ON A NEW ROAD; SURVIVING ONE TRAGEDY AFTER ANOTHER HAS GIVEN WALLACE A WILL TO WIN.

Byline: Rizza Yap Daily News Staff Writer

Julia Wallace had won another cycling race and celebrated joyously. But later, in the cold of that night, she lay in mud, her leg nearly severed.

Wallace was cycling home after her triumph when a car, at high speed, hit her and knocked her over a cliff. The driver never stopped. She lay there, hour after agonizing hour, 14 in all. At 6 a.m., searchers found her, once beautifully athletic, now shattered.

Pseudomonas, a flesh-eating bacteria, invaded her skin. After several amputations, she had lost nearly her entire left leg. She required surgery on her right leg and hip as well to halt the bacteria.

``I had been a runner prior to my injury, and running was a very, very, very important part of my day,'' Wallace said. ``It was my peace-of-mind time. No matter what was going on in the world, I could go out for a long run.''

That tragedy five years ago would have been enough to stop most people. The challenges that were to come would have stopped everyone. Everyone but Julia Wallace - accident victim, cancer victim, survivor, marathon competitor, champion.

Sunday, the 33-year-old Wallace will compete in the L.A. Marathon using a 2-week-old racing wheelchair painted in purple, her trademark color.

``There's nothing someone who is disabled cannot do without a little bit of adaptation,'' Wallace said. ``It's important for people to know that. It's important for disabled kids to know that. You can live in pity and fear or go out there, go for it, get it.''

Wallace was diagnosed with cancer in her right leg in 1994, a year after the cycling accident. The bone cancer caused her to lose part of that leg above the knee.

After chemotherapy and other treatments, the cancer is still active.

So is Wallace.

The L.A. Marathon will be her 41st race in 19 months. Since June of 1996, starting out in a used racing chair bought from a medical-supply store, Wallace has won 26 events and finished among the top three in all but three.

``For six months after my injury, the only time I ever got out of bed was to go to the store and buy Fruit Loops,'' she said. ``Not being able to (run) contributed to a lot of depression. Now I don't have (that depression) like I used to. Racing keeps me up mentally.''

An elite-level runner, swimmer and cyclist - she did 10K runs with her father at age 10 and competed in the 1984 and '88 Olympic Trials - Wallace joined the Navy out of high school to put herself through college.

While in the service she set national records in long-distance open-water swimming, including the 18K, 38K and 42K.

That competitive experience has helped thrust the Atlanta resident among the forefront of the nation's elite wheelchair athletes.

``She lives with constant pain, and it would be so easy for her to stay in bed all day and give into this disease, but she gets up and pushes through the most grueling races,'' said Kari March, Wallace's housemate and long-time best friend.

``The cancer is all over (her body), but it's under control. She's had lots of treatment and chemo, but her chair has been the best treatment of all. She's had more success fighting this disease just being on her racing chair, just working out.

``She is totally inspirational. When I'm feeling bad, I look at her and say `Hey, I have no excuses.' ''

Wallace joins about 100 other men and women in Sunday's wheelchair division race. She will compete against highly favored Louise Sauvage of Australia, winner of last year's race, and Japan's Kazu Hatanaka, who placed second in 1996.

Wallace's personal goal is to break her unofficial marathon record of 1 hour and 48 minutes, set during a 26-mile stretch in last year's 367-mile Midnight Sun Ultra Marathon. (Wallace won the eight-day race, between Fairbanks and Anchorage, Alaska, with a course-record time of 28 hours, 29 minutes and 32 seconds. She finished just behind the top two men and nearly four hours ahead of the next female finisher.) Souvage's winning time in the 1997 L.A. Marathon was 1 hour, 49 minutes and 22 seconds.

Wallace, who moved from Michigan to Georgia, spends five to six days a week training for two to three hours per day, and eats two to three small meals each day.

``She started training so much later than other athletes and was a success so quickly,'' said Nan Harman, wheelchair division coordinator for the L.A. Marathon. ``Two years after training she is already competing with elite women racers who have been training since they were children.

``She has got to be an exceptional athlete.''

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Photo, Map

Photo: (Color) Atlanta's Julia Wallace joins about 100 other men and women in Sunday's L.A. Marathon wheelchair division race.

Myung J. Chun/Daily News

Map: CITY OF LOS ANGELES MARATHON XIII