“I think she’s wearing out, Shelli. Now’s your chance to kick it into gear and catch her.”

Those were the last words Bend cyclist Shelli Zulauf heard from her trainer, Moori Stewart, on a pleasant late-June afternoon in 2010 before being struck by an SUV while riding toward town on Century Drive.

Zulauf had been on a training ride with Stewart and one other woman to prepare for the Deschutes Dash triathlon in Bend when she was involved in an accident that landed her in the hospital for 20 days.

When Stewart, Zulauf and Susan Duffy were most of the way through their planned ride, Stewart, a personal trainer in Bend, instructed Zulauf to pull ahead of her to catch Duffy, the leader of the three, while maintaining a single-file line in the bike lane. When Zulauf was several bike lengths ahead of Stewart, a black Dodge Durango approached the group from behind.

According to police in a story published in The Bulletin shortly after the accident, the driver of the Durango swerved in front of Stewart onto the shoulder of the road, then overcorrected, hitting Zulauf’s right side with the left front panel of the vehicle.

Based on the speed-tracking feature of her sports watch, Zulauf determined that she was traveling at 16 miles per hour before impact with the SUV and accelerated to 48.3 mph once she was hit.

Police said the vehicle traveled sideways 75 yards before hitting an embankment across the opposite lane and flipping.

“It skyrocketed her to the yellow (center) lines,” Stewart remembered in a recent interview. “When I got to her she was laying on her left side … and not blinking, but her eyes were wide open. There was a split second where I went, ‘I’m looking at my friend, and she’s dead.’ ”

Zulauf, who was 40 at the time, and the driver of the SUV were both taken to St. Charles Bend, where the driver was treated for minor injuries and released. But Zulauf was in critical condition and spent nearly three weeks in St. Charles’ intensive care unit. Initially charged with third-degree assault and reckless driving, the driver, after pleading no contest, was convicted of the lesser offense of careless driving and was ordered to perform 200 hours of community service.

According to Zulauf, who is a mother and a stepmother, her many injuries from the accident included fractures of her skull, her clavicle, both scapulas (shoulder blades), her back (in two places), nine ribs, and the two bones in her lower right leg, which, she said, nearly resulted in amputation of the lower leg. She said she also suffered a punctured lung and short-term memory loss that has prevented her from returning to her job as an X-ray technician.

In addition to six surgeries, she said she has undergone countless hours of physical therapy, speech therapy, and counseling. But the now 43-year-old Zulauf has finally completed the triathlon for which she was training in the months leading up to that terrible accident: the sprint triathlon in the Deschutes Dash Weekend Sports Festival.

“I finally succeeded in the goal I set out for myself,” Zulauf said at the finish line of Sunday’s race in Bend’s Riverbend Park. “And for me it wasn’t allowing someone else (to) dictate whether I finished a goal. And I did it. Three years and six surgeries later, I’m finally a triathlete.”

Zulauf went into the race believing she would complete the 800-yard swim, 12.5-mile bike ride and 5-kilometer run in two hours. She surprised herself, along with her supporters, by completing the race more than 25 minutes faster than her projected time. Her official time — 1 hour, 34 minutes, 32 seconds — put her 10th among 17 finishers in the women’s 40-44 age division.

“The best part (was) crossing the finish line,” Zulauf said. “That’s what I’m going to remember. And I passed a guy right at the finish line too. That was pretty cool.”

Training for the sprint triathlon in the Deschutes Dash posed nearly impossible obstacles. To begin with, Zulauf said, she has severe nerve damage in her right leg, the result of compound fractures of her tibia and fibula suffered in the 2010 accident. The nerve damage usually requires Zulauf, a former competitive distance runner, to walk for most of a run. In Sunday’s triathlon, however, she managed to maintain a jog through the entire 3.1-mile run — a goal she did not believe was achievable.

“I had to be really careful, and still am because I have some nerve damage and also damage to my lymphatic system,” Zulauf said before Sunday’s triathlon, her first race of any kind since that fateful bike ride three years ago. “I have a tendency to have a lot of swelling and my foot drops (while running). If I don’t lift my foot high enough, my toes will drop, and I will trip. I think that’s one of the challenges for this triathlon.”

Part of her recovery prior to the race was learning how to accept her physical condition. After the accident, Zulauf was in a wheelchair for four months. Then she used a walker, several different types of canes, a walking boot and orthotic devices before she was able to walk on her own.

“I had to see a counselor because my body looked different,” Shelli remembered, “and it was shameful for me. I had to learn how to react when people stared at my scars.”

The biggest obstacle, however, has been overcoming the post-traumatic stress disorder that she said developed following the accident.

“There’s a lot more that goes into an injury like this,” Zulauf said. “It’s scarring mentally, emotionally, physically … I figured that if I did everything I was supposed to do, I would be OK. I think the accident took away my sense of security.”

Until last year, Zulauf said, she was unable, physically or emotionally, to even get on a bike. The first time she rode after the accident was last summer in Yakima, Wash., with her husband, David Zulauf. As Shelli recounted, they remained on a bicycle path away from automobile traffic, but when they approached a vehicle overpass she broke down in fear after hearing a car pass.

“A car came by on the side I was hit and I had a major panic attack,” she remembered. “I was literally frozen in fear. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. My palms were sweating and I had to get off my bike. I just sat there crying.”

After that experience, Zulauf stayed off her bike until she and David took a trip to the Netherlands this past April. She was able to build her confidence in the northern European country, where strict liability laws state that the motorist is always at fault in a vehicle-bicycle collision.

“It’s a very bike-friendly country,” Shelli Zulauf said. “Over there, if a motorist hits a cyclist, they’re in a lot of trouble. It’s not like the (United) States … I mean, they have to go to jail. We did that so I could get used to being on bike trails near traffic and hearing cars.”

Once the Zulaufs returned to Bend from the Netherlands, Shelli began training for the Deschutes Dash. She continued building her confidence by riding on quiet streets in town before she revisited the crash site. Because the bike portion of the Deschutes Dash course runs past the accident scene, she knew she had to test herself to see if she could emotionally handle the ride.

“The first time I went past it, I was crossing the impact zone and got a flat tire,” she recounted. “Then it brought back all those memories and it was awful. So we had to pull off the road (her husband was riding with her) and we had to sit at the scene where I got hit for 15 minutes changing a tire!”

During her sprint triathlon Sunday, the memories of that flat tire and the accident came flashing back to her. But the bike ride, it turned out, was not the most difficult stage of the race.

“The run was the most challenging,” she said. “I was afraid I was going to trip so I kept telling myself, ‘Lift your foot. Lift your foot.’ I caught my toes a couple of times, but never went down.”

Stewart believes it was Zulauf’s courage that allowed her to overcome her emotional and physical hurdles.

“She has a light, and she’s not going to let that light go out that makes her uniquely her,” Stewart said. “Whenever I’ve been in Shelli’s presence, she radiates an inner strength.”

When Zulauf crossed the finish line at Riverbend Park on Sunday morning, her small but passionate group of supporters embraced her in tears of joy and pride.

“I love her so much and I’m so proud of her,” David Zulauf said, weeping after watching his wife complete the race. “She’s been so determined. She’s been through so much and she’s worked so hard.

“Words fail me.”