11.
Charlotte was back there again, back to the day of the accident. The roads were different – Cambridge this time, instead of Loughborough – and the group was younger, but she could taste the accident in every breath. The teenagers ahead of her cycled all over the road, cutting each other up.
The instant one fell, Charlotte knew, she would hit their wheel. She would fall off. And it would all start again: the near-death, the surgeries, the blood in her lungs.
It was early February 2010, and Charlotte was out on her first training ride since the accident. She had arranged to cycle with six young elite triathletes and their coach Tom Vickery. The organisation was done carelessly enough. Charlotte viewed getting back on her road bike as simply another challenge to overcome, one connected to the physical realities of balance and strength. The mental part never even factored.
Only it wasn’t fine. As she cycled along, Charlotte was waging a war. She should get off. Now. What was she doing? But she just needed to toughen up. Stop crying. Carry on. Don’t be such a baby. Her thoughts circled, swayed, becoming a chaos in her mind. Her fingers gripped the handlebars.
Charlotte dropped farther and farther behind. Soon she didn’t look part of the group at all.
Tom glanced at her, confused. Charlotte was breaking while going in a straight line down a hill. She looked nervous, if not a bit terrified. Tom decided she must have only just started riding a bike, and that she had to be bloody good at running and swimming to have ever even considered triathlon. She was a mess on wheels.
A Land Rover rushed by. Then another. The back roads of Cambridge were swarming with them. Charlotte started to shake. She was the last one to make it to the bottom. She couldn’t understand her fear. Why wasn’t she able to just get on and cycle?
As they paused, preparing for the next set, Tom walked over to Charlotte.
‘Are you ok?’ He hadn’t realised who she was. It clocked then as they began to speak, with Tom remembering reading something about the young athlete. With his understanding, he felt impressed by the slight figure standing in front of him.
‘I can’t finish.’ Charlotte was furious with herself and humiliated, wanting only to hide her face. She left the session early and cycled home alone.
At the time, Charlotte had been back in Cambridge for several weeks. She couldn’t restart her degree yet, so she took to doing research for Joan, analysing data as soon as she was able. It gave her that intellectual stimulation she had been so severely lacking while in the hospital. To Joan, Charlotte was still the same person, if not more determined than ever.
The next day, Charlotte went cycling again – this time by herself. She took the back roads, going slowly, trying to remind herself what she loved so much about cycling: the freedom, the speed, being part of the environment where the wind hit her face.
The Cambridge streets dripped with danger. Charlotte’s eyes would sweep back and forth, watching for anything erratic, even as she willed pedestrians to keep walking, cars to stay on their side of the road, dogs to not move.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the terror started to recede. Yet even then aggressive drivers would reduce her to angry tears.
As British Triathlon remained quiet, Charlotte organised training sessions herself. They went in fortnightly cycles: two weeks of training, and one week of nothing. She would go until the pain became nearly immobilising, then would push herself just the smallest bit more. In the evenings, she would roll over two taped-together tennis balls, trying to reduce the discomfort in her back.
In a Q&A for the Wells Sports Foundation, Charlotte listed her top five loves and hates: ‘Friends and family, sport, innovation and challenge, practical jokes, air ambulances’ read one column.
‘Injuries, being tired, moaners, Land Rovers, metal spines’, read the other.
Charlotte’s collarbone was still broken. She could fit her entire fist behind her scapula. It drove doctors to notes of caution.
‘I have had a long chat with Charlotte and her mum today and really given her some realistic goals,’ read one letter. ‘I think it would be unlikely that she would be back at full competitive level at this stage, especially considering that she has ongoing trouble with her right shoulder.’
One doctor told her to quit sport altogether. It was a foolish idea –Charlotte would never give up on sport. Instead, she gave up on him.
