FORT WAYNE – The podium that day was just a few humble steps high, but, Lord, what a view, if you were Nicole Borem. Mount Everest? K2? Some snow-skirted, sun-washed Alp?

Nothing compared to this postcard vista.

“Being on that podium,” Borem says, “kind of helped me realize how lucky I was.”

And just how lucky was that? Well, four months ago, back in September, she climbed on a bicycle for the first time since having surgery on her ankle in June.

Three weeks ago, she finished third in her age group and fourth in the women’s single-speed at the National Cyclo-Cross Championships, taking her place on the aforementioned podium.

Two weeks ago, in Louisville, she finished 15th in the masters world championships for riders 30 and older.

“Didn’t do as well as I’d have liked,” says Borem, 35, who took up BMX when she was 12, moved on to mountain biking after hurting her knee, and came to cyclo-cross – kind of a combination of the two, run on a closed course – in 1998.

“But it’s a one-day event, and everybody has a bad race sometimes. And 15th in the world is still way more than I ever expected.”

She could hardly feel otherwise, given everything she’s been through.

The ankle surgery would have been setback enough, but it came with some added goodies. A pulmonary embolism, to be exact. Put her off work for three months and in the ICU at Lutheran for three weeks.

“Didn’t think I was going to live,” she says.

She did, however, but then she wasn’t sure she was going to ride again. Three months after the surgery, she hauled out her beach cruiser (“My granny bike,” she calls it) and rode it to the end of the street and back. That didn’t kill her, either, but it sure felt like it was going to.

“It was exhausting,” says Borem, who lives in Warsaw. “After that, every week I would have a little goal, and my goal was just to ride five feet farther. That would be a great day for some people, but not my typical mileage.”

Her typical mileage, she says, is whatever she can cover in 12 to 15 hours of riding a week, spread out over six days. She wedges it into her work schedule – she’s a nurse/anesthetist – and uses the summers to build up her base, riding 18 to 20 hours a week.

That all went away last summer, which is why finishing third in the nationals was such a huge thing.

“You know, it’s great to talk about results, but even to just be able to race was a huge accomplishment,” says Borem, who was an all-state basketball player at Tippecanoe Valley and rides for the Men and Women of Steel Racing Team out of Fort Wayne.

“My third in the nation was a complete surprise to me because I really hadn’t raced a lot of national-level races. I was even in the lead at one point, and I remember saying, ‘I can’t believe this.’ Most people don’t even walk or anything at three months (after surgery), and it takes maybe six months to get your fitness back up. And here I was, trying to ride a bike at three months.”

And, at seven months, making the podium at nationals. Teammates Todd Andersen and Chad Tieman, meanwhile, won gold medals at the state championships in Bargersville; and Josh Johnson, another Men and Women of Steel member, recently helped Marian University win its first collegiate cyclo-cross national championship with a fourth-place finish.

“It’s a great sport,” Borem says. “It’s a good mix between mountain biking and BMX as far as physical conditioning, and it’s really technical. It’s a little bit more cerebral, and that I really appreciate.”

Along with much else these days.

bensmith@jg.net