NewsUnstoppable Harriet Anderson
Matthew Dale profiles the women's 70-74 world champion
Published Wednesday, March 3, 2010
The voice on the other end of the phone is full of enthusiasm, wonder and vigor. In short, Harriet Anderson sounds more like she's 44, not 74.
“One is enough for me,” she jokes.
Since first sampling the Big Island in 1989, Anderson has missed triathlon’s most famous race only three times. She’s won her age group nine times. Anderson has never failed to place in the top five.
“I just think I’ve been very lucky,” she says modestly.
I ask about that emotion in her voice, the obvious zest for life. Where does it come from?
“Oh dear, I’m not really sure,” says Anderson, sounding as if she’s blushing across the telephone line from Northern California’s San Carlos. “I guess I’ve been healthy, had a wonderful marriage and my children are wonderful.”
Talk to Anderson, delve some into her background, and you learn bewilderment and resolve are not mutually exclusive. You can be blessed with one and the other. It’s not an either/or proposition. At least not with Anderson.
We take you back to Ironman Hawaii last October. Eighty miles into the bike, Anderson is riding along smoothly. The 5:30 p.m. bike cutoff is a non-factor. Then, out of the blue, a male cyclist drifts beside Anderson from behind, clips her on the left side and knocks her to the ground.
“He didn’t say ‘On your left,’ ” recalls Anderson. “He just bumped right into me and I went sliding down on my right side.”
Anderson stopped to assess the damage. Her shoulders and ribs were sore. So was her right thigh where she landed. The bike took a hit, too. The brakes were rubbing on the rim of the tires. She released the brake lever and after at least a 10-minute delay, on she pedaled.
Anderson still beat the bike cutoff by nearly an hour.
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In recalling Anderson’s tale last October, ironman.com editor Kevin Mackinnon wrote, “If I ever come across the dude who cut Harriet Anderson off on the bike … I’ll personally lobby to see five hours added to every one of his Ironman and Ironman 70.3 finishes.”
Chivalry lives.
The man who hit Anderson did not stop. Harriet, though, gives him a mulligan.
“I think (he) was probably disoriented,” says Anderson.
In T2, the woman nearly midway through her eighth decade inquired about getting a sling for her busted right arm. A volunteer said she’d have to go to the medical tent.
“I didn’t want to take too much time,” says Anderson.
So she had someone tape her arm against her waist and off she left for the marathon. She couldn’t run. The pain was too sharp in her right thigh. So she walked. Twenty-six point two miles, almost all in the dark, her right arm taped to her side.
She thought about reaching each aid station, where chicken soup awaited.
“That kept me going,” she says. “That tastes so good.”
Like the tortoise in the fable, Anderson kept putting one foot in front of the other.
“I was determined to finish.”
It never occurred to her that she might not beat the midnight deadline. At the Energy Lab turnaround point, Anderson asked a woman what time it was.
“You’ll make it,” the woman said.
“That kind of encouraged me,” recalls Anderson.
At approximately 11:53 PM, less than seven minutes before the deadline, Anderson crossed the finish line, the oldest woman to finish the race. Her day wasn’t done. She went to the medical tent, where a volunteer said it wasn’t clear if she had broken her shoulder or her clavicle.
“You should get to the emergency room as soon as possible,” the volunteer said.
Off to the hospital the Andersons drove. They didn’t get there until about 1 a.m.
“The hospital was full of broken (athletes) from the day before,” says Gary Anderson, Harriett’s husband of nearly 50 years. A woman with a hurt arm, even in her mid-70s, did not rate high on the priority list. She waited. And waited. Waited a couple hours.
Finally, X-rays revealed a broken right clavicle, which was much better than a broken shoulder, which would have taken longer to heal.
“I won’t be able to swim,” Anderson told the doctor. “I won’t be able to do my yoga and Pilates. But at least I’ll be able to spin.”
“Lady,” the doctor said, “at you’re age, you ought to do something else.”
“I was kind of taken aback,” says Anderson. “He probably thought 74-year-old ladies shouldn’t be out biking.”
Gary was understandably proud of his wife’s courage.
“If she’s determined to do something,” he said, “she’ll just do it.”
Not that he was surprised. Nearly 40 years ago, the Andersons went on a hiking vacation with their kids, who were about 6 and 8 at the time. Their daughter, Linda, began suffering from altitude sickness. Gary headed back to the car five or six miles away with their son Mike, planning to drop off his backpack and return for Harriet and Linda.
Gary dropped off the backpack, began the return trip, only to find that Harriet had already hiked about halfway to the car, lugging Linda and their backpacks.
“She wasn’t going to sit around and wait,” Gary said. “She’s a pretty tough lady.”
A couple days after Harriet’s Ironman Hawaii adventure last October, Gary met a young woman in Kona. The woman, about 20 years old, asked why Harriet’s arm was in a sling.
Gary provided the bike-crash details.
The woman was aghast.
“I’m from New York,” she said. “If you want, what we do in New York is we hunt these people down and take care of ‘em. You want us to hunt ‘em down?”
The Andersons passed on the offer. (The woman, of course, was joking.)
Here’s one more tidbit about Harriet that won’t surprise you.
Her arm is fine now. She’s swimming, cycling and jogging again. And she plans on racing at Kona next October.
You can reach Matthew Dale at mdale@ironman.com
