The sea wall at Monroe Harbor was teeming with jittery athletes, their damp, toned muscles glinting in the early morning sunlight. The flaming pink sun rose in the cloudless blue sky, and a bright sea of pink, green, blue and orange swim caps surged forward in anticipation. The scene was overwhelming and distracting at the 6:30 a.m. start of the Mrs. T’s Pierogies Chicago Triathlon on Aug. 30, but triathlete Heidi Musser saw none of it.
Blind since birth, Musser, 32, took the plunge into Lake Michigan to compete in her first triathlon and inspire what she hoped would be a long line of disabled athletes participating in such high-profile sporting events.
Musser was one of two blind athletes registered for the triathlon, said event spokeswoman Joyce Szymanski. No other disabled athletes registered, she said. Approximately 4,800 professional and amateur athletes competed.
With the help of coach Mark Landeck, Musser completed the Sprint Distance — 750-meter swim, 22-kilometer bike, 5-kilometer run — in her goal of 2 hours. Landeck swam beside her during what seemed like an endless course along the sea wall, shouting commands to turn left or right, while Musser pulled herself through the water with a freestyle stroke.
The pair rode a blue Santana tandem racing bike on Lake Shore Drive, with Landeck in front and Musser hunched over and pumping her legs in the back seat. Musser’s biggest challenge was the run — a new sport for the lifelong athlete — which forced her to use a small tether, or hand-held elastic, to keep connected to Landeck. Out of respect for their achievements, no special accommodations were made for the disabled triathletes, Szymanski said.
Musser’s family introduced her to recreational swim lessons and tandem biking at an early age, she said. In November, when she met Landeck, a personal trainer at the Leaning Tower YMCA in Niles, he suggested that she train for the triathlon as soon as he noticed her endurance.
“That’s all a triathlon is — endurance,” said Landeck, 39, of Chicago’s Jefferson Park neighborhood. “My nickname for (Musser) is the Energizer Bunny. She just keeps going and going. She doesn’t want to admit she gets tired. She could be on her last legs, and I’d say, `How you doing, Heidi?’ (She’d say,) `Just great.’ “
At 4 feet 11 inches and 95 pounds, Musser’s build belies her strength and stamina. Her training regimen since November has included predawn swim practices at least five days a week, running every night with coach Jack Owens or her father, Frederick Musser, strength training with Landeck and riding on the tandem bike in any spare time in between.
“Giving up was never my style,” Musser said. “My greatest gift is inspiring others.”
Musser said she takes her role as a blind athlete seriously, hoping to qualify for the 2000 Paralympic Games in Sydney and become a role model for disabled people who are as much in the dark as she once was — socially speaking.
“I was born blind,” she said. “I never had sight. I’ve never seen form, color or light, but I’ve been swimming all my life.”
She will never come out of the darkness, physically, Musser said, but swimming competitions, interaction with Landeck and participation in high-profile sporting events have brought her the social connections she hungered for.
“I’m sure (Landeck) has performed many miracles for me,” she said.
As a child, Musser could float on her back in the swimming pool before taking her first steps on land. At 2 1/2 years old, she was one of the youngest members of the Leaning Tower YMCA’s pioneering Conqueror’s Program, an athletics program for disabled people that was started in 1968.
Longtime residents of Chicago’s Edgebrook neighborhood, Musser’s parents pulled her out of the public school system at age 7 after she was judged mentally disabled and placed in special education classes. Her parents fought the system to keep Musser at home, where they said they could teach her better themselves, until a 1977 court ruling allowed the girl to attend a suburban parochial school.
The home-schooled Musser excelled in foreign languages such as French and German, gymnastics classes at the YMCA, and in music, taking classical piano lessons from Chicago Symphony Orchestra pianist Mary Sauer.
Musser returned to public school for high school, then earned a bachelor’s degree in music from Northeastern Illinois University, where she graduated in May 1996. Her university days were difficult ones for Musser, who found little social interaction with other students. After graduation she continued her piano studies with Professor Audrey Evans at Roosevelt University, where Musser discovered the friendship and warmth she craved. Besides work at the Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind, Musser has made athletic training her full-time job.
Despite the social limitations of attending a mainstream university such as Northeastern, Musser made some connections there that pushed her further than she thought possible. One friendship started the chain of events that led Musser to the triathlon.
Musser met Michelle Bradshaw at the Northeastern pool, where Bradshaw was a lifeguard. In August 1997 Bradshaw guided Musser in her first swimming race when the two swam in the Chicago Park District’s annual 2-Mile Fun Swim. The tentative Musser was thrust into the spotlight as the first disabled participant in the swim’s history. The media attention she received made Musser feel like a success, she said, and she wanted other disabled people to experience that rush. Musser continued to train.
This summer Musser competed in the Fun Swim and in a one-mile leg for her relay team in the Lake Michigan Shore Swim on June 29. The event benefitted the Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center at Loyola University Medical Center and was sponsored by “Swim Across America,” a non-profit group that raises money for cancer research institutions around the country.
Musser broke another barrier as the first disabled participant in the Shore Swim’s three-year history. The YMCA has made plans to film a commerical starring Musser as a role model for disabled athletes, her mother, Erika Musser, said.
After hearing about her 1997 Fun Swim debut, the director of the United States Association for Blind Athletes invited Musser to a weekend swim camp in October 1997 at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. By the end of the weekend, one of the directors said he wanted Musser to train for the U.S. Championships for Swimmers with Disabilities, held in June in Minneapolis.
The invitation “fueled my engine for six-times-a-week training” through the winter, Musser said. Despite her rigorous schedule, Musser’s lack of training compared with the other blind athletes showed when she came up short of qualifying for the championships, she said. Instead of giving up, the “Energizer Bunny” — with the help of Landeck — then set her sights on the triathlon, and with more training, still hopes to qualify for the 2000 Paralympics.
Always reliable for her endurance, Musser said, she must increase her speed to be competitive at a national level.
“I have trouble with speed,” she said. “From the time I was very young, (speed) has not been my forte. My forte is classical music, foreign languages and swimming. I was never able to work under stress.”
Besides shooting for the International Distance — the full triathlon, or 1.5-kilometer swim, 40-kilometer bike, 10-kilometer run — Musser and Landeck said they have focused on Sydney. The triathlon may become a Paralympic event because it has been named an Olympic event for 2000, Landeck said.
Whether Musser realizes her Paralympic hopes or not, her goal of inspiring others already has been fulfilled by competing in the spotlight.
As Landeck and Musser hustled between the swim finish and transition area to retrieve their bike, or as the pair shuffled across the finish line on Columbus Drive, the same exclamation escaped many onlookers’ lips:
“She’s blind!”
“We met a woman who said, `My daughter is 3 years old and blind — you guys are such an inspiration,’ ” a sweaty Landeck said at the finish line while he and Musser unpinned their number bibs.
Musser has inspired him to work with more blind people and encourage disabled people to get involved in athletic competition, Landeck said.
“I wish all my clients had her drive and determination,” said Landeck, who works as a personal trainer at several YMCAs and private clubs.
The team hit their triathlon target of two hours with an unofficial time of two hours, one minute and four seconds. They made up a lot of time on the tandem bike, Landeck said.
“On the way out (on the bike), she was singing,” he said after the finish. “I said, `If you’re singing, you’re not pushing hard enough.’ I didn’t hear boo from her on the way back.
“We were flying on the bike,” Landeck said. “We passed some people. No dead last for this girl.”
In the heat of the late August morning sunshine, Musser looked relaxed and ready to go again even as the sweat and lake water dried from her colorful Speedo swimsuit and black nylon running shorts.
“It was awesome, awesome,” Musser shouted as her family and friends enveloped her in hugs and traded high fives. “We loved it.”
Before they had gotten to the PowerBars and other freebies, Musser and Landeck were already chatting about next year’s possibilities and the Paralympics.
“She’s got a good internal attitude,” said Owens, president of the Leaning Tower YMCA and Musser’s running coach, who came to cheer on the fledgling triathlete. “She realizes there are things she can’t accomplish, but she considers everything a challenge.”
