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Outside Magazine April 2003

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The Girl Can't Help It
Juliet Draper may be the fittest firewoman alive: 185 pounds of chiseled, hollering, highly motivated tenacity. Now she wants to go global, teaching firehouse heroes everywhere how to shape up. Sounds like a pipe dream—but are you going to tell her to back off?

By Robin Chotzinoff


	"Fitness is part of our sacred oath": Juliet Draper at the World Gym in Colorado Springs (Mary Ellen Mark)

IT'S A 90-DEGREE MORNING at the Medved Autoplex just south of Denver, truly a brutal place and time for the regional finals of the 2002 Scott Firefighter Combat Challenge. Sponsored by Scott Health and Safety, one of the top U.S. manufacturers of firefighter breathing equipment, this event is a preliminary to Scott's World Challenge for firemen and firewomen, which is held every November and attracts hundreds of firefighters from all over North America.

Juliet Draper's Firefighting Workout

Click here to read more about Juliet's exclusive training program.

ESPN, which broadcasts the Challenge finals, has labeled the competition "the toughest two minutes in sport," and, looking around the parking lot, it's easy to believe. Cars have been cleared to make room for a pair of five-story stair platforms, elements in a grueling pentathlon of obstacle-course events, each based on a firefighter's real-life duties.

Today's racers—some 100 men and two women, all wearing 75 pounds of firefighting gear—will have to lug a 45-pound hose pack up five flights of stairs; hoist another 45-pound hose pack, by a rope, to the top of a stair platform; drive a 165-pound steel I-beam with a sledgehammer; run through orange traffic cones to reach a water-charged hose, which they'll drag 75 feet; and walk 100 feet backward, pulling a 175-pound dummy named Rescue Randy. All this while wearing masks and breathing from the bulky scuba-type air tanks firefighters carry on their backs.

Waiting their turn in the warm-up area are four Colorado Springs firefighters, one of whom—a loud, funny, buff, dreadlocked Challenge veteran named Juliet Draper—is telling the others what to expect.

"You'll notice a lot of flexing, a lot of peacocking," she says. "You'll see the guys with the firefighting tattoos, playing the head game right here in the middle of the parking lot, making sure you notice them. A little later you'll see them puking and suffering. Because you can't avoid the pain."

Juliet is a 36-year-old firefighter who won the Challenge in 1999, then took two years off to focus on paramedic school and recover from a leg she broke sliding down a fire pole. In 2002 she coached rather than competed, but make no mistake: She will be back. Juliet's goals for 2003 include building oxlike strength to set power-lifting records this July at the World Police and Fire Games in Barcelona. After that, she intends—no, demands—to break the two-minute mark at the 2003 Challenge, a time no woman has really approached. Juliet's best time is 2:34. Martha Ellis of Salt Lake City owns the women's record of 2:22 but has temporarily retired from racing. She's glad, she says, to hear that Juliet is still going strong.

To train for "sub-two," Juliet will have to run endless stairs, build giant lats, and make not a single mistake out on the course, a skill she will hone, she says, by powering through the Challenge events until they appear in her dreams. She can talk about such goals without seeming cocky because, as many people in the firefighting community will tell you, she's one of the best-conditioned female firefighters in the world. Perhaps the best.



	Draper dragging rescue randy at the Colorado Springs training course. (Mary Ellen Mark)

"Boy, as an athlete, she's scary," says Colorado Springs deputy chief John Gibbons. "I've seen what she does in the gym and snuck out like a whipped dog. She's a marvelous physical presence."

Juliet is five foot nine and weighs 185, with the shoulders of an NFL wide receiver. She benches 250, squats 350, deadlifts 425. But such attributes are only part of what it takes to win the Challenge.

"Big, ripped guys and a skinny cat like that one over there—you won't find out till later which one is faster," she tells her team, pointing to a nearby group of racers and their friends. "And then one or two of these big gals, like that one with them big old legs...Hmm, why isn't she competing? Could be the tit job holding her back? Anyway, for a chick, it helps to be the size of the average man. A small girl can do it, but a little ass helps you out. It ain't your biceps gets you up those stairs."

Standing in Juliet's shadow is Stacy Billapando, a 39-year-old Colorado Springs firefighter/paramedic who's due to race in ten minutes. A dedicated weight lifter and swimmer, Stacy stands five-ten and weighs 180, but her two previous tries in this race were unimpressive. She moves through the staging area silently, a look of sheer loneliness on her face.

"As a coach, my job now is to leave her alone," Juliet whispers, jumping quietly in place to restrain herself from yelling a few final instructions. "She's doing some mental rehearsing, she's in a light sweat. She wants to break 2:30, maybe 2:00. I know she'll go between 2:30 and 3:00."

You might say Juliet is starting pretty small, coaching just three acquaintances. She'd never put it that way: At this moment, these three firefighters—who call themselves Team Firejock—might as well be the only athletes on the planet. Along with Stacy, the team includes Denny Peffer, a 50-year-old firefighter/paramedic who runs ultramarathons, and R.C. Smith, a 49-year-old battalion chief who definitely does not. Weighing in at 285, the chief is overweight enough that friends and colleagues call him, with much affection, The Fat.

"And every one of them will qualify for the nationals today," Juliet vows. "That's just the for-real."

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