Ruud's Story

The race that changed my life

It was early 2015 and I was looking forward to racing in the Dominican Republic. It was slated to be a lower level race compared to the Dubai Tour, which I had just finished, and my form was getting better. A teammate even said to me that I attacked too much and needed to race smarter but I just felt good and wanted to show my form. The next thing I remember was waking up feeling completely weak and having no energy. My mom was standing next to me. The first thing I said was, ¨Why are you here?”

My mom started crying tears of happiness because I was responding to her for the first time after being in the hospital for three weeks. That Dominican Republic race had finished two weeks ago, and I was in a hospital in Miami.

I crashed very hard on Stage 2 of the race. My memories of the event are completely gone, and they’ve never come back. Also, people never really told me what exactly happened. All I know is that my teammates said I crashed and I almost died. The crash left me with a major skull fracture and a bruised head concussion.

In those early days in the hospital, every moment of stress brought on a tremendous headache and the doctors advised to relax and even eat a nice meal after not eating for three weeks. Mom went and got me a Happy Meal. Oh, how happy we all were that I survived that crash. I shuffled through a few hospitals on my road to recovery, and they all took great care of me. I am thankful that I improved with consistent step-by-step progress.

The days saw me sleeping a lot and eating normally. There wasn’t much more that I was able to do. Even looking at a computer screen gave me a headache. I’m so grateful that I had my mother by my side throughout this whole process; she gave me the courage not to give up and was such a positive light throughout the experience. Eventually, I left the United States and flew to a hospital in my home country, the Netherlands. An additional three weeks and loads of tests, the doctor released me, and I headed home.

Home wasn’t exactly perfect; I still didn’t feel good and spent much of my time lying in bed. I was back to focusing on taking everything step-by-step. I also had to let the people who love me help me.

On a daily basis, almost nothing went well. Those activities like taking a shower or going grocery shopping weren’t possible. While I could walk down to the store, I wasn’t able to remember what I needed to buy and by the time I tried walking back up the hill, I was completely exhausted. I’d need to take breaks on the walk back and I’d arrive home completely drenched in sweat. I would lie down and sleep for at least half an hour to recover from such a simple activity.

My next step of real progress was getting back on the bike. My brother, who also races, took me out training for the first time. It was only 30 kilometers, which is nothing compared to the 25-30 hours a week I was spending on the bike before my crash. At some points in the season, I would do a 6 to 7-hour session and now one hour wasn’t possible. During that first ride, I ignored all the data like heart rate and wattage that previously defined my life and simply focused on how amazing it felt to pedal a bike.

As I recovered, I was able to start following a training schedule, and my discipline came back. I was determined to find my form from before the crash. The will of a professional cyclist was still there, and I knew that with patience and training, the results would return.

A question that I asked myself throughout this experience and one that still amazes me is, how did I have the focus and determination to return to that top form? I think it was my inherent sense of discipline and the fear of losing my dream job. I kept thinking about how I had worked so incredibly hard for years to earn this job. Worrying that it would simply slip away would have counted as one of the real disappointments in life. Being a cyclist was how I defined myself and suddenly I was worried I was losing my identity.

Finally, after weeks of fighting to regain form, I was selected to race in Germany and China. It was an affirmation that the worst period of my life had passed and I was back racing. Everything went well at those races, and I even fought to get into a few breakaways, which was always my favorite part of racing. My professional contract was renewed in 2016. The chapter of my crash closed and I was able to start focusing on the future. I returned to training, found my best shape ever and resumed proper diabetes management.   

My biggest piece of advice following this extremely challenging chapter of life is to never give up on what you want the most.

Ruud Cremers