JUST FINISH

“Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.”*

In 1982, Julie Moss, a 24 year old California college student, wanted an easy project to complete her Physical Education degree. One day she saw a broadcast of the Ironman Triathlon held in Hawaii and was drawn into the idea of trying it. Although not highly competitive in sports, Julie surfed the California coastline, felt herself to be in good shape, and figured entering the Ironman would be a straightforward pick for her project. It looked like fun.

Ironman’s Triathlon begins with 2 ½ miles of swimming in the Pacific, 112 miles of biking inland, and ends with a 26 mile marathon. Julie trained for each of these events, but did not reach the point of completing any of these distances before the actual race. How hard could it be?

Despite or perhaps because of such a breezy attitude, at the end of the biking leg Julie found herself in second place. The woman in lead, Kathleen McCartney, had slowed down after spraining her Achilles heel, and not long into the marathon, Julie pulled a mile ahead of Kathleen.

The unexpected success began a series of shifting attitudes in Julie’s mind. The competitive drive kicked in first. “I’m good at something, and somebody is trying to take something I am now attached to.”(1) Maybe she was actually going to win the women’s triathlon, to own the race.

Four hundred meters to the finish line, Julie’s body began to break down. She had not taken in sufficient nutrition and water and now came a “train wreck”, as she put it. Her paced slowed considerably, then ABC network cameras witnessed her legs buckle like a drunken sailor and her body crumple to the road. She formed a kind of tripod with her forearms and pushed herself up, hobbled a ways, trotted a few steps. She fell and dragged herself up several times. At last she collapsed onto her back, legs and arms splayed in utter exhaustion. This must be what dying felt like. Moments before, Julie’s thought was “this race is mine;” now she was of a mind to surrender to the relief of lying there. “I quit.”

Then out of her peripheral vision, she saw tennis shoes and legs go by. Kathleen McCartney, who had been 20 minutes behind her, swooshed to the finish line. Julie could see that finish line; it was just ten feet away. Julie’s whole being became still, and she heard a voice in her head say, “Get up. Just keep moving forward.”

Well, she couldn’t get up.

But…she could crawl. She later said she knew “my life was going to be different; I was changing. I made a deal with myself. I don’t care if it hurts; I don’t care if it’s messy; I don’t care how it looks. I would finish.” On hands and knees, literally one inch at a time Julie indeed moved forward amid TV cameras and cheering spectators. Finally she lay down belly up and flopped over that white line.

Enthusiasts of the event have expressed that Julie changed the nature of the Ironman forever. Competitively speaking, she did not win, but with every fiber of her being, she owned that race. It was not pretty, yet her struggle became her glory. Over the years people have told her that seeing her that day on TV inspired them to get up off the couch and challenge themselves in new ways. Through her, one of the Ironman mottos became “Just Finish.”

(1) Quotes taken from an interview with Julie on RadioLab (http://www.radiolab.org/2010/apr/05/limits-of-the-body/).

*G.K. Chesterton (British Christian apologist, humorist, and man of letters – 1874-1936)
**See Julie's race