Tera Moody

Who is Tera Moody?

Tera Moody is an American athlete, who competes in the marathon and other long distance running events. Moody represented the United States at the 2009 World Championships in the marathon.

In high school, Moody was a two-time Illinois champion in the mile for St. Charles East High School, near Chicago. She went on to compete for the Colorado Buffaloes in both Cross Country and Track. She won the Big 12 title in the 10,000 meters as a freshman and ran on Colorado's NCAA champion cross-country team as a sophomore in 2000.

After graduating from Colorado, Moody took a break from training seriously and became a personal trainer and real estate agent. She participated in the 2005 Chicago Marathon with a goal to break three hours. After finishing in 2:50:04, she again ran the marathon in 2006, improving by four minutes. In 2007, she qualified the U.S. Olympic Marathon trials by finishing in 2:46:40.

Moody's breakthrough came at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Marathon trials in Boston, where despite being seeded 152nd, she finished fifth with a time of 2:33:54. This was a twelve-minute improvement of her personal best. Moody was one second behind fourth-place finisher Zoila Gomez.