‘Anything Is Possible’
BY JONATHAN BYM, Insider Reporter
All that training Angie Mullennix put in was geared to prepare her body for her eighth Ironman competition in Texas later this month, but her fitness may have saved her life in an unexpected way.
While biking on Vass-Carthage Road last Wednesday evening as a part of a 22-hour training week to build up for the grueling race, Mullennix was struck from behind by a truck. The collision threw her from the bike into a ditch. Her injuries required emergency responders to airlift her to UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill.
Suffering mostly internal injuries — including a failed left kidney, a broken back and neck along with a lengthy list of other afflictions — Mullennix nevertheless returned to her Whispering Pines home Thursday.
“They originally told me that I was going to be here for about five or six week in the hospital,” she said. “Because I was in such good shape going into the accident, I surpassed a lot of their benchmarks and it solved a lot of issues. I’ve been healing quickly, considering all things.”
Her body being in peak condition nearly a month ahead of the Ironman competition may have protected her. The 3 a.m. wakeups for a couple hours of workouts before sunrise was meant to shave seconds off her competition times, but they also may have added years to her life.
“Looking back at all those hours that I put in, while I won’t be able to race on the 23rd, I lived. My body was able to sustain a whole lot more impact than it probably ever would have if it had been someone who doesn’t take the time to strengthen their body.
“An hour-run a day. Yeah, it does suck initially, it doesn’t get easier, but you get stronger. Everything seems hard until you’ve done it.”
During recovery, Mullennix was surprised this week when she took her first steps shuffling out of the bed to another bed in her hospital room. That simple task got her competitive mindset moving, and she found herself walking close to a mile a day around the hospital at the one-week out mark from the accident.
Mullennix is no weekend workout warrior. She competed in two Ironman races in 2021, and she was among the world’s top Ironman athletes heading into 2022. She was named a 2022 Ironman All World Athlete for finishing in the 10 percent of competitors in her age group, and also named to the 2022 Team Zoot national triathlon team.
“That was motivation for me that I could do more,” Mullennix said. “I said, ‘This is my year. I’m going to find two more Ironman races this year and I was going to push it. I was going to get my best Ironman time.’ I’ve really truly dedicated myself and I really thought I was going to have a good race on April 23.”
It’s not what she expected, but 2022 is a year Mullennix is determined to show her true strength.
The Accident
March 30 had been busy for Mullennix. The mother of two had just finished her day job with the State Department of Public Instruction in Raleigh. In her role as the department’s director of innovative practices and programs and military liaison, Mullennix met with the state superintendent and leaders from the UNC System, the community college system and the ambassador of Botswana.
She came home and changed into her workout clothes for a one-hour bike ride.
“She came home from work and said, ‘Hey, I’m going to go for a quick bike ride.’ Nothing unusual,” her husband Jeremy said. “I got a call about 10 minutes after she had left the house on her bike.”
Mullennix had no identification on her. Her husband got a call relayed to him because the driver of the truck who hit Mullennix was a co-worker.
“I don’t even remember anything about the accident at all. I don’t remember where it happened,” Angie said. “I remember seeing a butterfly and then I remember being in a helicopter talking with someone while he was cutting my shorts and shirt off.”
Her recollections are obscured by the thunderous sounds of the helicopter propellers that took her from Moore County Airport to Chapel Hill, and the flight medics yelling over that noise to treat her.
She remembers asking if her husband knew that she had been in an accident. He did; he had been on the scene while paramedics transported her. He held her hand and noticed no major visible traumatic injuries.
The scare of the accident and the unknowable of unseen injuries has since ebbed, especially with Mullennix home from the hospital.
“All the concerns if she is going to walk again and if she is going to survive and the fear of all that has faded off,” Jeremy said. “Now’s the reality of what the next steps will look like.”
Among the things Angie is most thankful for: no recall.
“I’m thankful I don’t remember what happened in the accident and I can get back on the bike and train,” she said.
Driven
Mullennix got her start in Ironman races after having her daughter, Leah, in 2010. With a background in shorter sprint triathlons and a half Ironman previously, she was ready to take on the behemoth of a race that includes a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike and 26.2-mile run.
“I gained 85 pounds when I was pregnant and I called my husband when he was deployed and I said, ‘I’m not going to be one of those moms that gains all this weight and just becomes a mom. That is not going to be my life,’” she recalled.
Gradually building to get herself in shape after having her daughter, Angie said she lost the pregnancy weight, “plus extra.”
Two years later, she gave birth to a son, Garrett. That was followed by enrolling in a doctoral program, on top of having two young children and still training for more Ironman races.
“My husband said, ‘This is ridiculous. You are trying to work, do a doctoral program, prepare for races and take care of two kids. You are on Ironman probation until you finish your doctoral program,’” Angie said.
After speaking to her dissertation chair about racing to finish the program, she laid out her plan to complete the program in time for another Ironman in Texas in May 2015.
The COVID-19 pandemic slowed Angie’s Ironman training, since she had to spend more time helping educators transition to remote instruction.
“I felt like I was working 900 hours a day,” she said. “I actually got really out of shape in 2020 because I worked so much and I wasn’t getting out of the chair.”
A race in May 2021 in Tulsa produced her slowest time yet, and she admits that was her hardest race, with just eight weeks of training to prepare.
Friends and Family
The Mullennix family bonds over running. Angie and Jeremy met at a running event, and their kids have been on runs before they could walk.
“Our kids have probably gotten more miles in a stroller as babies all the way up until they could walk than most people get in a lifetime. They’ve been raised that way. We both are pretty active people,” Jeremy said. “It’s been a bonding thing for both of us.”
The March 30 accident has brought the family closer together. A friend of Angie’s who works at Garrett’s school saw him this week and asked how he was doing. Garrett’s response: he had the “strongest mom I know.”
The embarrassing “I love you” that Angie yells to Leah when she’s walking to the bus will now mean a little more from now on.
“I tell her, ‘I love her,’ until she gets on the bus, even though she is ignoring me,” Angie said. “I’m like, ‘You better tell me you love me. You never know when’s the last chance you get to see me. We never know what will throw us.’ Now I think she will realize that things will happen.”
The Summerfield neighborhood in Whispering Pines has rallied around the family during Angie’s time in the hospital.
“Our neighbors have really stepped up, even some I don’t even really know well,” Jeremy said. “The neighbors have offered to keep the kids until my parents were able to come in and help out. Text messages and calls from all over the community asking if we wanted food delivered to the house.”
‘Strong for People’
Among the different thoughts that Angie takes away from her life-changing experience is an added appreciation for life.
“I also know that training isn’t everything,” she said. “I didn’t say, ‘Goodbye,’ when I went out the door.”
From her hospital room in Chapel Hill, Angie talked about a possible return to triathlons if everything goes as planned. That means the hiring of a triathlon coach, something she didn’t feel the need for with her ability to stick with a training regimen she could find online. Learning to pace herself is a lesson she’s picked up through her race training, and now it might be put to the biggest test in her recovery.
“I know I’m not going to rush,” she said. “I don’t want to be 60 and regret going too hard too fast.
“I love racing, but it’s not worth being 80 and not being able to get out of the bed, or 70 and not being able to get out of the bed.”
Jeremy might say his wife is a little stubborn or hard headed to go along with her focus, like he has said many times before. Angie will say she is task oriented, but it’s really a refusal to give up.
“I know my work is not done. I still need to be out there being strong for people, showing people what can be possible,” Angie said. “The Ironman philosophy is: anything is possible. I truly believe that there is nothing in the world that is impossible. It’s difficult but not impossible.
“If I try to show that through what I do, and encourage other people, I think that’s the best thing that comes out of this.”
Contact Jonathan Bym at (910) 693-2476 or jonathan@thepilot.com.
