Julia Mallon

I love this photo for the obvious reasons: the juxtaposition of the powerful, beautiful runner on the right and the man in the wheel chair looking over his shoulder at her as he passes behind her in the opposite direction. He’s not an LA Marathon spectator but someone going about his business on the sidewalk. She’s running alone. They are the opposite in gender, in direction, in everything.

The runner looks to be Julia Mallon, one of the elite women. Here are her stats for the LA Marathon:

Time: 2:47:11

Sex Place: 11

Overall: 46

Age Grade: 81.1%

I only know about Julia Mallon because I looked her up after finding this awesome photo that accidentally ended up next to one of mine on marathonphotos, who were the race photographers. According to this article, she was a star distance runner in high school whose running career ended after a bad skateboarding accident that left her with pins in her legs and the docs unsure she’d ever walk again properly. So she finished college, went on to work for Morgan Stanley, married some dude who also works for Morgan Stanley, became a mom, and started running marathons somewhere in there, too.

You can read more about her here, here, and here. You can also read about the pressures of top caliber highschool runners, certain difficulties particular to adolescent girl athletes, and get an idea about what is wrong with America’s uber competitiveness…

It begins with the juxtaposition of this man in a wheelchair and this strong and beautiful runner.