Nike “Unlimited Youth” celebrates an extraordinary athlete, Sister Madonna Buder, and her determination to defy conventional conceptions of age.
When Sister Madonna Buder needed a little extra to complete her first Ironman World Championship triathlon in Hawaii, she predictably channeled the divine. “I thought of the finish line as the entrance to the final finish line, into the Pearly Gates,” she recalls. “That’s what drew me to [it].”
Sister Buder completed that race in 1985, at the age 55.
At 75, the American nun became the oldest woman to ever complete an Ironman triathlon. At 82, she set a world record as the oldest IRONMAN triathlon competitor.
Today, at 86 years old, she has completed over 40 Ironman races, each comprising of a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike and 26.2-mile run.
Her steely resolve has earned her the epithet the “Iron Nun.” Along the way she’s had some setbacks — missing a race finish by a matter of seconds, multiple broken bones, wetsuit issues — but, she proclaims, “The only failure is not to try, because your effort in itself is a success.”
