Tri Zones Training

(Click here to read the article at www.statesman.com, and to view the accompanying photos)

PAM LEBLANC: FIT CITY

Monday, May 07, 2007

Kit Manchester planned to mark her 50th birthday last year by pedaling loops around the Veloway in South Austin with friends from her triathlon training group.

But when April 15 rolled around, she missed her own party.

Two weeks before her celebration, during an April 1, 2006, group training ride near Pedernales Falls State Park, Manchester flew off her bike, suffered a serious head injury and sank into a coma. She woke up a week later, unable at first to recognize the man by her side. "It turns out he was my husband," she says.

In one silent moment that nobody saw, when she pitched onto the pavement of a two-lane country road, Manchester's biggest challenge went from shaving a few minutes off her time in her next triathlon to trying to remember the life she once had and attempting to just walk across a room.

And doctors gave her husband, Harry Thompson, no guarantees that she'd even be able to do that.

The accident

They found her on the road, unconscious.

Her road bike lay to her side, unscathed other than a slightly bent wheel rim. Her helmet, still buckled under her chin, looked as if someone had slammed it into a brick wall.

Someone from the Tri Zones Training group called her husband but didn't have much to report: Your wife has been in a bike accident. We're not sure of her condition. A STAR Flight rescue helicopter is flying her to Brackenridge Hospital.

That morning, Thompson had left the North Austin home he shared with his wife to drive to Connecticut, where he would spend a few months on a contract engineering job. He was 250 miles north of Austin when he got word of the accident. He turned around in Sulphur Springs.

"I didn't know what to think," he says.

No one was with Manchesterwhen she went down. A couple of hours into their 50-mile ride, the group of 15 or so Tri ZonesTraining riders had strung out. That didn't matter to Manchester, who'd spent plenty of time cycling alone. She'd completed the two-day, 180-mile MS150 fundraising ride before, and had a dozen or so triathlons under her belt.

Other riders said they'd seen dogs in the area. Manchester wonders whether she tried to dodge one. It's just one blurry detail in a sea of blurry details.

"Harry, where was I?" she asks her husband, who is sitting in the next room.

"You were on a rural road between Dripping Springs and Johnson City," he reminds her.

Manchesterwasn't breathing when emergency workers reached her; they did an emergency tracheotomy. An ambulance took her to nearby Henly, where STAR Flight met them.

For a week, she was in a coma. For three weeks after that, she was minimally conscious, unable to do much more than open one eye. Doctors said she might never improve.

Thompson and Manchester weren't the only ones reeling.Tri Zones Training co-owner and coach Tracy Nelson says the group couldn't believe that one of their own had been hurt so badly. "It hit us like a truck," Nelson says. "It's like somebody reaches in and grabs your heart and pulls it out. There were a bazillion e-mails and a lot of tears. ... "

Even though Manchester lay in a hospital bed on her birthday that April 15, her teammates gathered at the Veloway, tying ribbons on their helmets and riding laps in her honor.

In all, she was hospitalized for 21/2months. At first, she didn't know the faces of some of the people who came to wish her well. Memories were vague, clouded by a fog that never lifted.

"At first it always seemed like I was in a movie," she says. "It didn't seem real for months."

She had physical problems, too. The muscles in her arms were constantly clenched, her legs always extended. She had to wear temporary casts to help regain her range of motion. She spent six months in out-patient rehabilitation at St. David's Medical Center.

"When she first came home, I did everything for her," says Thompson, who was used to traveling frequently for his job designing broadcast television facilities. After his wife's accident, he told his employer he couldn't travel any more.

"I haven't even driven my car," Manchester says.

Her husband leans in close. "We're going to get you back," he says. "I'm not going to drive you around the rest of your life."

Changed lives

Manchester met Thompson, 54, on a blind date. "Several guys answered the ad, but after I met him I wasn't interested (in anyone else)," she says. They had breakfast at Threadgill's on their first date. "He looked really cute," she says of the man she married 14 years ago. "He's a smart guy and I don't put up well with guys who aren't smart."

"Neither of us is very patient," her husband says.

Suddenly, though, they didn't have a choice. They had to be patient. Manchester came home from the hospital in a wheelchair. She couldn't get in and out of bed on her own. She spent most of the time sleeping. It was hard to remember things from one moment to the next.

"Initially I didn't have any expectations," Thompson says. "So I had nothing to be disappointed about."

But he knew his wife. "It wouldn't be unfair to call my wife stubborn. And I believe that's why she came back."

For Manchester, who'd grown up with four younger siblings and served as an officer in the Air Force for 16 years, the transition has been difficult. "I'm so used to having no problems with anything that it just seems weird to go to effort to do things," she says.

The couple have no children but share their home with a pale yellow cockatoo and a three-legged cat. A few years ago, Manchester started an online company selling bird toys, which are stored in tidy bins in their garage.

Manchester is what the Tri Zones leaders call a "lifestyler." After her first training session some three years ago, she was hooked on the feeling she got from exercise and the friends she made along the way. She signed up for class after class, and even invited people to meet her at her home for extra workouts. She encouraged Thompson to start bicycling.

"She just wanted to learn, learn, learn and get better and better," says Nelson, the coach.

"What's most ironic about this whole thing is she's an absolute lunatic about safety," Thompson says. Even before the accident, Manchester was a stickler for proper helmet fit and wearing visible clothing. She once sent out an e-mail directing her teammates to a Website where they could print out a free emergency contact card to carry with them while cycling.

Sandy Ferguson met Manchester through the Team Danskin training program three years ago. The two eventually became running partners, and had planned to do the Austin American-Statesman Capitol 10,000 the day after Manchester's fateful ride.

"I actually don't think Kit remembers me," Ferguson says now. "I think she's very kind to me, but I don't think she knows our history. But that's OK. We'll just start all over again. ... She's just amazing with how brave she's been through all this."

Today, Manchester sometimes gets impatient. She uses both hands to clutch the railing when she navigates stairs. She uses plastic cups instead of glasses, and never fills them too full.

"It is what it is," she sighs.

"Some days are better than others," Thompson says.

Still, Manchester considers herself lucky. Some people at the hospital were so severely injured they didn't recognize their kids.

And there's another thing. The accident has tightened the bond between Manchester and Thompson. "There's nothing we can't talk about now," Thompson says. "If you could say something good came out of this, that's it."

Two pink squares are stuck on the window next to the kitchen table, notes from Kit to Harry: "Big thanks for all you do for me," one says. "How many kisses today?" another says.

Back on the bike

By August, Manchester started using a walker. And in September, just six months after the accident, she rejoined the Tri Zones team. Thompson drove her to practice, where she introduced herself to new members of the group by saying, "My name is Kit and I had a really bad biking accident. So make sure you wear your helmet."

Then she got down to business. When the team ran laps around a middle school track, Manchester joined them, pushing her walker, Thompson at her side. That first day, she made it around once, pausing to rest along the way. By February, she could walk three laps without stopping.

Sometimes it still seems like a movie. A face might look familiar, but she doesn't remember who it is. Slowly, though, pieces have come back. So has her body.

"That's what inspires all of us who know her — she has this indomitable spirit and wants to keep on plugging," Nelson says.

"To me, she's such an encouragement to anybody who ever thinks she can't do anything," says Gina Lardon, who co-owns Tri Zones with Nelson.

Manchester is swimming again, training with a coach. After every session, she and Thompson stop for ice cream.

And she's learning, for the second time, how to ride her bike, now outfitted with large training wheels. It's hardto ride because her right arm is still partially numb. One of the first times she tried, the bike slowly veered across the street, narrowly missing a plastic garbage can. "It's like it was happening too fast for my brain to process," she says.

Recently, Harry wheeled down the driveway the same red road bike Manchester was riding when she had the accident. He helped her swing slowly onto the seat and rested his hand gently on her shoulder. When Manchester started rolling, he jogged alongside her.

No trash cans got in the way this time. She cruised ahead, wobbling only slightly. It's good practice, because some of her training friends want her to join them for a ride.

One day, she says, maybe she'll do another triathlon. There's a couples triathlon, you know. Maybe Thompson will do it with her.

"We're just going to see what happens," her husband says. "We don't set real hard goals. The goal is to get back to triathlons — eventually."

Manchester still uses her walker occasionally, and keeps a cane handy at home. She had surgery in March to repair a torn meniscus in her knee.

She believes her helmet saved her life. She has befriended former Austin mayor Bruce Todd, another bike accident victim, who is campaigning for an all-ages helmet law for cyclists. (Currently, only cyclists 17 and younger must wear helmets in the city.)

As for that 50th birthday party she missed last year? She finally made it, albeit a year late.At the Veloway on April 15, the Tri Zones athletes gave Manchester a card, telling her they would be gathering donations for the Austin Cycling Association to purchase helmets for children. Manchester also plans to help teach bicycle safety classes for kids.

Looking ahead

In the meantime, Manchester says she has learned that she's not invincible.

Her eyes squeeze shut and the tears come. "Everything was so easy before, and it's so hard now. The easiest stuff — just walking across the room — is so difficult now," she says, finally showing a chink in the armor.

Thompson encircles her with his arm. "I told her no more head injuries," he says.

pleblanc@statesman.com; 445-3994

Help helmets

To make a donation in Kit Manchester's name to the Austin Cycling Association's helmet campaign, go to www.trizones.com. Each helmet costs $7; helmets are given to Central Texas children during bike safety rodeos.