At the age of five, Caroline Poulin suffered burns covering 50% of her body. On Sunday she will compete in her first full Ironman.
“When we were five years old, we were at the chalet and a coffee maker filled with boiling water accidentally fell on me,” explains the Beauceronne ancestry. I had burns on 50% of my body including third degree burns on my thighs.
But don’t tell her she’s a victim because this sad childhood event doesn’t define her at all.
“My story is beautiful and interesting, I don’t want it to be dramatic. It was painful, I went through an ordeal, but behind the pain there is something else and life is beautiful.
operations
Still, Caroline, who is now 52 when she was younger, spent some time in the hospital.
“I lived in the Saint-Sacrement hospital for three months, one of which was in a sterile room with no visitors. I was operated on between the ages of 5 and 20. I left quickly because I had energy and a thirst for life.
These surgeries all had specific objectives to give her back a good quality of life, which she has a great appetite for today.
“The skin on my legs has healed so my knees don’t bend anymore. I had to undergo major surgery to restore extension to my knees.
She’s also had multiple skin grafts and is obviously having some after-effects, but nothing stopping her from being active.
When she works out in the pool, her scars come to mind, otherwise she’s rarely in pain.
“The pain stops, but people’s gaze doesn’t stop. You have to learn to accept people’s looks. At first I felt like a curiosity, but I tamed it. I found myself looking at an athlete who had a stump instead of an arm. He saw that I was watching him and I understood that people are watching because they want to understand the story, to explain what happened.
Caroline Poulin underwent multiple surgeries when she was young. Courtesy of Caroline Poulin
From a friend
The proof: She has become a fan of high mountain trekking and has climbed several peaks such as Kilimanjaro and Mont Blanc. During one of these trips, the idea of doing a triathlon came up.
“I met a man from Montreal on Aconcagua who had asthma and did the same thing in the mountains and we became friends. He called me because he was doing half an ironman and he wanted me to come with my kids to cheer him on.
Caroline was then won over by the energy that radiated from the environment surrounding the event.
“When I arrived while I was waiting for my friend, I saw all sorts of people arriving. Grandfathers, obese, teenagers.
“These people have trained these three disciplines and obviously they are not superheroes. I figured I could do that too.”
His friend arrived after the deadline, he wanted to finish. He received as hearty applause as the first. The spell worked.
“In an Ironman, the first few are more intimidating than inspiring. There are many who have arrived in the last two hours and are inspiring.”
Unprepared
We are then in 2012. Caroline decides to start training to compete in a first half-Ironman the following year.
“I started swimming in the fall of 2012, started running in 2013 and ran 300 kilometers before my first Ironman. When I finished I cried my life because I was in pain. I was done at about 6:55 am. I was ill prepared.
She then prepared better and made three more running backs. This year, for the first time, she will attempt a full Ironman, which includes a 3.8km swim, 180km bike ride and a full 42.2km marathon. She hopes to have it ready in 15 or 16 hours.
For her, the pandemic has changed the way she works out, and she’s still holding onto it a little to stay sane.
“COVID changed my approach, it was less than 5 to 7, we saw fewer friends. I bought a treadmill.
“When I had so much time, I trained a lot. My children have suffered greatly from COVID and I wanted to show them that they must not give up. It brought me a lot of discipline, focus and consistency.”