Local runner answers tragedy with purpose

The race was supposed to last only an hour. Good, Julie Conner thought. Almost over. Almost time for her heart to begin beating again. Fifty minutes had elapsed, and she kept watching the bikes zoom by, kept seeing her husband race past with the rest before they would disappear into the backstretch of the motocross course, kept counting the seconds for the darn thing to finish.

It went like this over and over. The engines would roar, the bikes would whiz past, and on it went that day out at Sandy Valley in May 2006.

Until the lap when her husband didn't come by.

"I waited and waited as all the others made the turn and then saw the paramedics heading out to the back," she said. "So I ran over there with this sick feeling in my stomach that it was him. When I got there, he was just lying on the ground unconscious.

"He was 39, very active, a cyclist, in good health. We were just at that point of wanting to start a family, married 61/2 years and together nine ... He was gone in an instant."

The cause of death following an autopsy on Plaz Conner: unknown.

The result for his wife: a lifetime of questions.

Do you enjoy stories of strength? Of courage? Of insurmountable will? Julie Conner is a walking, talking, breathing, swimming, biking, hiking, climbing, running version of it all. She answered tragedy with purpose, responded to disaster with determination, intent on using her loss to help make women stronger in mind and body and spirit. She could have given up but instead chose to go on.

Conner today will compete in a short version of the Las Vegas Iron Girl Triathlon at Lake Las Vegas, where she will swim 500 meters, bike 12.5 miles and run another 6. She is doing the lesser distances because of another race in two weeks, a tiring and historic little monster called the Boston Marathon.

She ran before her husband died but began to increase her miles following that day at the motocross race. Strange. The more she ran, the closer she felt to him. That same year, she entered the Las Vegas Marathon and did well enough to qualify for Boston.

She spends her time now competing while continuing to build a business she and a close friend run out of a spare room in Conner's home. It's called Whooha Gear, T-shirts and other apparel made specifically for active women.

Simple but important messages are written on the shirts, ones about perseverance and faith and reasons for why you exercise, for why it's important not to give up in the face of catastrophe.

"We have met so many people along the way with their own struggles, people with cancer and other illnesses and others who have lost a ton of weight and others who have also experienced sudden deaths in their families," Conner said. "Everyone has a story. Everyone has faced something difficult in their lives. It lets me know I'm not alone. They inspire me, and our hope is our clothes inspire women to be healthy and positive about themselves.

"Made for women by women. To us, that's very important."

Death happens every second. Husbands lose wives and wives lose husbands and parents lose children and so much of it is senseless, like the real estate broker and third-generation Las Vegan in seemingly excellent shape who takes up motocross riding for the first time since he was a kid, enters a race merely for the fun and competition of it, makes it through 50 minutes, drops to the ground and is dead before Life Flight can lift him to a hospital.

In this, Conner is hardly alone, just another slapped in the face with reality when you least imagine it. She just reacted differently than many, refusing to allow her greatest loss to also kill her spirit within.

"You wake up thinking the person next to you will be there forever, and he's gone that same day and it's all over and you're alone," said Conner, 35. "The most frustrating part is, they have never really figured out what happened. A couple doctors thought it was due to an irregular heartbeat. But nothing certain.

"You pretty much end up having a little bit of every emotion. But gradually, you learn to get back into things you enjoy. For me, that's being active. I know he's proud of me. He was always my biggest cheerleader. I'll sometimes ask him for help at mile 20 of (a marathon). Sometimes, he even listens."

For information on Conner's clothing line, go to www.whoohagear.com.

Ed Graney's column is published Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. He can be reached at 383-4618 or egraney@reviewjournal.com.