‘Girl power to the max’

Carrie Davis ran her first triathlon Sunday, the Valley Girl Triathlon at Liberty Lake – the first of what she promises will be many such events.

“I did it with a girlfriend and we just did it for fun,” she said. “She wanted to walk the run part, so we walked and talked and had a great time. But I definitely want to do more of these and complete in them. This was just the tip of the iceberg, baby.”

Davis, 33, came to triathlons through her work with the Challenged Athletes Foundation.

Born without a left arm below her elbow, Davis works as a patient’s advocate for Hanger Orthopedic Group, a national company that designs and manufactures prosthetic devices for amputees.

“Last year I did a triathlon through the Challenged Athletes Foundation – the Half Iron Man in San Diego,” the South Hill resident explained. “I did it as part of an all-challenged team. My bike partner was a below-knee amputee and my swim partner was a paraplegic. I did the 13-mile run.”

Standing at the start line while the race’s challenged athletes were introduced, Davis received an interesting proposition.

“I was standing next to this guy and he said ‘Hey, I need a wing girl in Hawaii in 2005 for the World Finals,’ ” she laughed “I said ‘Dude, I’m not a triathlete. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ “

Turns out there are no below-elbow women amputees competing at the world level, Davis said.

“So I figured I would give it a shot, and if I could be an inspiration to other women, so much the better,” she said. “I wanted to see if I liked it and if I wanted to take it further I thought this would be a way to motivate people who have lost a limb and show them that they can get back into life.”

Davis’ total time was a relaxed two hours, 12 minutes, 21 seconds. She swam the one-third mile course in 16:25, the 12-mile bike ride in 55:50 and the three-mile run in 36:51.

“I ended up waiting for my friend quite a bit, but we weren’t planning on doing anything competitive,” Davis reiterated. “But it was fun and there’s a real sense of accomplishment in finishing a race like this.”

That sense of accomplishment is something Davis knows something about, personally as well as professionally.

“I worked at a camp in Maine that was designed just for challenged athletes,” she said. “I really enjoyed working with them and would love to one day start something like that here.”

There is a tremendous support structure for physically challenged athletes across the country, she explained. The problem is that it doesn’t draw a great deal of attention to itself or to its athletes.

One resource challenged athletes can turn to, she suggested, is www.challengedathletes.org. And searching the Internet helps, too.

Davis’ work as a patient’s advocate has taken her across the country.

“I’ve worked with a lot of the veterans coming back from the war who have lost an arm or a leg,” she said. “They’re just looking for something.

“I just recently worked with a man who lost an arm and both of his calves who used to be a big runner. The cool thing is that he took it as a challenge. He learned how to swim because he couldn’t run. I took a look at him and figured I just had to get involved with this and show people they can do it. And I did it.”

Davis said she sees the effect finishing a race can have on people – especially a race like Sunday’s Valley Girl Triathlon.

“That race was just girl power to the max,” she laughed. “Everyone was so encouraging all along the race. There were a couple of points in the race where the course doubled back, so you would meet people ahead of you or behind you. Everyone was encouraging each other, saying things like ‘It’s just a little farther.’

“There was a woman there was doing the first triathlon by anyone in her family. She was a plus-sized woman, but she had on a T-shirt that her whole family had made for her with everyone’s picture on the front of it, telling her to keep going.”

Davis said having a physical challenge can be turned into personal inspiration.

“It’s empowering for the individual,” she said. “Before I did the triathlon in San Diego, I never thought I could run 13 miles But I did it and I set a personal record.

“All these other people I meet with so many other, bigger challenges than mine – I thought that if I’d ever felt sorry for myself, I didn’t know what I was thinking. These people are amazing and I’m just lucky to be in the crowd with them.”

Her biggest challenge to doing a triathlon?

“The mental hurdles, definitely,” she said. “The ‘Can I really do this?’ stuff. Not the physical challenge of doing it, either. It’s not that difficult to put on a prosthesis and go out and ride a bike or to run. But endurance wise, do I have it in me? That was the biggest hurdle, but the biggest roadblocks to doing anything in your life are the roadblocks in your own head.”