Written by:
Nancy Einhart
Photographer:
John Segesta
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this Issue of Curve:
Vol. 12#6
Though she’d lived in America’s heartland since 1987, Andrea Ratkovic had never seen a tornado. So when she encountered her first funnel cloud in the midst of a bike ride in 1998, the professional athlete wasn’t content ducking into a ditch. Instead, she decided to outride it.
With two miles left on her route, Ratkovic peddled furiously, blinded by the driving rain and spurred on by the tornado at her back. When she arrived safely home, she learned the tornado had hit just a few miles south of her Norman, Okla., abode.
A bit crazy? Perhaps. But anyone who runs marathons, bikes centuries, and swims two and a half miles in the open sea has got to be a little nutty. And the idea of tackling all three feats in one day – as in the famed Ironman Triathlon — doesn’t faze Ratkovic at all.
Ratkovic, 36, never planned to be a triathlete, but over the years she’s developed a keen talent for adapting. After a stint as a top-ranked marathon runner, Ratkovic literally fell into a two-year career as a professional road cyclist when an injury forced her to try a new sport. She earned the title of U.S. Female Duathlete of the Year in 2001. Less than a year later, Ratkovic turned pro as a triathlete, and now she’s set her sights on the triathlon to end all triathlons: the Hawaii Ironman.
But even before her life took a startlingly swift series of turns, Ratkovic always knew she’d make a living as an athlete.
“In the sixth grade, I ran the fastest 600-yard dash, and it just went from there,” Ratkovic says during a phone interview from the small 1940s home she shares with her girlfriend, Angela, and Angela’s 7-year-old son, Garrett. “I told my mom when I was 13, ‘This is how it’s gonna go: I’m gonna get a scholarship; I’m gonna to go to the Olympics.’”
Half of the Corpus Christi, Texas, native’s dream panned out when she earned a full track scholarship to Texas A&I University. But her journey to the Olympics followed a less conventional path.
While helping a friend train for the Olympic trials, she decided to try her own foot at a marathon. In her first race, she came within one minute of the qualifying time for the Olympic trials. That’s when she decided to start training seriously.
In 1995, she was the second-ranked female marathon runner in the country. “I never had a coach or anything. I did it all on my own, just reading,” Ratkovic says, with the charming remnants of her Southern drawl. “In elite marathons, people will run a maximum of two a year. They say you only have so many left in your body. While training for the trials, I ran four marathons in six months.”
Ratkovic recognizes now that her fierce determination took a toll on her body, and after training for months, she collapsed around mile seven of the 1996 marathon trials. Shortly before the race, Ratkovic had been admitted to the hospital for a five-day bout with food poisoning; her lean, 5’6” frame dropped from 115 pounds to a mere 105. “I was sicker than sick, but I ran anyway,” she says. “NBC caught the whole thing on tape, with slow motion and music. It was embarrassing.”
Though her Olympic dreams were dashed, Ratkovic didn’t give up running. Shortly after the trials, she headed to Colorado for altitude training. Though she discovered a passion for running in the mountains, the stress aggravated a previous injury, and Ratkovic ruptured her Achilles tendon. That’s when the doctors told her she had no chance of running competitively again.
“That was a bad summer,” she remembers. “I just went downhill, because running had opened so many doors for me. It got me a full scholarship; it’s how I met my friends; and when I didn’t have it, I didn’t think I was anybody.”
But Ratkovic wasn’t content to waste away her days in stationary mode, so as soon as she was able, she climbed onto a bike. Though she initially intended to ride only as rehab, the natural athlete soon discovered a knack for cycling. In 1998 she began competing in road races, and in 1999 she signed her first pro cycling contract. She rode with a women’s pro cycling team most of the year, and carved out a career as a top professional road cyclist. (She decided to leave pro cycling this year.)
Eventually, Ratkovic eased back into running in the form of duathlons, which she squeezed in during what little spare time she had. In 2000 she spent only about a third of the year at home.
“When I’m running, I’m so focused my mind doesn’t wander,” she says. “I don’t have to worry about falling down unless I trip over my own feet. In cycling, I like the camaraderie of a team, but I don’t like the crashes and flat tires. So many factors can screw up your plan.”
Ratkovic came careening into one of those factors when, in the midst of a race last fall, she collided with another rider, sailed to the ground, and broke her back. But in typical Ratkovic fashion, she used the injury and her recovery to her advantage.
“I ended up swimming a lot, because I really couldn’t do any weight exercises,” she says. “Then I said, ‘Hey, I’m a duathlete. I figure I can run a good marathon, and I’m a pretty good bike racer. All I have to do is swim.’”
Just a few months after swimming entered her repertoire, Ratkovic entered the pro triathlon circuit. After training with a swimming coach, she completed her first half-Ironman (and only her second triathlon ever) this May in St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, taking sixth place amid a slew of other pros and past Ironman winners.
“It was only my third open-water swim,” Ratkovic says, joking that she lost time on the swim because she was transfixed by starfish on the ocean floor.
As Ratkovic plowed toward the finish line, her girlfriend, Angela, a nurse she met during her occasional day job as an X-ray technician, helped run the medical tent. When Ratkovic completed the four-hour race, she headed straight to her girlfriend, who gave her an IV to treat her dehydration. The couple spent the remainder of the day giving massages to other racers.
Now that she’s proven to herself that she can tackle the Ironman, Ratkovic must decide how to focus the future of her career. At press time, she was still debating whether to spend October competing in the duathlon world championships or taking on the Hawaii race.
Even if she skips the Ironman this year, Ratkovic plans to conquer the race soon, and she won’t go without the intention of winning. Not only does Ratkovic have a great deal of athletic prowess, but she’s also got an extraordinary ability to adapt to change — both in her career and in her personal life.
Ratkovic faced one of her greatest personal challenges a few years ago, when she came out as lesbian in the midst of a seven-year marriage. Though she and her husband tried to work it out, Ratkovic ultimately realized it was a lifestyle change, not relationship tinkering, that she needed. “I love him to death,” Ratkovic says. “It’s really unfair that I found out when I was married.”
But whether she’s overcoming hurdles in her love life, mastering a new sport, recovering from an injury, or even outrunning a tornado, Ratkovic always tries to make herself available to fans, especially younger lesbians or fellow athletes trying to come out of the closet.
“I know there are lots of lesbians in magazines — Melissa Etheridge and other celebrities — but you’ll never get to meet those people,” she says. “But I’ll talk to anybody. I always like to have somebody cheer for me who’s in my corner.”
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