15.
Charlotte’s body was betraying her.
It was summer, and Charlotte was with a handful of other elite athletes at one of Steve’s training camps in France. Non, who would later become World Triathlon Champion, was there.
The first week had been amazing, despite one moment where a car got too close. Charlotte wobbled, then froze by the side of the road. When fear flashed across Charlotte’s face, Non realised for the first time just how vulnerable her friend had become, and how scared she really was. Then Charlotte got back on the road and carried on.
During the day, Charlotte felt like an athlete again. In Cambridge, she had been driving her own training. Here she was surrounded by training partners that made both a team and a close group of friends, while her regime was structured by a coach. Everything felt as natural and as fun as she remembered.
In the evenings, Charlotte pulled pranks. She would take inflatable bananas down to the river and splash around in the freezing water, or balance as many objects atop sleeping athletes as possible. It was fun.
The second week, Charlotte’s back gave up. She had been pushing herself to work through the discomfort, knowing that the sharp seizing sensations could be massaged out after training. Only the pain became too much. The part of training she used to savour – that moment when the hurt was there but if she went harder, faster, she would be fine and she would win – started to tear her apart. Watching her friends carry on, Charlotte felt overwhelmed with frustration. She couldn’t compete with these people if she couldn’t train.
Back home, the spasms got worse. The twisting movements on her bike, the stretch of her body in the pool, each sent snaps of pain resonating around her back. Charlotte entered a race in Geneva and found herself falling behind people she had regularly beaten before. In her head, Charlotte believed she couldn’t win. She had lost before it even started.
‘I felt I had no choice. Despite my original declaration that I’d never have spinal surgery again, the metal work was going to have to come out,’ Charlotte wrote.
The second operation would come at Charlotte’s request. It wasn’t driven by the doctors. For a more sedentary person, the steel bar could have stayed in forever. But Charlotte didn’t have the flexibility she wanted.
Charlotte wrote a letter to her doctor: ‘Dear Dr Bommireddy, I met with you on Wed 2nd June 2010 and it was discussed that perhaps I was to have the pins taken out of my spine if possible as I am still in a fairly high level of discomfort on a daily basis, twisting, moving and bending, particularly after training hard.’
The surgeon was unsure the metalwork was the root of the pain. For Charlotte, there was no question.
Towards the end of September 2010, Charlotte walked herself back into the hospital. Her arm and collarbone were already bandaged, the result of a surgery she had a few weeks prior to sort out the still-broken bone. Nervous and dryly humoured, she found herself thinking about how she was going to the doctor’s to hurt herself.
‘Are you sure you can have this surgery?’ The surgeon asked. ‘You seem to have some injury here.’
‘When will I be out?’ She said in return.
Charlotte had forgotten just how painful the surgery was. She was immobilised again, unable to walk to the bathroom, and surrounded this time by doctors who weren’t quite prepared for such severe procedures.
Ahead of her was another horrendous few weeks of brokenness and hobbling.
Her Facebook statuses show a mix of humour and frustration. ‘Sept 28: It’s just another hospital.’ ‘Sept 29: Has a holey spine.’ ‘Oct 6: Has had a shower :).’ ‘Nov 17: no longer has a holey spine :).’
For the first time, Charlotte questioned her need to compete.
‘When she was back from the surgery, she didn’t want to focus so much on sport. I think she wanted to show people that she could, that first season of racing. With her second surgery, her motivation sort of went a bit. Other things seemed more attractive,’ said Steve.
Even as Charlotte started to run again, she delayed getting back on her bike and out in the pool. She knew she could get back up to the level she was before. But was it worth it? There was going to be an Olympic champion, Charlotte had realised. Only maybe it didn’t have to be her.
She started to train loosely. Sessions were organised as and when she wanted. Charlotte would go running with friends. She discovered the joy of riding anywhere with no schedule. Sometimes she went fast, sometimes slow, but it didn’t really matter. She got involved in campaigning for a Cambridge sports centre and took up committee roles.
Charlotte was free. Surprisingly, she liked it.
In the gap left by elite sports, Charlotte began teasing with an idea. Her dad had mentioned previously that he donated money to the DLRAA for Charlotte’s birthday. The DLRAA, lacking NHS funding, relies on outside financial support. Charlotte had never been entirely comfortable with the idea of requiring so much assistance from the air ambulance. So what if she could raise £1,400, the cost of one other person to be rescued?
‘I began to dream. I had always wanted to adventure and explore but timing had always been limited by school or work. I was now freer, having not committed to any serious training after starting from scratch the second time,’ Charlotte wrote.
What if Charlotte could raise the money by cycling home from China, where she would be teaching summer school?
Charlotte discussed the trip over breakfast in Trinity College, Cambridge. As forks and spoons clinked, a stranger slid over to the group.
‘Are you talking about a cycling trip?’ He asked. Charlotte explained. ‘I’ve just done something from Africa. You should go. Let me help tell you how.’
Over the next few weeks, Charlotte and a friend started to pull together a plan. A travel grant application to Cambridge explained their original aims and objectives: ‘to travel unsupported from Beijing to London, cycling overland the entire way, without using other forms of transport. The route we envisage follows 7,000 miles, and involves cycling across China, crossing the Himalayas, and passing many significant historical or natural areas such as Agra, Istanbul, and the Balkans.’
‘We appreciate the challenges we will face, and know that we possess the necessary drive to complete the expedition.’
‘The table provides approximate distances as the crow flies between points on our intended route.’ The route crossed through Beijing to Lhasa, Agra to Iran, Turkey and Albania.
Mark thought she was ‘absolutely bonkers’. But he knew he wasn’t going to change her mind. Instead, he talked to his daughter about not riding through parts of Pakistan, parts of the Middle East, and other areas that were dangerous. Charlotte decided to make up the miles by going through Australia instead.
Charlotte texted her mum casually explaining the trip. Reading the message, Christina acknowledged her fear even as she realised she couldn’t tell her daughter not to do it.
‘I don’t know what it’s like to lie on the side of the road with your life ending. I can’t say what perspective her life is like from that angle. And what’s the worst that could happen – she gets arrested and sent home?’ said Christina.
As Charlotte neared the end of her course and the start of the trip, the friend she was planning to cycle with pulled out. Unexpectedly, Charlotte was going to be cycling the trip alone.
In June 2011, Charlotte finished the degree she had deferred two years before. She set up a Just Giving page.
‘The DLRAA saved over one thousand lives like mine in 2010, they are not NHS funded and need the generous support of donors to keep their service active.’
‘I also hope to encourage those who have undergone major surgery to get back up and live life as they did before.’
Charlotte was getting back on the horse.
