Would you ride 56 miles in Miguel Tellez's shoes? Maybe not if you knew what happened to him last June.
Tellez, a triathlete from Aventura, was leading a race in Key Biscayne, going 40 miles per hour when he was struck by an SUV.
His bike crumpled, his body flew 20 feet in the air.
"I crashed hard," Tellez said. "There was a pool of blood, everybody thought it was really bad."
Tellez broke his wrist, his elbow, his helmet, he suffered a concussion, tore an ACL and MCL and needed stitches on his head and legs.
"I was actually very happy that day," he said. "Because I was happy to be alive."
Tellez could barely move for 3 months. And despite the physical and mental trauma, the first thing he wanted to do was get back on his bike and ride.
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About a year later, he finally got his wish. And now he's training for his first major race since the accident -- this weekend's Ironman Miami.
"It's gonna be a test," Tellez admits. "We'll see if my knee holds up and I will ever be what I used to be."
Tellez almost didn't get a spot in the race because when it sold out, he was still laying on his sofa, unable to move. But then the Blazeman Foundation came to the rescue.
Blazeman is a charity dedicated to fighting the war on ALS. The foundation made Tellez a "Blazeman Warrior," which gave him a spot in the sold-out race.
Tellez admits that at first, he only accepted because he needed a way in. But after learning about Blazeman and the story of its namesake, Jon Blais, who died of ALS in 2007, he's become a vocal supporter.
Tellez now uses Blais' story as motivation, and to take his mind off the accident that nearly killed him.
The Ironman Miami is Saturday.
