by Julie Moss
Only one question remained: how deeply would Mark reach down to win this race? Will he carry through? Blow out? Find himself back in the hospital? Great athletes push themselves to the furthest extremes to win. Mark’s Kona hospitalization in 1987 from overexertion, and the resulting severe abdominal distress, reminded me of an even worse incident. In the late 1970s, the future Boston and New York Marathon champ Alberto Salazar collapsed after valiantly trying to knock four-time Boston winner Bill Rodgers off his perch in the prestigious Falmouth Road Race. Salazar gave so much that his body temperature hit 107°F—a normally fatal number. He even received last rites at the site. Mark’s situation wasn’t that bad, but it was serious enough to make anyone think twice about tackling Kona again. As for Salazar? He survived to become one of the greatest distance coaches in the world.
Mark and Dave arrived at Mile 23. Mark noticed Dave struggling slightly, so he started throwing jabs, little surges, forcing Dave to battle back. Surges work great on uphills, because you control the pace to make your opponent suffer. After they catch up, you burst again, and again, until your little surges have softened the opponent for your upcoming big move. The key is to make sure your legs can handle the opponent’s responses, and to save plenty for the closing push.
Mark threw down this surge strategy after already swimming, biking, and running 137 miles, and flying through the marathon at a six-minute pace, an all-time Ironman marathon record if he could hold it. As I stood in the press truck, I knew that only a Superman could fight off surges like these. Dave certainly proved he was a Super Ironman, time after six previous times. Who would wear the cape today?
We found out very soon. When they reached the Mile 24 aid station, Mark saw his tiny opening, his “cubic centimeter of chance,” as Carlos Castaneda put it in The Teachings of Don Juan. He took off. He didn’t stop or grab a drink, but he sure as hell accelerated. “When it was time to go,” he told me afterward, “it was like being shot out of a cannon.” Mark was going to conquer his twin Ironman demons, Dave Scott and the final stretch!
All I could think about was how hard Mark had worked for this moment, and the triumphant, celebratory, loving vibe that would permeate our wedding.
Quickly, I jumped off the press truck and tried to shortcut to the finish line before they arrived. It wasn’t easy, since I’d just swam, biked, and run all but fifteen miles of the Ironman World Championship myself.
A few minutes later, Mark crossed the line to wild cheers in a record time of 8 hours, 9 minutes, and 14 seconds. Someone gave him an American flag, which he carried across the line to accompany his wall-to-wall smile. He wrapped up his Ironman with a stunning marathon time of 2 hours, 40 minutes—a record that stood until Patrick Lange, one of an incredible crew of Germans racing today, broke it in 2016 with a 2:39:45 on his way to a third-place finish. In 2017, Lange won it all with a new course record time of 8:01:40, beating Craig Alexander’s mark of 8:03:56, set in 2011.
To give you an idea of Mark’s marathon, imagine yourself running an 18:55 5K. That’s a very good time for any recreational runner, just over six minutes per mile. Imagine holding that pace for a marathon, after swimming 2.4 miles and biking 112 miles in lava fields and 100°F heat. Now hit that time with your archnemesis working to wear you down.
After almost thirty years, the same word still surfaces when I review this race: WOW. It felt so good to support my fiancé on the day he took over the sport.
At the finish line, I chose to let Mark’s parents and family congratulate him first. We weren’t married yet, and I wanted them to share the moment fully. Mark’s dad, Space, was so proud. Space had criticized Mark’s initial decision to make a career of triathlon racing, thinking it a fool’s waste of time. Now, it must have felt like Mark won Olympic gold. Kona was the grand prize, our virtual Olympics. And Mark was Zeus, standing high atop triathlon’s Mount Olympus. Seeing his son ascending as both the world’s highest-paid and finest triathlete made him beam like any proud father. It was really heartwarming.
Meanwhile, Mark’s mother, Sharon, was sobbing. I thought it was because she was so proud of her son, which is very true. But only in 2017, when I watched my son, Mats, suffer for mile after mile in his first Ironman in South Korea, did I understand Sharon’s deeper feelings, how this race can reduce mothers to tears. How does a mother resist the urge to run on the course and make it somehow less exerting for her child? It’s such an anti-maternal thing to watch your kid run an Ironman.
In Korea for Mats’ first Ironman in 2017, I encouraged his girlfriend, Megan, to greet him first at the finish line. I’m sensitive to those who’ve stood on the sidelines, supporting their loved ones through training and racing. They went through it together; they should celebrate first together.
After the race, I refocused on wedding plans while Mark enjoyed the post-victory buzz. Nike flew him to Oregon for a series of promotions, and his manager, Charlie Graves, lined up other events. Special flyers were sent out, along with press releases, for the Wide World of Sports broadcast, what people were starting to call an “Iron War.” I loved seeing Mark reap his rewards. He deserved it. He conquered his twin demons, Dave Scott and Kona, to complete a perfect 10–0 season. How anyone goes undefeated for an entire year of triathlons, I don’t know. So many things can go wrong.
Our wedding took place at Neimans in Carlsbad, a restaurant my brother, Marshall, managed. Originally known as the Twin Inns and built in 1896 on the corner of Carlsbad Village Drive (formerly Elm Avenue) and Carlsbad Boulevard, the majestic, three-story white Victorian is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. For the stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age, the Twin Inns became a favorite restaurant stop between Hollywood and the Del Mar Racetrack. The Duke Room was named for frequent guest John Wayne. Cindy Conner’s mother used to take FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to lunch at the Twin Inns and then off to bet the ponies at Del Mar. We Carlsbad kids took great pride in the Twin Inns’ grandeur, its distinctive chicken marquee, and its history; it was built by two of Carlsbad’s original land barons, Gerhard Schutte and D. D. Wadsworth. They developed the property while the Southern California Railroad connected Carlsbad to the world. In 1976, my high school senior class picture was taken there.
I spent the night before our wedding in a Carlsbad hotel with my college roomie, Lisette, and her husband, Ben. However, on our wedding day, I did something a bit differently: I got up at 4:45 A.M. and drove to Mission Bay to run with my teammates, the Magic Bullets. David Lesley, who coached me for years, paced me to a sub 1:24 half marathon, a strong workout time. I took the leftover tulle from my wedding dress and stapled it to my visor. Throughout the run, folks congratulated me as I passed them.
The downside? I was the first who wanted to leave my own wedding. I was so tired.
Our big day arrived. We would marry in the majestic central ballroom of the Twin Inns, a round room wrapped by windows. We had every reason to celebrate. We were in my hometown, with our friends, and with Mark riding the crest of his greatest life achievement. Twenty million people had just watched the Iron War on TV. We were pretty popular in our crowd of family and friends.
The guest list kept growing until we recited vows, it seemed. While trying to accommodate this ever-increasing horde, which included the who’s who of triathlon, I realized how far we’d come since my first Ironman. We weren’t a disconnected smattering of triathletes anymore. We were a full-blown community. In seven short years, we’d gone from being a freak show to among the most admired groups of athletes in the world. We’d also become a tight crew, for the most part.
At my wedding, I met Wendy Ingraham (“Wingnut”), who came as Mark Montgomery’s date. Wendy had just returned from an ultra event in Brazil with a super tan, legs up to her neck, and a little black dress borrowed from Paula Newby-Fraser, two sizes too small. Wendy’s legs were there for all to see. My first words to her were, “You know, you’re not supposed to upstage the bride at her own wedding!” I was joking, and we’ve been good
friends ever since, but Wendy, I admit, those legs were showstoppers!
“I’d never met Julie before that day,” Wendy recalled. “I’d only really gotten to know who she was during the past few years, after I’d become a triathlete. I’m not sure what she was so worried about on her wedding day, because she looked fantastic, like the happiest girl on earth. And after her wedding day, we became good friends and got together whenever we could for workouts and visits.”
A few years later, in 1997, “Wing,” as many of us still call her, joined me in the “crawl across the line” club when she and Sian Welch finished off a historic duel in Kona by both crawling across.
Our wedding featured many little touches that reflected our love for each other. Our officiant, Carol Janis, wore a vestment we bought in Guatemala in 1987. Mark didn’t know it was a vestment at first, thinking it a beautiful work of embroidery, but it came in handy for the ceremony. My attendants were Sue Robison, Lisette, and our housemate, Alana. Her daughter, born three years before in the hot tub of our sunroom in Vista, was our flower girl. Mark’s attendants included his younger brother, Gary; his half brother, Bobby; my brother, Marshall; former triathlete George Hoover; Mark’s massage therapist, Mike; and his high school friend Eric.
My mom handled the flower arrangements. A very frugal woman, she decided we could replicate a florist’s touch for pennies on the dollar. Her plan was to force-bloom paperwhites, or narcissus. It’s a pretty foolproof flower bulb to force. Earlier, we planted enough to make three pots of paperwhites for each of our forty tables. The scent of 120 pots of blooming paperwhites could cover up the smell of a toxic dump, but they were inexpensive and really pretty and went with our “Christmas on the Cheap” theme.
My grandfather, Henri Tubach, walked me down the aisle. Grandpa T was the world’s proudest ninety-five-year-old man as we proceeded toward the wedding party, looking fabulous in his tux and tails. He and Mark decided they alone would wear tails; the other groomsmen were in standard tuxes. Grandpa T gave us a wonderful toast as well: “To Mark and Julie, may you be champion lovers for life.” Today, Mats carries Henri as his middle name.
Also on hand for our big day was my father, who I decided to invite though I had not seen him since my high school graduation, thirteen years before. He came in a sign of reconciliation, which began a process of integrating him into my adult life. Sadly, he passed three years later.
For our honeymoon, we originally thought about embarking on a romantic getaway with plenty of surfing. Bali, Tahiti, Fiji, and Tavarua floated through our minds. However, we set off instead for Santa Fe and Taos, a good 800 miles from any ocean. It wasn’t for lack of trying. We kept seeking places in the South Pacific, but airfares and room rates were astronomically high. Of course they were: It was December, high season for the South Pacific. We didn’t know any better. For the past six years, we’d been in the enviable position of having tickets booked for races, special events, TV shoots, and our other duties. Our surf-related plan fell out the window.
During the year, we’d talked about remodeling our Cardiff home in the classic Spanish style. Now it was more than talk. We were going to use our off-season to move on it. For that reason, we chose to head to Santa Fe, eat some good food, walk around and gather ideas, and then ski in Taos for a couple of days. It was a very practical, pragmatic decision. (Remember our engagement night talk?)
I really enjoyed Santa Fe. Its centuries-old artist colony still attracts painters and sculptors who work in studios along Canyon Road, the classic main street. We walked around this architectural and archaeological wonderland, studying numerous buildings in the Spanish pueblo style we both loved. We stayed at La Fonda on the Plaza and upgraded to the King Room; after all, I was married to the King of Ironman, right? Our room was luxurious, with indigenous, handcrafted Southwestern décor, an inviting Kiva fireplace, and a private balcony and rooftop terrace that gave us a great view. Our best meal happened at El Farol, a tapas restaurant, where we enjoyed live music, a flamenco dance show, and Wild West–style bullet holes in the front of the bar!
From Santa Fe, we drove north to Abiquiu to see the great artist Georgia O’Keeffe’s home and works. I looked forward to studying her portraits of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes from her home studio. Our visit recalled my lifelong admiration of powerful women and role models that began when I watched Anne Francis in Honey West. In her life and work, Georgia was very badass, “The Mother of American Modernism.” She was also a great wife and creative partner to famed photographer and art promoter Alfred Stieglitz.
I could easily see parallels between Georgia and Alfred in Mark and me. Both were successful in their respective fields before joining their lives together, to grow something exclusively their own. It seemed like the life we’d begun. I also learned that my quest to be at Mark’s side was not the most famous case of determination in the relationship world. From 1915 until 1946, Georgia and Alfred exchanged about 25,000 pages of letters. Sometimes, they’d write three letters of up to forty pages per day! Their letters reveal a relationship that evolved from admirers to lovers to spouses to exasperated long-marrieds. The first volume of these letters came out in 2017. Within one sits my favorite quote: “You—believing in me—that making me belief in myself—has made it possible to be myself.”
With that strong, beautiful affirmation of love and commitment, we headed into the 1990s atop not only the triathlon world, but our own world as well.
CHAPTER 13
Shifting Focus
I felt done. Burned out and completely done, having achieved the goal outcomes for which I’d been striving since 1982: a strong relationship, success in triathlon, and finding purpose in my life. Ironman, triathlon, and I grew up together. I felt great purpose in racing and promoting the sport. Plus, I was in love and married to the fittest man in the world. My 1989 season was so fantastic, with the two major victories and Mark’s first Ironman World Championship, I wondered: Is this it? Does it get any better than this? After all, I was thirty-one—how does it get better after thirty?
What else could there be?
Every professional athlete faces this question and feeling at some point, and it’s an issue. Scott Tinley writes beautifully in his book, Racing the Sunset, about how tough it is for an athlete to walk away from the cheering, adulation, and adrenaline of competition and being on center stage. Not to mention walking away from something at which you’ve been a major success. I’d been racing for nine seasons, a long haul in professional triathlon. I didn’t know if I would ever train six to eight hours per day again, or if I even wanted to step on the line. I saw what it took for Mark to keep up his championship training. Sometimes I felt like working hard. Sometimes I didn’t. The very thought of Mark’s regimen drained me. Perhaps, if some competitive opportunities knocked that didn’t involve racing for ten or eleven hours at a time, I would jump back in. Why throw more wear and tear on my body for a mediocre result when there were other spectacular things I could be a part of?
I spent much of 1990 distracted from racing. We were elated newlyweds remodeling our Cardiff home after the honeymoon/scouting trip to Santa Fe. The remodel was well underway by the time we left for Boulder during the summer, so we left the project with our friends and neighbors, Steve and Becky Bedford. When we came back in the fall, it was done.
Meanwhile, Mark’s weekly workouts boggled my mind: 350 miles of cycling, 60 to 65 miles of running, and 10 miles of swimming, much of it at very fast speeds. Just before heading back to Kona, he knocked off five 300-meter swim intervals in under three minutes apiece. That’s borderline speedboat, an “Animallen” moment. His coach, Jeff Milton, told City Sports, “It’s the fastest I’ve ever seen someone do that workout.”
In supporting his success, I had the distinct advantage of knowing what it took to compete for Ironman titles. I’d been telling Mark since 1982 that he could become the world’s most dominant triathlete. Now that he was, he openly welcomed m
y decision to focus on his training and racing instead of my own. “It’s helped a lot. The last couple of years when we were racing together, we’d both be stressed out at the same time. So, say someone needed to go to the store, neither of us would want to,” he told our good friend at Competitor, publisher-editor Bob Babbitt.
Seven years later, Mark would return the favor.
We flew to Chile for the Pucon Triathlon in 1990. A year earlier, we had arrived with our relationship status an open question. At least in my mind. Now, my husband successfully defended his title, while I recorded a Top 5 finish. Later, we won the men’s and women’s titles at the Säter Sweden Triathlon, the fourth (and final) time we shared the podium—but our first as husband and wife. I also returned to Kona, where I lasted for six miles of the run before shutting it down to focus on Mark’s successful defense of his title.
I felt ready to have a good Ironman, but my race sucked from the beginning. Without a clear vision, I had no backup plan. I couldn’t muster the willpower to push past the pain and lean into the abyss into which I so willingly dove in 1982. In many ways, I’d turned into the opposite of that young woman. My perception of success left me unprepared to face the dark reality of those final miles. I resigned myself to thinking it wasn’t a big deal, and if I dropped at six miles, I would at least be at the finish to meet Mark.
My decision cost me. I gave up on the most essential part of myself: the girl who would do anything to get across the finish line.
That became the motivating factor behind my races in 1991.
I burned with desire to become a better distance runner. I needed to settle a score with naysayers who didn’t feel I was a strong runner. It bugged me. I’d hear things like, “She’s all right in the run, but late in the race . . .” or, “she’s such a good swimmer and cyclist, but that run . . .” Despite my success, I was still known as the girl who didn’t run very well. What if I took all this cross-training and applied it to running? It was winter, we were in San Diego, and I knew the Olympic Trials were coming in a year. I thought, Well, let’s see what you can do.
