Life Without Limits, A (31 page)

The real mark of progress, though, was the inroads I was making into the men. Against a top-class field, I came seventh overall. My time was less than 6 per cent slower than that of Rasmus Henning, the overall winner. The time is always useful in its own right, but Dave considers it, as Brett did, in relation to that of the lead man, as the true measure of my performance. This was as close as I had come to the lead man in a major ironman. It felt as if I had taken another significant leap forward.

However wonderful you feel after a race, you have to respect what your body has been through and observe an appropriate interval of rest, even if you feel ready to crack on within days. You should always err on the side of caution. You tend to balloon after an ironman. Everything becomes swollen and distended with fluid retention. Quads merge into knees, which merge into calves, which merge into feet. I look as if I’m wearing a Teletubby outfit. That goes down over the next few days, and the temptation is to think yourself recovered once it has. But there are deep-rooted changes to the chemistry of your body that take place during an ironman. You need longer to recover from these, and you may not be aware of when the process is complete – or not complete. Also, the sheer mental fatigue – the pressure beforehand, the nerves, the strength of will required during the race and the euphoria at the finish – should not be underestimated. These races take a hell of a lot out of you in so many ways, some of which may not be so obvious.

After Roth that year I took the usual few days’ holiday, relaxing with Tom at the wonderful Sonnenalp resort on the border with Austria, by the end of which I had recovered from the more superficial scars of battle, the swelling and the physical fatigue. I flew back to America the following Saturday, six days after the ironman, but instead of flying to Boulder I flew straight to Chicago for some promotional work with one of my sponsors, Brooks. It was great fun, and brought me into contact with so many wonderful people, but it was not the most relaxing way to spend three days. All the more so given that Jesse, a Brooks sales manager, is a high-class marathon runner and suggested we go for a run on the Sunday, just seven days after Roth. Of course, I agreed. We ended up running for two hours.

I mention this because of what followed. I mention it because of all the agonising, soul-searching and reviewing that followed what followed.

I went into Kona in good form. In August I had won Timberman 70.3 in New Hampshire for the third year running, setting a new course record. But something was not quite right. Three weeks before Kona, I started to feel tired on the bike. In training, you’re constantly treading that fine line between fitness and fatigue, so I thought I might just have crossed it and suffered a couple of dodgy sessions as a result. It didn’t worry me unduly, but when I left for Hawaii ten days before the race I was still feeling a bit off. It was difficult to put my finger on what was wrong, other than that I just felt a little tired.

During race week this sluggish ness on the bike continued, and now I was also overheating during my run sessions and suffering bad night sweats. I would wake up in the morning with the sheets wringing wet. That might not have been particularly note worthy for a lot of people – this was Hawaii, after all, where it’s ninety in the shade. But I tend to adapt well to the heat. This reaction was abnormal for me. I tried to focus on the positives, and shut out all thoughts of illness from my mind. I have often suffered from ailments in the build-up to a race, and come through them with the conviction that all will be OK.

Then, the day before the big day, I went for my usual 2km swim, followed by an hour-long spin on the bike. When I came back from the ride, my throat was sore. Something was definitely not right.

The Wellington crew were having their usual team barbecue that day, so I popped down to say hello. As far as possible, I tried to be myself, but in a quiet moment I told my mum that I wasn’t feeling well. Later that afternoon, I went to rack my bike and saw Asker. My face was bright red, and I confided in him over my worsening condition.

Still trying to ignore the signs, I went out for my customary thirty-minute jog. When I came back, I was dripping with sweat and my throat was closing. I was concerned now, but continued with my race routine – tuna pasta and bed at 8 p.m. When I woke up to the alarm at 3.45 a.m. the next morning, covered in sweat, my throat closed up and my head pounding, I knew immediately that I wouldn’t be racing.

Still, I had my pre-race breakfast, then called Tom and Ben. They knew something was up because I would never normally ring them on the morning of a race. I asked their advice, but in my heart the decision was made. When I called Dave, I told him that if I felt like this on a normal day I wouldn’t train.

‘Then you have your answer,’ he replied. ‘You’ll have a great swim, a great first half of the bike. Then your body will give up on you.’

He was right. This is not the hundred-yard dash we’re talking about here. This is not even the ironman in Roth. This is a brutal, brutal race. The heat, the humidity and the wind in Kona are relentless and make it the toughest race in our sport. It’s not the Ironman World Championships for nothing. The damage you inflict on your body when you enter into it 100 per cent fit is quite enough; the damage you would inflict when only 50 per cent fit doesn’t bear thinking about. At 5 a.m., with my head and heart in turmoil, I told Ben to announce my withdrawal.

It was the hardest decision I have ever had to make. The worst part was that I was not on my deathbed. I hadn’t broken my leg. I could have started. But could I have finished? Never, ever give up, it says on my wristband, and, once under way, I would have given everything to get to the finish line. I might well have made it, as well. But at what cost? I could have put myself in a hole it would have taken months to emerge from. You have to keep things in perspective. I was not willing to take such a risk for one race, even if it was the World Championships, however much it hurt. It would have been dangerous.

It may not be politically correct, but there was another dynamic at work, too. I was unbeaten, and this would have been my tenth ironman. I do worry about the day I lose one of these races for the first time, but if and when it happens I want only one thing – to go down fully fit and able to fight to the very end. I never go into a race expecting to win, but I do go in expecting to fight. I couldn’t have fought that day. I couldn’t have done myself justice.

Cat had been ill that week, as well, since the Wednesday, but by the Saturday she was feeling better and chose to race. She pulled out halfway round and beat herself up over it. Should she have started at all? She didn’t do her body any favours by racing, and when she gave in to the inevitable she gave her mind a battering as well. But there is no escape for the mind in that situation. She was damned if she did and damned if she didn’t, just as I was. Dede Griesbauer raced fit and did finish, but well down on her expectations. What did she do? Beat herself up over it. The three of us were in despair the day after the race. We had all taken different paths but ended up at the same place.

The other thing that tore me apart was guilt that so many family and friends had travelled so far to watch me. I stayed in my apartment on race day. It was agonising, and would have been unbearable but for the steady stream of visitors. I cried and got angry, but no one let me wallow. We talked about anything but the race. We focused on the future. Tammy, my friend from Card Aid days, had come out, and we chatted about the foundation we want to start together.

Not for the first time, though, it was my brother, Matty, who offered the most telling reality check. I spoke to him that morning. ‘Christine,’ he said very firmly. ‘No one’s died.’ This resonated all the more, because his best friend did die when he was seventeen. It has given Matty a more rounded perspective on life, and his simple words helped me enormously.

I followed the race intermittently online. It was a wonderful day for the British women, with three placed in the top ten. Julie Dibens finished third, while Rachel Joyce, my close friend from the swimming club at Birmingham University, came in fifth. Leanda Cave, the third Brit, was tenth.

But it was Mirinda Carfrae’s day. I’d known she would be the girl to beat, and so it proved. She lowered her own record for the marathon at Kona and finished in under nine hours. She would have given me a real race, which made it all the more frustrating. Because I wanted a race; I wanted an ‘iron war’, the phrase they use to describe the epic race in 1989, when Mark Allen beat Dave, my coach, then the champion, by less than a minute. I wanted a race that forces me to finish absolutely crawling. Sometimes I think it’s disrespectful that I’m OK after an ironman, that I dance at the finish line until well into the night. Did I really give it everything? During the race I feel I do, but I hadn’t yet had to face that visceral desperation to dig to the depths that racing shoulder to shoulder with a competitor might inspire. I don’t think you ever know just how much it is possible to give until someone pushes you to the limit. Rinny was shaping up to be that rival for me.

I kept a low profile in the days that followed. It wasn’t my show; it was Rinny’s. She had had a great race, and was a worthy winner. It was important not to detract from that. I spent time with my family, and as the days passed I came to terms with my no-show and started to deal with the practicalities of my next step. Back in Boulder, the results from my blood test came through – I was suffering from a vicious little cocktail of strep throat, pneumonia and West Nile virus. That told me what I needed to know – I had been right not to compete. I was suffering from a genuine illness. Every time you feel a niggle in the build-up to a big race, every time you feel the faintest flicker of ill health, the alarm bells ring. You monitor the situation minutely and obsessively until you’re no longer sure whether the ailment is real or a figment of your imagination. I knew by race morning that my condition was genuine, but it was reassuring to see just how genuine. In the end, it took me two weeks and a course of antibiotics to recover.

More hurtful, though, were the rumours. Even before the gun went off, they were circulating. Chrissie’s had a nervous breakdown; Chrissie’s avoiding a drugs test; Chrissie’s pregnant. The rumours hurt, because they undermine my credibility – I’m a warrior and a fighter, I race fair and I race clean. As a sensitive soul, the rumour-mongering hit me hard. How can people even think those things, I kept asking myself, let alone spread them as malicious gossip? Is everything I’ve worked so hard to achieve really so flimsy that it can be swept away at the first sign of a sore throat?

No. Of course not. The people who said those things don’t even know me. Their opinions do not matter as much as those of the people who do, even if their tongues are free to wag. I fought the allegations that needed to be fought, and I laughed off the ridiculous ones. Pregnant?! We athletes are in bed by 8 p.m. If only!

The drugs allegations, though, were libellous, and we dealt with them seriously. For as long as anyone has cared to listen I have been loud and forthright on the issue of doping. All professional athletes should be subjected to the most rigorous of testing, if we are to ensure our sport stays as clean as possible. And it must. As soon as I won my first World Championship, I put myself forward for regular out-of-competition testing through UK Sport, and since then I have been included in the WTC’s testing pool. I have to provide the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) with a one-hour slot in which they can turn up to test me every single day of the year. They can also appear any time outside this hour for a random test. This is supplemented with in-competition testing at most races. In 2010 I underwent eight blood tests and fifteen urine tests. I have also taken the step of publishing the results on my website. Far from avoiding drug-testing, I have submitted myself to the process without condition, and have been actively campaigning for improvements in testing across the ironman community. WADA know I’m clean; the gossip-mongers should just know better.

As for the nervous breakdown theory, it never even crossed my mind. Of course, there is pressure, and maybe there is more for me than for the other girls. I really am deadly serious about never wanting to lose an ironman! Yet every time I line up to race, the prospect of not winning is something I have to deal with. So it’s tough. But it does surprise me, in the light of my record, that people should think I’m having a breakdown. I hope I’ve never given the impression that I’m about to have one over a race, because I really am not.

Tom returned to the UK for his cousin’s wedding, so I flew to Boulder alone and began the process of healing. I was happy to be on my own – I enjoy the support of a network of friends and specialists out there. After a couple of weeks I started to feel better. My confidence returned as I put Kona behind me. I can throw my toys out of the pram with the best of them, but I am also quick to move on.

With my planned finale to the season up in smoke, I needed to find another race before the year was out. The options were ironman races in Mexico, Florida or Arizona. I chose Arizona. I had heard good things about it, and it was convenient from Boulder. Held towards the end of November, six weeks after Kona, the timing was right, too.

Even better was that Tom decided on an impulse to race there too. Until that point he had been competing over the half-ironman distance. He had never even run a marathon. But Tom, being Tom, didn’t care about that. He had always intended to do an ironman one day, just not in 2010. When I decided, about four weeks before, to race at Arizona, he thought, why not?

He flew to Arizona from the UK, and we both arrived in Tempe, the venue for the race, on the same day. We had arranged a home stay with Craig Norquist and his wife, Laura. Craig is a medical doctor, an ironman athlete and an ultra-runner – which means he thinks nothing of running the equivalent of four marathons in a day. It was great to stay with him and Laura at their pad in Paradise Valley, where the houses are like shopping malls and the lawns, in the middle of a desert, are so perfectly landscaped.