Inspiration From Sarah Reinertsen

Life hasn’t been easy for Sarah Reinertsen. She was born with a bone-growth disorder which forced her to be amputated above the knee as a seven year-old child.

It took several years before she became comfortable with her body image. Never in her wildest dreams could she have guessed that she would eventually grace the covers of major magazines such as Runner’s World and ESPN The Magazine, but that is exactly what happened…

In her own words,

“But I remember when I started running, being in the gym for the first time. I started lifting weights and I was like, ‘Wow, I got a biceps under here! I got some quad under here!’ I remember feeling, like, totally empowered. Like, ‘I have this weird-looking leg, but I can get these really ripped arms!’ Like, ‘Look at this leg; this could be a leg of steel.’ And that totally motivated me. It was like I could create the body I want.”

Once Sarah got started, she was hard to stop. At age 13, she broke the 100-meter world record for female above-the-knee amputees. That was only the beginning. Shortly after, she became the youngest member of the U.S. Disabled Track Team. She was only 16 years old when she went to compete in Barcelona as part of the US Paralympic Team.

Over a decade later, she became the first female leg amputee to complete the Ironman Triathlon World Championship in Kona, Hawaii.

Her completion of the race in many ways symbolized the rest of her life. It didn’t come easy. In fact, her first attempt to finish the race in 2004 resulted in failure. She was disqualified after failing to meet the necessary time in the bike portion of the race. She came back even stronger in 2005, finishing in just over 15 hours.

Her relentless determination and desire shouldn’t come as a surprise however. Sarah has had to work harder than most people throughout her life.

As she describes,

“Look, I’ve had to always work out harder just to walk down the street. You know what I mean? I hop in the shower everyday. Standing on one leg for hours. I ski on one leg. So just physically, to live, I’m using my body way more just to keep up. So I think my body has been trained its entire life. Not just in the gym, but just to like get up and do [whatever]. I feel like I’ve been training my whole life for this body, but I don’t know if I wasn’t born this way, if I had two legs, I could be a fat slob. I don’t know if I would have become an Ironman. I don’t know if I’d have become a marathoner. So maybe in some way, that was part of the gift that gave me this body.”

As you can see, Sarah doesn’t make excuses. She didn’t blame her leg when she failed in 2004. She got right back in the gym and started working harder.

She’s worked hard for everything that she has accomplished and is still going strong as at age 36. She continues to compete in races around the world as she refuses to be sidelined by her disability.

For those interested, the video below was filmed shortly after her participation in the Ironman. It is well worth a look to see what this woman has endured and accomplished throughout her life.