Swiss extreme athlete Isa Pulver: this 53-year-old moves mountains and surpasses the men

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It’s raining as Wetziker Isa Pulver crosses the finish line at City Dock, Annapolis, Maryland, on June 23, 2023. Triumphantly she lifts the racing bike with her battered hands, the pain has miraculously disappeared, the hardships forgotten. Adrenaline flows through the body. “You cannot describe this moment, you have to experience it,” she says six months later, sitting at the kitchen table in her block apartment in Ittigen, Bern. “And once you feel this moment, you want to feel it again and again.”

Isa Pulver cannot be slowed down. A woman with a mission. The 53-year-old extreme athlete achieves feats on her racing bike that you unconsciously acknowledge with an admiring shake of the head, because they are so incredible that a “normal person” cannot believe them.

Annapolis is the destination of the world’s toughest cycling race, the “Race Across America” or RAAM, which runs annually from the west coast of the US to the east coast. It covers almost 5,000 kilometers with approximately 53,000 meters of elevation through twelve states, through deserts such as Monument Valley and mountain ranges such as the Rocky Mountains. Pulver reached the goal in June after nine days, eleven hours and six minutes.

At this point the fastest man, the Swiss Lionel Poggio, still had 170 kilometers to go, the fastest woman after the Swiss, the Canadian Leah Goldstein, still had almost 300. Pulver left them all behind and continued to sleep what she had would have been so urgently needed because she wanted to personally greet the participants in the finish area to congratulate them. She also received the honesty prize from the organizers for this gesture.

Next RAAM target in sight

She proudly shows the prizes that are lined up in Ittigen’s living room. A lot has been built up in the eleven years that she has been an ultra cyclist. She already won the RAAM once in 2015 and came third for the second time in 2019. But this summer she topped everything with her second win, didn’t she? “No, there are still goals,” says Pulver. For example, the women’s record with an average speed of 21.30 km/h. The American Seana Hogan has held this since 1995. Pulver covered approximately 5,000 kilometers this year at an average speed of 20.8 km/h. But how can you get even faster? A challenge that drives Pulver even more.

The competition plan for 2024 has been created. Isa and her husband Daniel Pulver, who is also her trainer, opted exclusively for races in Europe. RAAM is not on the schedule for next year. Not because Isa Pulver is afraid of the tension, but because it is simply not financially feasible. The American adventure costs approximately 70,000 francs, including all costs for preparation, travel, costs for the nine team members accompanying them, food, entrance fees and other items.

Winner prizes? There are not any. Not a cent. Despite the enormous financial scope, she wants to tackle the project again next year. She doesn’t want to wait any longer, the biological clock is ticking. “You never know if you will stay healthy,” says the 53-year-old.

Shock diagnosis of cerebral hemorrhage

As a physiotherapist she works with people with disabilities, including paralyzed people. Isa Pulver knows what health means and is worth. Also from my own painful experience. In March 2022, something was pounding in her head. She had just gotten on her bike and rode the four kilometers home from her workplace at the Rossfeld Foundation in Bern. The pain became so severe that she had to go to the emergency room. The diagnosis was shock: cerebral hemorrhage. Everything over? Will she ever be able to exercise again? Will you ever be able to talk normally again?

“It certainly helped that I am in top physical shape and mentally very strong. But I was also just lucky.” Isa Pulver fought back, got back on her racing bike eight weeks after the brain haemorrhage, pedaled over the boot and back into the “Race Across Italy”, 800 kilometers and 10,000 meters of altitude – as a warm-up lap, so to speak. A year later she won the toughest cycling race in the world in the US.

Rammed by the badger – next operation

Four weeks after this triumphant success, she had to rely on her luck again. She was training alone and cycling at night on a straight stretch between Grenchen and Solothurn when a badger darted out of the tall grass into the road and smashed into the side of the bike. Isa Pulver fell heavily and injured the ligaments in her right shoulder and suffered abrasions and bruises: hospital, surgery, recovery.

Recreation? It came up short again. Because Pulver had sporting goals and was aiming for victory at the 24-hour World Championships in California in early November. And when Isa Pulver plans something, it’s hard to stop her. With the handlebars prepared so that her injured shoulder was more comfortable, she raced around the track in 24 hours at an average speed of 30.4 km/h, leaving her favorite rival behind, who was surprised at how strong the powder was after the race . is already back. “I pushed her to the limit mentally,” says the Swiss, and you can feel the ambition bubbling behind the soft smile. Now she has done just that and is world champion in the 24-hour race.

And everything went well. Health played a role. Pulver shows off a small silver guardian angel that she has attached to her helmet and that accompanies her on every journey – a hard worker. Why does she do all this and, despite all she has achieved, not think about losing ground? She hears this question again and again. It is not that easy for her to answer that. But she tries.

Working with severely disabled people

In her work as a physiotherapist she also deals with severely disabled people. “They have to push their limits every day for very small successes,” and Isa Pulver wanted to know more about what that was like. She wanted to explore her own limits and bought a racing bike at the age of 39 after helping out at RAAM and absorbing the fascination of this event.

The career in extreme sports started in 2012 with the Tortour, a thousand kilometers around Switzerland in less than 48 hours. She then vowed never to do anything like that to herself again. Her bottom was torn open, her mental limits were explored, her capacity for suffering was exhausted. That is it? No, that was just the beginning, and in the years that followed Pulver pushed its boundaries further and further, under the motto: “Every goal is possible.”

The borderline experiences help Isa Pulver in her work to better understand her clients and provide them with better care. Conversely, she also helps her clients, who see what is possible, with a lot of will – a symbiosis. When Isa Pulver struggles with her pain on tour, for example in her buttocks or in her hands and feet, she thinks of her clients, of those who can no longer feel anything in these places, and that helps her to see the pain. as a friend to accept it and thus rob it of its effectiveness.

Dangerous hallucinations

They are psychological strategies that help her when she is completely at her limit again. She has many and they are also trained and practiced. Along the way in the seemingly endless American desert, she sang loudly along to Marc Trauffer’s songs as they blared from the speakers attached to the support vehicle. “Steep is cool” was very popular with Pulver. Or she called friends and family via a technical device on her helmet, brushed her teeth, ate, drank and played quizzes with her crew. Just don’t forget the biggest enemy: microsleep. You have to outsmart him, time and time again.

But if you’re on the road for almost ten days and only allow yourself two hours of sleep every 24 hours, because sleep is the biggest time killer, sooner or later you’re going to get terribly tired. And towards the end of the race, the hallucinations inevitably come. «Suddenly I could no longer organize my thoughts. I thought I was being harassed from behind by a woman who wanted to overtake me, I don’t know if it was by car, on foot or on a racing bike, but I thought it could be very narrow and dangerous so close to the ditch . I was in a parallel world, but one that was completely real to me at the time.”

At such delicate psychological moments, the team is called upon, especially her husband and coach Daniel. “Don’t worry,” he told her in a calm voice. “The woman is narrow, she can get past you quite well.” If he had said you were just imagining it all, it would have been the wrong strategy in this situation.

Keep going as long as you can

And what if all this is no longer possible because even an Isa powder cannot stop aging and time? “I am aware that this moment will come one day. I hope I can decide for myself.” But a lot still needs to be done first.

She works at the foundation 90 percent of the time, in the evenings after work she trains without a racing bike and on weekends she goes on long rides. In January she will go to Spain with her team for a training camp. Parts of the material are already packaged.

She then enters the planned competitions, chases victories and records, sets new goals and, if possible, pushes her limits even further. Isa Pulver cannot imagine any other life. Not yet. Keep pedaling as long as you can. That’s how she wants it. Every goal is possible.

Source : Blick