Julie Moss: The Crawl of Fame, and Finding Purpose and Personal Growth Through Sport
September 20, 2019
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Julie Moss is a Ironman triathlon legend whose 1982 crawl to the finish at the Ironman World Championships made sport history and inspired countless athletes to do a triathlon. Julie’s new memoir, Crawl of Fame: Fifteen Feet That Created an Ironman Triathlon Legend, is now available to the public and it is a very exciting and insightful read that dives into Julie’s personal story and her journey to finding purpose through triathlon. On this episode we chat with this incredible athlete who’s been racing triathlon ever since that fateful February day in Kona, Hawaii, most recently competing in the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Nice, France. We hear all about her career in triathlon, motivation, the spiritual connection in racing, and also how Julie now trains as a masters athlete.
What we discuss:
- The story of Julie’s “crawl of fame” at the Ironman in 1982 and how it changed her life.
- You are a champion for your own dreams.
- What is so important to me that you’d be wiling to crawl for it?
- Sport gets you to question: what are you willing to do to get to your goal?
- Central governor theory- not too easy to even reach this point of failure.
- The psychological, mental and spiritual component.
- Heart connectedness.
- How Julie got turned onto Ironman during senior year in college.
- Intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation:
- Emotional connection to feeling like you’re good at something; it’s not about competing against someone else.
- Pro triathlon back in the day and Julie, in her early 20s, being somewhat of a free spirit through it all.
- How Julie was red-lining for much of her training in the early days.
- Getting more serious about sport, starting to use a HR monitor, etc, around the time she started dating Mark Allen.
- Did Julie do MAF?
- Julie’s key to longevity in sport – long breaks and downtime between all the racing.
- Now in the past ~10 years she’s been able to train better, smarter, etc.
- The value of bricks/transition runs off the bike and why Julie ALWAYS runs off the bike!!!
- Julie outlines her weekly training that gets her to the level of qualification for world championship races in her 60s.
- Her recovery days, what do they entail? (Hint: not just days off resting.)
- Being self-coached.
- Breaking down transition runs into small pieces, and how incredibly helpful this is to build mental toughness for longer days.
- Incorporating walking into runs.
- Her race in Nice in 1989, where she had a breakthrough performance, winning the event and beating legend Paula Newby Fraser.
- Bringing your best.
- “Focus on your effort.” Other people do not determine your success!
- On writing the memoir and getting personal.
- Julie’s son with Mark Allen- he dabbles in triathlon and is pretty good, and also hiked the full PCT.
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