In 1982 Julie Moss was23 years old and attending her senior year. of Cal Poly, California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, Central California. She’s just another girl, the classic girl you might meet on a Santa Monica beach: blond, bright smile, amber skin of someone who gets outdoors a lot. She plays sports-she has also run two marathons-but not just running…Julie likes to surf, skate. He loves to move so much that he chose to study physiology. And just about movement physiology would like to talk about in his thesis. But not just by writing about it but rather from his own experience.
Thus, making the university’s motto (“Discere faciendo“, is Latin and translates to “learning by doing”), Julie decides to sign up for an IRONMAN starting with an assumption: can a normal girl-not a professional athlete-with no competitive experience, with a degree of training that is yes appreciable but certainly not professional- participate in and complete a grueling race like an IRONMAN, usually reserved for highly trained athletes?
So he decides to give it a try and, thanks to a documentary on TV, he opts not for just any race but for THE RACEpar excellence: Kona, Hawaii. He convinced the thesis advisor, got his mother to pay for his registration ($85, in those days qualification was not necessary), and a month before the race left for Hawaii with, by his own admission, little training in his legs and sleeping over at his parents’ friends. Inthose three and a half weeks he swims, pedals and runs all over the island. He enjoys, above all, hanging out with professional triathletes and getting advice from them.
And race dayarrives, Feb. 6. Julie is calm, swimming well, and the first change goes smoothly. On the bike she had set out to eat her candy bar – (from Snickers) – around the 40th kilometer but when she pulled it out she discovered that it had literally shattered in her shorts and all she had to do was wipe her caramel-stained hands right on them, even immortalized by a cameramen of ABC!
She still completed the fraction and, during the last transition, her bra broke. You tell me if this is not bad luck! He convinces a refueling attendant to borrow his and sets off again for the marathon. And this is where the unthinkable happens: Julie Moss, a California student on loan to triathlon, becomes the unlikely leader of the women’s leaderboard.
At 37 km Kathleen McCartney, already a professional athlete, joins her: she is behind her, spaced out. Julie thinks she can make it but at mile 40 she feels she is about to give up. He still holds out but his stomach is in turmoil, his vision tending more and more to blur.
And so it happens, but what happened changed IRONMAN forever: with just under 15 meters to go Julie Moss slumps to the ground, now dehydrated. He tries to stand up by pivoting with his arms-an image that will remain in history-but falls, again. He tries again, gets up and falls again. The crowd thronging the finish line fell silent, volunteers helped her but she shooed them away, worried about possible disqualification. He gets up – for the fourth time – and in front of him he sees the lights of the finish line. And it is at that very moment that McCartney overtakes her and crosses the finish line. Julie would later state that seeing “those white shorts and that rainbow logo” pass her caused her to wince, a mixture of wounded pride, sorrow, and collapsed self-esteem.
But it was no longer about winning, it was about not giving up on herself and everything she had done so far, finding that value, that glimmer of motivation that drives you forward.
“Find that value in yourself that drives you forward.”
He will take another 25 seconds to cross the finish line in turn, on all fours. The video recounting the feat is impressive. 11 hours, 10 minutes and 9 seconds to get the silver medal.
Not to be a champion but to become an icon.
Julie Moss, IRONMAN legend.
(Main image credit Robert Yheling/Telegraph. Other image: Carol Hogan/West Hawaii Today)
Bibliography:
– “Crawl of Fame: Julie Moss and the Fifteen Feet That Created an Ironman Triathlon Legend” by Julie Moss, Robert Yehling, Armen Keteyian – Pegasus Book, 2018 (English only)
– Winner Who Didn’t Finish Firts – by Vinent M. Mallozzi – The NewYork Times, Oct. 18, 2003