Twenty-eight months ago, Ali Truwit was airlifted from the waters of Turks and Caicos, a shark attack survivor fighting to stay conscious as her friend pressed a tourniquet against her leg.
On November 2, she crossed the finish line of the New York City Marathon on a carbon-fibre running blade.
What happened in between is one of the most extraordinary stories in modern sport — and it’s only getting started.
From Paralympic podium to New York City pavement, Truwit’s journey is fuelled by something far more powerful than athletic ambition — and the closer you look, the harder it is to look away.
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A Marathon, a Shark, and a Promise
The timing is almost too cinematic to believe. Just days after running her very first marathon alongside her mother in Copenhagen — a Mother’s Day race in May 2023 — Truwit was attacked by a shark while snorkelling on what was meant to be a celebratory graduation trip.
She was 22 years old and had just captained Yale’s NCAA swimming team.
Her teammate and friend Sophie Pilkinton, a medical student at the time, helped her swim roughly 55 metres back to their boat and immediately applied a tourniquet. It was fast thinking that almost certainly saved her life.
Even in those terrifying moments, Truwit’s competitive spirit refused to go quiet.
At least I got my marathon in before this.
The first responder’s reply would become a quiet prophecy: “You’ll run another one.”
From Amputation to Paralympic Podium — in Under a Year
The attack resulted in the loss of her lower left leg. Within weeks, she was learning to balance on a prosthetic. Within months, she was back in the pool — chasing something almost no one would have thought possible.
Paris 2024. The Paralympic Games. A medal.
She pulled it off. Truwit stood on the Paralympic podium with both a silver and a bronze medal around her neck, having set two American records in the process — including a backstroke time faster than she had ever swum with two legs.
Recover from a shark attack and amputation, learn to use a prosthetic, recover from the trauma, then train fast enough to medal at the Paralympics, all in a year. It was like pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
More than fifty friends and family members flew to Paris to watch her race. When she stepped off the podium, she walked straight into the arms of her mother — and Sophie, the same friend who had helped keep her alive on that boat.
She wore the American flag on her swim cap not as decoration, but as a thank you.
My recovery was on the shoulders of so many everyday American heroes. Racing with that flag felt like saying thank you.
The Learning Curve Nobody Talks About
Running a marathon on a prosthetic blade is nothing like running on two legs. Truwit has been refreshingly candid about just how complicated the transition has been.
Without the natural feedback of a foot or ankle, every crack in the pavement, every subtle incline, every slight slope in the road becomes a variable that can throw off her balance entirely.
When your leg’s on one side of a sloped road, you’re out of alignment because the height’s off. It’s a lot of little things like that.
Her blade is engineered to a specific pace range, meaning she can’t simply decide to surge or slow down on a whim. Countless trips back to her prosthetist for adjustments have been part of the process.
During the marathon itself, she had to stop mid-race to dry her leg and reattach the blade — an interruption that is as frustrating as it sounds.
You’re in a groove, then suddenly you have to stop. But that’s just part of it.
She ran the 26.2 miles surrounded by a team of twelve — family, friends, the people who have been beside her through every stage of this journey. The miles, she says, felt lighter for it.
Stronger Than You Think — and Proving It
After Paris, Truwit found herself sitting with something unexpected: stillness. For the first time in months, there was space to reflect on everything she had survived and everything she had achieved.
Out of that quiet came a sense of purpose that launched her nonprofit, Stronger Than You Think.
We’re all sitting on wells of capacity we don’t know we have. We’re so much stronger than we think, if we can open our minds to the fact that we have more in us.
The foundation operates across three pillars: water safety, the Paralympic movement, and access to prosthetics for women and girls. It’s a mission born directly from her own experience — and the inequalities she discovered along the way.
A running prosthetic can cost anywhere between $10,000 and $100,000. Insurance, in most cases, covers only a basic limb every few years.
Life as an amputee is hard enough. It shouldn’t also be a concern how we afford a part of our body that we need just to live.
Already, the foundation has provided eleven prosthetics to recipients across the United States. One early recipient — a mother of three who couldn’t even climb the stairs to her own front door after her amputation — received the right fit and walked back into her home. Her child later wrote to Truwit directly.
Her child wrote to me, saying, ‘Thank you for saving my mom’s life.’ You want to cry hearing that.
Another recipient, a seven-year-old girl, recently appeared alongside Truwit in a photo shoot. Her parents told the Paralympian what it meant for their daughter to grow up seeing herself represented.
“She is beautiful in front of the camera,” Truwit said. “She belongs in those photos.”
Radical Acceptance, and a Mother’s Wisdom
When asked about the mindset that makes all of this possible, Truwit credits two things: radical acceptance and gratitude — a philosophy shaped in large part by her mother, a cognitive behavioural therapist.
Her mother taught her to ask “why me?” twice. Once in grief. Once in wonder.
It’s not about pretending the hard stuff isn’t hard. It’s about remembering that both can be true at once.
That duality — holding sorrow and awe in the same breath — has become her compass. She doesn’t pretend the loss wasn’t devastating. She simply refuses to let it be the final word.
There is still joy. There is still hope. There is still a beautiful life ahead.
With the New York City Marathon now behind her and a goal of raising $100,000 for Stronger Than You Think, Truwit is already looking ahead — driven, as always, by the people waiting on the other side of what she builds.
If you’d told me two years ago that I’d run 18 miles on a prosthetic blade, I’d have said absolutely not. But here I am.
