On one hand, Nancy Stevens was just one among thousands of overachievers who swam, ran and biked 16 grueling miles to the finish line at Sunday's Tri for the Cure.

On the other hand, Stevens was on a journey all her own. And she has been, ever since - well, ever since forever.

"I grew up blind," she says.

And yes, she prefers the term blind over vision impaired because, as she puts it, with a laugh, "I have no vision to be impaired."

Vision didn't matter Sunday, when Stevens, the race's only blind entrant, finished with a time of one hour, 31 minutes and 31 seconds, or 428th among the 2,671 finishers.

As always, she credits her athlete-guide - who for this race was Taylor Goad, a 24-year-old Glenwood Springs woman - for making it all happen: "None of us does it alone," she says.

When it comes to physical challenges, the 46-year-old Glenwood Springs woman was in good company.

The fourth annual Tri for the Cure, held at Cherry Creek State Park, raises money for breast cancer research. A significant number of survivors take part. This is Stevens' 16th triathlon since 2002.

She's won two world championships in her category in the International Triathlon Union. Next month she heads for Hamburg, Germany, to defend her title again.

In just five years, she says, "I would never have believed I could get to the level I'm at. Again, it's this journey - you never know."

Well, neighbors in her hometown of Flint, Mich., might have known. As a kid, she was encouraged to take up any sport she wanted to. She even biked around her neighborhood all by herself (yes, you read that right).

She grew up and moved to Colorado to play the ski bum. In Frisco, she cross-country skied. In Winter Park, she was a downhill racer. She kayaked, jumped off cliffs in Hawaii, paraglided and swung on ropes.

She shares her can-do life by being a motivational speaker, which is how she makes her living. She calls her speech Jump-Start Your Heart: CPR for Your Dreams. She can be reached at nancyspeaks.com.

"The thrill is the unknown. It's the journey, the mental process you go through," Stevens says. "You have to take a risk. You can stand here clutching the cliff and saying, 'Oh, I can't do it, I can't do it.' We do that a lot whenever we start some sort of adventure, or college, or a career.

"Either you're going to stop yourself and say, 'I can't do this,' or you can say, 'How much can I do now?' "

Stevens grew up asking the question. In her athletic family of seven kids, she was cut no slack, nor did she want any. She got the cross-country skis, swam in the pool and rode a bike.

You'd never know she was the kid born three months premature, or that she lost her sight, as did thousands of "preemies' during that era, by being given too much oxygen at birth. "My family always included me," she says. "Nobody knew anything about guiding techniques. They just said, 'Let's go for it and figure it out."

Her parents even let her ride a bike - "very carefully," she chuckles.

"I would ride on the sidewalk, and sure, I crashed, especially if somebody had their car parked across the sidewalk. The neighbors would say, 'Hey, Nancy's out riding her bike - get the cars off the sidewalk!"

She even begged her folks to let her ride a bike to school. (Not a completely fanciful idea, she and her friend hatched a plan to put playing cards on her friend's spokes. Stevens would follow behind by listening to the click of the playing cards.)

Even for her adventurous parents, that was too much.

Instead, they got their daughter a tandem bike.

Working in tandem is a big theme in her life: "Whenever I do these things, it's because there are people willing to work with me and guide me."

When she ski-races downhill, "the guide is in front of me and calls out my turns."

When she runs, she's attached by a string to her guide.

When she swims, she and her guide stay connected with a bungee cord.

The value of teamwork was driven home a few weeks ago when she was competing in the swimming phase of the New York City Triathlon. When Stevens jumped from the barge into the Hudson River, the bungee cord linking her to guide Tinker Duclo snapped.

"All of a sudden, it went 'twang,' and I thought, 'Oh my God, I'm not attached anymore.' It was definitely an adventure race."

The two women found each other and coolly went back to the technique they use when training in a swimming pool - a series of taps to indicate whether there were obstacles or clear water ahead.

While Stevens laughs it off, Amy Downing, the founder of Denver's Tri for the Cure Race, cites the incident and says, "Nancy's the bravest person I've ever met."

For Stevens, such experiences make her appreciate the links between people.

"That's how all of us get through a triathlon - with the help of other people. In that way, I'm not really unique."

torkelsonj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5055

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