Lost leg won't stop suburban triathlete from competing

When Jean Draper first began the recovery process from having her right foot torn off in a freak auto accident four years ago, her thoughts didn't dwell on the athletic pursuits she might have to give up. She simply wanted to get herself back to a place where she could care for and enjoy her children.

"I just thought to myself, with two small kids, there wasn't any other choice but to go forward," said the 36-year-old Arlington Heights resident.

Yet what she discovered, over time, as she tried to restore her life as it had been, was that training for the triathlon she'd enjoyed competing in before gave her a sense of purpose and focus that sped the recovery along.

This weekend, following a series of personal-best times in shorter events, she competes in her first Olympic-distance triathlon in New York City with a chance to qualify for the world championships - not for amputees and other special-needs athletes, but for anyone.

"For me, getting back to where I could do everything I could do prior to this was really important," Draper said. "I don't have any reservations that there are things I can't do anymore."

Four years ago this June, Draper and her husband, Robert, were just getting their kids out of the car to go to the park in Colorado, where they were living at the time, when a driver parking next to them mistakenly hit the gas instead of the brake. The collision wrenched their car against the curb, ripping off Draper's right foot.

They do amazing things with prosthetics these days, however, and Draper, after having her leg amputated below the knee, was determined to regain a normal life, wear heels, run - which was actually her first athletic love - and, yes, even return to the triathlon Robert had gotten her interested in.

She was just preparing to move up to the Olympic-distance triathlon when the accident took place. In fact, if she hadn't passed on a sprint-distance triathlon scheduled for the same day, she never would have been at the park at that moment.

That determination to push herself and improve is also what spurred her recovery. She and Robert transferred from Colorado to the Chicago area, where she had grown up in Northbrook and Hinsdale, and along the way she shifted jobs from pharmaceutical sales to a part-time position with a prosthetics firm. All along she pushed herself in training.

"Before my accident, I would just go out and run," she recalled. "I had no rhyme or rhythm. I never did sprint workouts. I would just kind of run. So this is the first time in my life I've had a specific focus."

Her life returned to a certain normalcy, most of all as mother to Heyden, now 7, and Abigail, 4, but her triathlon times went well beyond normal. Still, she eventually hit some limitations - for a while.

"I had a running leg here, and it was good and it got me going, but I got to the point where I said, OK, I need more than this," she said.

At about that time, last year, she was visiting friends when they stumbled on a computer site for Amy Winters, a professional triathlete who had lost a leg below the knee as a young adult in a motorcycle accident. The friends went on to contact Winters, and got her to call and give Draper a pep talk right before a triathlon.

"So she called and said, 'Good luck, here are some pointers I can give you,' and she really spent some time on the phone with me," Draper said.

Winters also works for A Step Ahead, a high-tech New York prosthesis company, and when Draper made the trip to check it out, she not only came away with a new, better leg, she also was invited to join Team A Step Ahead, which is one of the reasons she's competing in the New York City Triathlon on Sunday.

The ninth annual Manhattan event at the Olympic distance begins with a swim of almost a mile (1.5 km) in the Hudson River, then proceeds on to a 40 km bike ride (almost 25 miles) and finishes with a 10 km run (6.2 miles). The USA National Championship involving 100 elite athletes will be part of the event. Those finishing in less than four hours can qualify for the world championships.

Draper is hoping to finish in under three hours.

Although she trains five or six days a week, mixing and matching three days of running with three of biking and three of swimming. The swim is the hardest part for her because she doesn't wear a prosthesis. "I feel like I'm working harder," she said, "and my back end kind of sinks a little bit." (Just imagine swimming with only one leg kicking.)

Draper said there were times when it caused her to hyperventilate in the water and made her consider giving up the triathlon. Yet Winters' suggestion to adopt a wet suit has worked wonders, as at the Twin Lakes triathlon this spring.

"For the first time, I didn't panic in the water," Draper said. "I wasn't fast, but I definitely was able to swim the whole thing with a sense of ease."

Swimming the Hudson will be something else entirely, Draper allowed, "but if I've got the current - and everyone says it's a fast course - I should be able to do it in 30 minutes, maybe a little quicker."

She's planning to spend 100 minutes on the bike, and another 53 or 54 on foot, which would put her in the three-hour range - far ahead of many weekend triathletes who will be competing in the event.

Draper does get to stop the clock, in effect, in the transition from water to land, to remove her wet suit and put her leg on. She admits that some of her fellow competitors, Robert included, have joked that with the times she's posting, she has to be gaining some advantage with the prosthesis.

"There's probably some truth in it," Draper said with a smile, "but in the grand scheme of things I think it's still harder."