I was recently on a power walk, frustrated that my 63-year-old hip had been getting increasingly sore during my workouts. Still, I felt proud to be facing my pain like some sort of hero. Then I met Lia Sterciuc. At age 55, this Kirkland resident just made history by becoming the first American to complete the Triple Deca Ultra-Triathlon Continuous, one of the longest races in the world. Hosted by the International Ultra Triathlon Association (IUTA) at Lake Garda, Italy, this race consists of a 114km swim, 5,400km bike ride, and 1,266km run over the span of 45 days. The total distance covered is 4,212 miles, and Lia was one of fewer than fifteen people to attempt it. What’s more, she finished in just over 41 days and won 2nd place with her husband, Ben, as her sole crew member.

     This accomplishment alone put me and my sore hip to shame, but as our conversation continued, my jaw dropped further. As it turns out, Lia didn’t begin running until 2013. As for swimming, she took her first lesson in 2017, determined to overcome her fear of water so she could compete in her first triathlon. Yet the challenges Lia faced prior to all this are what make her story truly remarkable. 

     Lia was born in the Transylvania Mountains of Romania and jokes that her relatives were descendants of Dracula. While later attending school in a Romanian town bordering Hungary, Lia met and married Ben Sterciuc at the age of 18. This was during the communist regime of Ceausescu, and Ben was determined for the two of them to escape. He went first, making it to the border of former Yugoslavia, but was captured there by the Romanian border guards and imprisoned for a time. Once freed, he made a second attempt and successfully escaped into Hungary, hiding in the ceiling of a train across Hungary to make it safely to a refugee camp in Austria.

     Once there, Ben arranged for a guide to help Lia escape. “The plan was to hike two miles through the woods to the Mureș River, then float/swim downstream for six hours to a waiting car in Hungary that would take us to Austria,” she recalls. It was November, with freezing temperatures, so with a waterproof bag of dry clothes attached to their waists, each escapee jumped in the river after receiving a shot of adrenaline to keep their hearts from stopping. “I remember being told the freezing water could kill us and thinking, ‘What about getting shot down the river? What about drowning? There were so many variables’,” Lia says. After floating for five hours, Lia’s extremities were numb, and she became incoherent. “When we couldn’t take anymore, we walked to the shore to get our bearings, stumbled over a foxhole, and were captured, beaten, and imprisoned.” 

     As fate would have it, a couple of months later the revolution happened in Romania and Lia was free to secure a passport. “When I called Ben to tell him I could finally meet him, he asked ‘When?’ in a shaky voice.” Lia suggested two weeks, but Ben said, “If you can’t be here by next Wednesday, don’t come.” She took his advice and the day after they were reunited, Austria closed its borders to the immigrants pouring in. “It was a miracle,” she says. After another year of waiting in the refugee camp near Vienna, they received their Visa and arrived in the U.S. in November of 1990, where they raised their son, Flavius, and daughter, Flavia, in both Bothell and Kirkland before settling in Kirkland.

     Lia embraced being a mom, so when her children left for college, she felt empty. “I needed to do something for my mind and my body, so enrolled in graduate school and started running,” she says. After running her first mile, she called Ben for a ride home as she was ‘dying.’ The next day she tried again, going a little further but still requesting a ride. “This went on until I set a goal and signed up for a half marathon,” says Lia. That was in 2013. In 2014, she completed the Vancouver BC marathon and began looking for her next race. After finding and completing her first trail marathon in Switzerland, Lia was hooked on trail races. 

     From then on, she would find unique races around the world and she and Ben would create vacations around them. From marathons she transitioned to ultra-marathons in Iceland, Italy, Switzerland, France, and across the United States, yet that wasn’t enough. Deathly afraid of water since her failed escape from Romania, on New Year’s Eve 2017, Lia wrote in her journal, “Fear is the silent destroyer of dreams. What are you willing to do about it?” Then she immediately registered for the IRONMAN Arizona Triathlon and enrolled in swim lessons. “I kept showing up with fear in one hand and determination in the other and while I am still a bit afraid, my fear no longer keeps me on the shore,” she says proudly.

     After successfully finishing her first triathlon, Lia learned there were ultra triathlons. She completed a Deca triathlon (10 Ironman distances) in Mexico and, last year, completed a double-Deca triathlon (20 Ironman distances) in Switzerland despite suffering a wrist fracture during the cycling portion. She continued to cycle with one hand in a cast, enduring rainstorms and tough conditions for 12 days. Then came the Triple Deca Ultra-Triathlon Continuous, which is held once every decade and was coming up in September of 2024. “I figured it was now or never,” says Lia, “but with no guide available on training for an event like this, I had to devise my own training regimen.”

     Lia’s days consisted of breakfast, swimming, lunch, workouts at Invictus Seattle, a second lunch, cycling, dinner, running, and often a weekend 50k run. As she says, “I had to train my mind and body to operate while tired.” With the race clock starting upon entering the water and continuing until she crossed the finish line, Lia existed on 3 hours of sleep per night during the Triple Deca while battling unusually poor weather with torrential rains and unseasonably cold temperatures. “The bike portion was the hardest as the roads were narrow and I had to share them with giant farming equipment during harvest season,” she recalls. “The course was very hilly as well with an overall climb nearly four times the height of Mount Everest.” 

     So how did she endure it? “I made it worse in my mind,” she admits. “I thought of my mom, who is diabetic and recently had an amputation. I thought of my grandma who lived and died toiling in the fields and never left her village. I thought of the sacrifice my family and I made to get here. Then I reminded myself that this pain, unlike the pain inflicted on me in my past, was my own choice. It was a privilege.”

     When asked what drives her to do such grueling events, Lia says, “In every race there comes this point where you must commit yourself to keep going, and nothing is more empowering than overcoming fatigue and self-doubt.” Ben calls this ‘the perpetual warrior mentality,’ but Lia also finds peace in her races. “In a society where multitasking is praised and the mark of every successful person, we rarely get to do one thing only,” she explains. “Running offers me that luxury of one mind where nothing is asked of me but to put one foot in front of the other. We all need that sometimes.”

     Despite all her accomplishments, Lia is most proud of her family. “To see our children and grandchildren living happy, successful lives here in the U.S. because we risked escaping from the oppressive Communist government fills our hearts to the brim,” says Lia. “I am also proud because Ben and I had every reason to be victims considering our past but made the choice to be warriors.”

     As Lia has learned, “There are seasons in life, and you should embrace them all. When my children left for college, I felt empty, but empty can be an opening to a new world if one decides to be bold. Unthinkably good things can happen even late in the game, and life can be such a surprise. So make room in your life for your dreams because they will make life beautiful.” In conclusion, she offers this further message of hope and encouragement to those whose lives may be difficult now: