mike, and he told me to go straight to hospital. He thought it was muscular, but he didn’t want to keep treating it if it turned out to be a fracture. I drove to ER and was met there by John and Linda (I kept this latest development from anybody else, including my friends and family who had flown so far to watch me race). I was seen by Dr Richard McDowell, whose wife, Lesley, has won her age group at Kona eleven times. His first concern was actually my leg, which was still swollen from the flight.

  ‘It shouldn’t be like that,’ he said. ‘I need to test for a pulmonary embolism.’

  I spent the next six hours in hospital, undergoing x-rays, CT scans and tests. I felt confident it wasn’t a pulmonary embolism, and the CT scans and ECG came back clear. However, there had been significant damage done to my pec and intercostal muscles. I was not allowed to swim before the race – not that I would have been able to, even if I’d wanted. They also undid my bandages to check my wounds. John and Dr McDowell recoiled at the smell when the bandages were removed. My wounds were scraped clean, scrubbed and redressed. I was prescribed a new course of antibiotics.

  The final few days were hard and beset by doubt. The road rash wasn’t healing. I spent another hour in hospital on the Wednesday with Hawaii’s leading wound specialist, who redressed my lesions once again. But road rash was the least of my worries. The pectoral injury was the biggest concern, followed by the hip. The elbow, however, was a lot better. I never doubted I would race, once the results of those first x-rays had made clear there was no break, and Mike reinforced that. Each day my condition was improving with his help and that of my acupuncturist, Allison. It was going to hurt, but by Saturday I would be able to race. To have medical professionals like that around me in the build-up was so important and a privilege that I appreciate is not available to most athletes at Kona. The added confidence their treatment and words inspired played a huge role in getting me to the start line, as did the endless support of Tom and Dave.

  Would I be able to win? That was the question I was reluctant to confront. If I could just get through the swim and come out of it not doubled up in pain, then I reckoned I could contend, but there were so many unknowns. I hadn’t been in the ocean at all. I wouldn’t be swimming again until race day. I just had no idea how I was going to fare. And then there are all the other discomforts that unfold over an ironman at the best of times. Given my condition, how much more painful were they going to be? I just hoped that my mind would stay strong enough to cope. Because if it didn’t it would be time to confront the biggest fear of all – the fear of losing an ironman.

  Suffice it to say, I was the least confident I have ever been going into a race. At the press conference on the Thursday I played down my injuries as being little more than road rash, but the journalists picked up on a more apprehensive, less bullish air about me. They were right to. Still, I was determined to make the best of it and in a strange way it took some of the pressure off.

  Friday was a good day. It has become a Wellington tradition to hold a lunchtime barbecue the day before the race at the complex of condominiums where my parents stay. I came down for twenty minutes or so. John and Linda had organised for a local spiritual leader to give a blessing and a welcome to everyone. Scott Rigsby was there, as were Mary Ann and Bob Blais, parents of Jon, so I had plenty of reminders to put into context the struggle I would face the next day. My spirits were high in the company of my friends and family. It brought home how differently I was feeling from the same time the year before. At the Wellington barbecue then I had been distracted, as the first clear signs of illness were taking hold. This time I felt almost at ease. I was going to give it everything the next day. Let the cards fall where they may.

  Later that afternoon I racked my bike. There is always a degree of hoopla surrounding this process – journalists, the public and competitors crowd around the transition area, taking photos and inspecting bikes. The leading professional women are numbered from 101 onwards, according to ranking. Over the previous three years, I had grown accustomed to number 101. This year I was to wear 102. I set up next to the tiny little steed of Mirinda Carfrae, the new holder of bib 101. Again, it made me think back to the year before. There was a poignant photograph published in 2010 of my bike standing alone in transition after the others had gone. As I racked my bike this time – the bike I’d crashed nearly two weeks earlier, the bike I’d now given the name of Phoenix – I said to it, ‘I really hope that tomorrow you’re not left standing alone.’

  By now, though, I was feeling confident. I was not without pain, but my spirit was on an upward flight. I felt the passion and determination coursing through me again.

  I slept well that night and rose to perform my usual routine on race morning. I didn’t have a shower because I didn’t want to get my wounds any wetter than they had to be, and I applied antibiotic ointment to each one, but otherwise it was business as usual. I had decided to race with my wounds uncovered, other than the one on the hip, which would be rubbed by my race suit without some kind of protection. I had my breakfast of hot rice cereal and a mug of coffee. I read the countless emails of support I’d received. I read the cards I carry round as inspiration. I read ‘If’. It would be a lie to say I was brimming with confidence – you always suffer doubt when you are not fully fit – but I was determined.

  My biggest frustration was that I wasn’t going to be able to do justice to the work I’d put in. I had been in the best shape of my life before the crash. I knew that in that shape, although no one is ever guaranteed victory, I was primed to break records. And yet now, with the injuries and preparation I’d had, I might not be able to give much more than 60 per cent, physically. I’d worked so hard that year, and the knowledge that I wouldn’t be able to show just how much ate away at me. I was fearful that I might not even be able to show anything at all. And I was nervous, pure and simple, about the pain that I knew awaited me.

  John took Tom and me down to the King Kam Hotel, where we went through body marking an
d the weigh-in. I was 136 pounds, which I felt was a little more than I should have been.

  When I took to the water, the sun had yet to rise. It was with some trepidation that I waded in. This was the first time I’d ventured into seawater since the accident. To my relief, the cuts didn’t hurt too badly. My pec hurt, and there was hardly any power in my left arm, but I felt calm.

  The ocean at dawn has always had this effect on me in Kona. The race has yet to start, but you have passed the point of no return. A tranquillity descends briefly as you step away from the craziness of life on the shore in race week and await the imminent fracas in the ocean when the canon fires – the calm between the storms.

  I tried to find somewhere that gave me as much space as possible. It was important to minimise the chances of being hit on the elbow. I was resigned to my fate now. This was going to hurt and I was going to have a slow swim. In hindsight, I might have become too resigned and let it become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Dave had advised me to err on the side of caution in the water. But maybe I should have gone for my usual aggressive start; then again, maybe I would have broken down if I had. Who knows? Either way, I held back.

  The first 200 yards of an ironman are key for establishing your position in the faster packs, but when the canon sounded I let those swimmers get away. You never know how fast your pack is swimming until you get out of the water, but I sensed that my pace was slower than usual. I was comfortable though. I felt nothing like the excruciating pain I’d experienced on Tuesday. I recognised the strokes and swimsuits of Cat Morrison and Jo Lawn nearby, so I was in good company, but I knew this wasn’t a great swim. Once you’re in a pack there’s nothing you can do to bridge to another, which is why those first 200 yards are so crucial. I didn’t panic. ‘You’re doing your best,’ I kept telling myself, ‘you’re doing your best’. I was just thankful it wasn’t hurting as much as I’d feared it would. My chances of at least finishing the race had improved dramatically.

  I came out of the water in a time of sixty-one minutes, by far my slowest swim at Kona. But the sea had been choppy so all the swims were a bit slower. When I reached my bike I saw that Rinny’s had gone, as had most of the others. It wasn’t quite the lone bike of the year before, but it was clear that I was some way down. Then I heard I was nine minutes behind Julie Dibens, the leader, and four behind Rinny. Oh dear, it really hadn’t been a very good swim at all. But my heart didn’t drop, because you know it’s a long day.

  At the start of the bike at Kona you do an out and back before heading out onto the Queen K., so I was able to see for myself how far behind I was. People were already coming back as I was heading out. It was disconcerting to be so far down so early, but I kept thinking of Kipling. Just keep your head, keep your head. As always, the words of ‘If’ were written all over my water bottles. And I did keep my head. I surprise myself in race situations. In everyday life I am a worrier, but in a race I’m a lot calmer and more rational than people who know me might expect.

  It turned out that I was in seventeenth place among the women. Soon, I was making my way through the field. Nothing too spectacular, but I kept up a steady pace. You are fed splits throughout the race, but they are unreliable and often inconsistent. Nevertheless, a clear dynamic was emerging. Julie was cycling like a bat out of hell. She was streaking ahead of everyone. Karin Thuerig, who was behind me, was also making time. Karin is an Olympic time-trial medallist who had broken the women’s record for the bike course the year before, so her speed was to be expected. So was Julie’s, but her case was more interesting. Julie has been managing a foot condition for years. She had to retire from Olympic-distance triathlon because of it. They inserted a metal plate between two of her toes. With the extra mileage in ironman racing and training, her condition has deteriorated. Four weeks earlier, she’d had to drop out of the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Las Vegas because of it. I’d been worrying about my injuries all week and marvelling at how fit and threatening everyone else had looked on the training beat in Kona. But it’s easy to forget that, at this stage of the season, many of your competitors might not be as fit as they look. Julie and I had had a chat before we’d left Boulder the week before, confiding in each other about our respective injuries. When we left, she said: ‘I’ll see you on the Big Island. And, remember, I’ll have my game face on.’

  This was some game face. She’d stretched her lead over me to ten minutes in the first five miles of the bike. By the time she’d got to Hawi, she had fifteen minutes on me. Yet, the faster she went the less I worried. It was as if she had nothing to lose, a reflection, perhaps, of her concern that she might not be able to finish. Rinny was the one I had my eye on. Dave was also convinced that she remained the one to beat. I was gradually gaining on her and most of the other girls. My confidence was rapidly improving. I felt relatively comfortable. Niggles were developing all over – my hip ached, and a pain had developed on the inside of my knee, where I had banged a pre-existing calcification in the crash – but nothing was threatening to derail me yet. I tried to get up on the hoods and open up my hips and my back. I threw water over my head to cool down in the heat, which was now, by mid-morning, up past 80°F.

  Suddenly, I noticed Rinny up ahead. I hadn’t realised it was her until I saw the 101 on her back as we headed up to the turnaround at Hawi. I didn’t hang about to chat. There was a headwind, which I always enjoy as it is the equivalent to a steeper hill, and I put my head down to push further ahead into it. Tom came past me on the way down from Hawi, which gave me a lift, and soon I could see for myself where the lead girls were. It was still some way ahead of me. Julie had extended her lead. Some ten minutes behind her were Rachel Joyce, my old friend from the swimming club at Birmingham Uni, and Caroline Steffen, now one of Brett’s girls and a former professional cyclist. Caroline, in particular, was on the move and the only girl, other than Julie and Karin, who was cycling faster than me.

  As you enter the town of Hawi, the terrain changes from stark lava field to something quite lush. You know you’re getting there because palm trees start appearing. Then you turn a corner and confront the Wellington crew. I don’t remember any faces, but I just sensed this wall of sound and banners along the side of the road. I headed back down into the lava fields with renewed vigour.

  Karin caught me a few miles further on. We vied with each other for a bit, but she eventually pulled away. Meanwhile, the splits coming from Julie were astonishing. If they were to be believed, which it turned out they were, she was now getting on for twenty minutes ahead of me. She was racing at a near-suicidal pace. It didn’t disconcert me. I am fully aware of how determined she is, but I knew she had run 3hr 27min at her last ironman, so even if she finished the race I reckoned I could give her the best part of half an hour and still hope to catch her, as long as my own run held up.

  I rode alone along the rest of the Queen K. to Kona for a bike split of 4hr 56min 53sec. Not as fast as I would have wanted, but a race against the clock had long ago ceased to be relevant. This was now a race against the five girls ahead of me, and the one lurking a couple of places behind who was the only one who had run faster here than I had. Mind you, these days I reckoned my run was on a par with Rinny’s – but after the crash that might no longer hold.

  One thing was for sure, injury or not, the days when I could expect to get off the bike with a comfortable lead at Kona were gone. Julie, Caroline and Karin had all come to the party in Hawaii the year before when I was unable to race, and these girls could ride. The dynamic had changed. I would have to get used to chasing.

  I flew through transition and out on to the marathon. Right then I felt that winning this thing was a genuine possibility. Julie was nearly twenty-two minutes ahead of me; Rinny was nearly three-and-a-half minutes behind. I had to make hay, and I tore into the run. If I faded, so be it, but this was the time to make my play.

  Physically, things were as good as I could have expected, but that was still a long way short of perfect. The abrasions
hadn’t been a problem. They’d stung whenever I’d had a pee on the bike, but otherwise they were fine. My hip, though, had been in constant pain. Now, as I belted out onto Ali’i Drive my hamstrings were seizing up as well.

  Immediately, people were shouting encouragement at me. ‘Chrissie, you look the strongest! The others are fading already!’

  The out and back on Ali’i Drive, which constitutes the first ten miles of the marathon, is hard. It’s very hot and humid, and there’s no wind. If I could set out my stall here without overdoing it, that would give the others something to think about.

  I saw my family at mile three and gave them a smile, but inside the pain was unbearable. There were several points in those first ten miles when I thought I wasn’t going to make it. Do I quit? Do I quit? I had a demon on one shoulder and an angel on the other. ‘Quit, quit, quit,’ said one; ‘No, it’ll pass, it’ll pass,’ said the other. On my wristband, I had my motto: ‘Never ever give up – and smile!’ There wasn’t so much of the latter this time, but neither was there any of the former. That Lance Armstrong quote was going round in my head as well: ‘Pain is temporary; quitting lasts for ever.’ I had those two voices arguing across my head, the angel and the demon, but the angel’s was stronger.