On the surface, Jamie Whitmore is a sporty mom who does typical mom things. Dig a little deeper, however, and there’s a lot more to this local woman. She’s followed her childhood dreams, had huge professional sporting success (former American triathlete turned para-cyclist), and faced major health obstacles. She’s exuberant when we speak and full of life. During our interview she says, “Sometimes when you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, you need to become the light,” and I well believe that of her.  

Please tell us about a typical day.

I get up, train, and then I do mom things; I have twin sons, a stepson, and a stepdaughter who’s only 22 days younger than the twins, so it's like having triplets. After making lunches, driving them to school, etc., I spend the day on podcasts or speaking engagements on Zoom or throughout the country, talking to schools and corporations. I’m also the Athletes' Advisory Council (AAC) rep for my para-cycling team, so I do a lot of interacting with athletes to ensure their voices are being heard. I train and work around my kids’ sports schedules, just as my parents did, and I also volunteer my time at a running club. 

How did you discover running and triathlon in particular?

An avid-runner friend in eighth grade suggested I run a mile, and it turned out I was pretty good at it! I put everything into running and decided I wanted to be professional athlete. I grew up watching football and baseball, the Olympics, my dad always had sports on TV, and I thought, ‘Man, that is so cool!’ I would see players thanking God in an interview—the same players who were showboating after making a touchdown. It bothered me. I wanted to be a pro in a sport because then I could truly thank God and make it about him and not me. I ran in college, then heard of triathlon; after I graduated, I told my dad I'd rather try that than get a job! I had to make a lot of sacrifices, but I turned professional with XTERRA and mountain biking in 2001. 

You went on to win 37 triathlon events and were the XTERRA World Champion in 2004 before you discovered you had cancer.

Yes, it was October and the 2007 World Championships. I knew something was wrong in the race, so vividly. I remember feeling a tingling in my left leg. I exited the water like normal, then took off on my bike, and about three miles into the ride, my left leg started cramping. It felt odd. Somehow, I shuffled my way to third place, but that night I still felt a weird tingling in my left hamstring. I took time off, as usual, and when I started up again, the tightness was so severe it was impossible to run. I could still bike and swim, however, so continued to do that. Then January came around, and I couldn't even do things like touch my toes because the hamstring was so tight.

The doctors thought it was an ovarian cyst at first, and then they started to describe it as a “mass.” I was in a lot of pain, waking-up-screaming-in-the-night pain, and after a biopsy was left with a Foley bag. No one was calling it cancer until after the tumor was removed, and then they started to discuss chemotherapy with me. I was so scared at that point—I had been planning a season of competing—and it was like a candle being snuffed out. I couldn’t breathe. My dad turned to me and said, ‘You just need a mustard seed of faith, and you can move a mountain, like it says in the Bible.’ And that was the flick of a switch that started my journey of knowing that this was happening to me for a reason, and it wasn't the end; that I had so much more, and that this was just part of my story, part of my journey. I was going to return to racing.

The tumor damaged your thigh and glute, severely impacting your ability to walk.  

I had physical therapy and Bob Babbitt from the Challenged Athletes Foundation (for athletes with disabilities) called my husband at the time and said, ‘Tell Jamie there's always the Paralympics.’ It felt like everything I had achieved and was wanting to still achieve was gone. I realized that for me to get back on a bike again, I needed to learn to walk. So, I started walking, and then the cancer came back.

Not only did the cancer return, but you contracted sepsis and discovered you were pregnant with twins.

So, at this point, I thought, ‘Okay, God, I will stop trying to ride the bike myself.’ I'm just going to live life, and when you're ready to let me ride a bike again, I’ll ride a bike. There were many obstacles; when I found out I was pregnant, I thought ‘I'm definitely not riding now.’ 

In 2011, you rode a bike for the first time after the diagnosis.  

I had to make quite a few adaptations to the bike and my technique, but I started racing again. Some of the races had me in tears, but in 2012 I raced in the Leadville Trail 100 MTB against able-bodied competitors and finished in under 12 hours. It was one of the hardest races I’ve ever done in my life! 

In 2013, I became a para-cyclist and was winning World Championship jerseys—all on my mission to get to the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games. I ended up earned the top ranking in 2016 to qualify for the games. 

Here I am, eight years [in remission], finally achieving my six-year-old dream. It wasn’t the Olympics, but it was so much harder, and I relish the fact that it was such a hard journey, because I live for taking the hard road.  

by Caroline Kings
Photo by Casey Gibson. Middle photo by Lisa Booko. Bottom photo by Casey Gibson.