by Julie Moss
With colorful stories like this, the sporting lifestyle became every sports marketer’s dream. They pinned their products and logos on the backs of photogenic, well-spoken, studly endurance sports stars. We’d admired the likes of tennis champions Billie Jean King, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, 1960 Olympic sprint champ Wilma Rudolph, and breakthrough distance runners like Kathrine Switzer (the first woman to run the Boston Marathon), Cheryl Bridges (the first American to hold a world marathon record), and distance aces Francie Larrieu and Mary Decker. Suddenly, we were welcoming in uber-chic, ultra-fit personalities like Kathleen McCartney; American surfing greats Frieda Zamba, Lisa Andersen, and the late Rell Sunn; running superstars Sally Edwards, Joan Benoit Samuelson; and Flo-Jo; Olympic heptathlon champ Jackie Joyner-Kersee; and more.
My other sport, surfing, already had this down. Former world champions Ian Cairns and Peter Townend created the Association of Surfing Professionals World Tour with all of the above in mind. They were true trailblazers. Ian and PT envisioned surfer-athletes traveling the world, earning good prize money, getting paid well by sponsors, and representing self, event, sponsor, and sport to an increasingly interested world. They brought along Australian surf companies like Billabong, Quiksilver, and Stubbies, whose clothing lines featured splashy colors with catchy graphics on trunks, shirts, shorts, and pants alike. That led to a marriage of fashion, lifestyle, and entertainment with New Wave radio stations like 91X and KROQ in Southern California. Later, in 1989, Quiksilver morphed its new-look women’s surf wear into its own label. Roxy provided a distinctly feminine, athletic look, from sleek bikinis and swimsuits with athletically cut lines to women’s board shorts; we didn’t have to cobble together or alter the least masculine-looking surf clothes anymore.
Professional surfing became a reluctant but eventual adopter of gender equality. Much of that was due to two great Floridian world champions, Frieda Zamba in the 1980s and Lisa Andersen in the 1990s. Both are beautiful girls with distinctly graceful and powerful surfing styles. In fact, just four months after my Ironman moment, Frieda stunned the world by showing up at age seventeen and beating the world’s greatest surfers at the prestigious Mazda Women’s Surf Sport Championships in Solana Beach, a true outlier moment. After her win, the other competitors started throwing in more aggressive maneuvers. She literally changed the sport in one magical weekend.
The word in the lineup was that Frieda and Lisa were “as aggressive on the waves as guys.” In the 1980s, that was a high compliment; still is, to many. Frieda and Lisa triggered an influx of girls unafraid to charge waves of all sizes and uncork ridiculous power moves on them. Roxy, and later other women’s surf wear companies, drove industry growth concurrently. Fast forward twenty years: in 2014, the World Surf League (formerly the ASP World Tour) announced full parity between men’s and women’s average prize purses per event and size of field. Other sports, whether it is tennis or soccer have a ways to go to catch up. Conversely, and sadly, the female U.S. national soccer team still only receives about five percent of the salaries accorded their male counterparts—and they’re World Cup champions! The U.S. men’s national team didn’t even qualify for the 2018 tournament. In golf, the LPGA Tour announced a record $68.75 million would be awarded in prize money in 2018. Great news, right? It is—until you look across the fairway and see that the men are competing for nearly $250 million. Also, the all-time women’s prize money winner, the great Annika Sörenstam, earned about $23 million—or roughly twenty percent of all-time men’s leader Tiger Woods. We’ve still got a long way to go.
I look at girls like Frieda and Lisa when I trace the roots of the advertising and media messages that built the image of the woman athlete as we know her now: ultra fit, chic, smart and assured, successful, and awesome in every way. Girl power.
CHAPTER 10
Gripped: Finding Mark Allen
Love and relationships have always mattered to me. A lot. Within them, though, I sometimes question my self-worth and whether I’m doing enough for my man. Unfortunately, this little shadow is the residual effect of my father leaving when I was very young.
I love being in a relationship, being in love, being there for each other, finding points in common that tighten the bond, and discovering new points that further strengthen it and feed the relationship with new and fresh experiences. Renowned behavioral expert Brené Brown speaks directly to me on love when she says: “Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them—we can only love others as much as we love ourselves.”
In 1982, my relationship served as the initial motivating factor for going to Kona. If completing my college senior project was the driver, getting my relationship back was the engine. I desperately wanted my ex-boyfriend, Reed, to take notice and see I was a changed woman, worthy of a second chance. I wanted him back.
After my Survival of the Fittest shoot, I joined him on his bike tour of New Zealand’s North and South Islands, then accompanied him on to Australia, where we visited his friends. We remained together for another year or so, until he broke up with me right before another Ironman.
Maybe I needed to look at relationships another way . . . or maybe the man of my future was in my life the whole time.
During the month between the 1982 Ironman and Survival of the Fittest, I drove the sixty miles from Carlsbad to Huntington Beach at zero dark thirty to take care of some important business: my lifeguard test. It was a two-part fitness test, combining a 1,000-yard open water swim with a twenty-minute time limit, followed by the run-swim-run, a continuous circuit with a 200-yard run, 400-yard swim, and 200-yard run. The time limit was ten minutes. In my three previous attempts, I always passed the 1,000-yard swim well beneath the cutoff time, but my fast-twitch muscles always failed me in the run-swim-run. Also, wetsuits were not allowed, a crucial factor when stroking through chilly winter waters. I was pretty cold after the 1,000-yard swim. By the time the run-swim-run followed, I was hypothermic and couldn’t feel my fingers or toes.
However, this was a new year, a new beach, and a new lifeguard candidate.
The 1,000-yard swim went well, as usual. Thirty minutes later, we started the run-swim-run. I even brought my ski gloves with hand warmer packets so I could feel my fingers. As we sprinted in the soft sand toward the first flag, I leaned into the turn that redirected us toward the water. A guy tried to snake my running line. I planted an aggressive elbow to shove him behind me.
As we began the swim, I dolphined through the surf to blunt the impact of the incoming waves. A thought struck me: Where did that competitive aggression come from? After a moment, I realized I felt differently about myself after the Ironman, more certain, more self-assured. I didn’t know if I’d make the fitness test cut this time, or qualify to be a lifeguard, but I sure as hell knew how to fight for myself. When I felt that guy trying to shove past, I shoved right back. I wasn’t going to let him take away my advantage. If I could fight for the finish line in Kona, I could fight for position in a ten-minute run-swim-run. I was not going to be shoved aside by any man or woman, boy or girl.
Welcome to the new me.
I settled onto my assigned tower for day one as a California State lifeguard. I looked down the beach and watched my new supervisor drive toward me in his jeep.
It was Mark Allen.
Mark and I met in 1979 and became casual friends, like “Hey, Mark, how’s it going?” He knew me as one of the girls that would run four miles from Tamarack Beach in Carlsbad to the lifeguard headquarters in Ponto, and then pop into the garage for a quick flirt with guards working the off season. There was always a lot of laughing and making noise. Then my friend and I would run back to Tamarack.
We remember our first meeting in different ways. When City Sports magazine did a feature on us in the early 1990s, Mark said, “I was in the maintenance area doing some work under one of the jeeps. Suddenly, she walks in with a
friend. It had been really quiet; now it’s just talk talk talk talk. Then they leave. Dead silence. I pulled myself out and just stared.”
My view from above the jeep? “He was peeping at us from under the truck,” I told City Sports. “I saw that he had these ridiculously long sideburns and that someone needed to tell him they were O-U-T. It’s funny, when I met his dad years later, he had the same bad sideburns.”
Not exactly love at first sight . . . but certainly the seeds of a new friendship.
As we talked on the beach, I learned something about my new boss: even he saw me in a different light after Ironman. Instead of thinking, “who’s this crazy girl who shows up at the shop garage?” Mark thought I was nine feet tall.
But now it was June, and I was a nervous rookie. All I was thinking about was not letting someone die on my first day. Saving lives takes priority over flirting!
Mark and I had spoken a couple times after Ironman. We ran into each other at the inaugural La Jolla Half Marathon (which I have run many times since, winning once). It was held in April, after Mark watched the Wide World of Sports coverage and decided he wanted to become a triathlete, but before he felt confident running a half marathon. Hard to imagine now that our sport’s version of Zorro, the somewhat mysterious man who left his signature “Grip” on countless triathletes en route to six Ironman titles, could be uncomfortable about any 13.1-mile race. He retired as the most dominating runner in triathlon history.
Like everyone else, though, he had a starting point. “I saw you on TV and you were amazing,” he said.
My first response was somewhat deadpan. “Well, I don’t know about amazing. I crawled, I lost. But thanks.”
“No, really. You inspired me.”
I peered into Mark’s eyes, something I’m known to do when uncomfortable with a person or the content of our conversation. How could I inspire him? He peered right back with his sharp, focused green eyes, not dropping contact for a second. He meant every word he said. My race had stirred something within him. Between the way he complimented me, and those green eyes and striking looks, I was a bit rattled. More to the point, I gushed.
It felt awkward to be on the receiving end of such praise, especially from someone I admired as both a standout in lifeguard competitions and as a friend. Trying to get noticed fell into my comfort zone. However, being noticed and praised did not. Mark’s words helped launch my long journey to find peace with the conflicted belief of being good enough, without feeling I always had to try extra hard or “go big” to bring it out.
Mark was seeking something that could satisfy his quest for the ultimate challenge, and he saw it through my degree of effort in a forbidding race. Just like that, the light went on and his future flashed before his eyes. Mark Allen, the NCAA Division II all-American swimmer from UC-San Diego, was going to halt his road into the medical profession and become an Ironman triathlete.
Within this tanned, totally fit, stunning man who could leap off any Baywatch poster, I sensed a giant at the sport if he committed. In his green eyes was the intense concentration that great champions possess. At the least, he would become very good. He earned his first nickname, “Animallen,” from his beastly performances in lifeguard competitions up and down the coast—which involve running, the final leg of the triathlon.
“If anybody should be doing triathlons, it’s you,” I said. “You’d kick ass. It’s not that different from a lifeguard competition.”
It wasn’t. Triathlon has three set disciplines—swim, bike, run. Lifeguard competitions come in different forms, but essentially, you’re running on soft sand and swimming in surf. In both cases, you’re switching abruptly from one form of motion to the other, bringing in different muscle groups, and trying to recover while simultaneously pushing like hell. That’s why so many lifeguards were phenomenal triathletes in the early years. Their candidate classes are filled with high school and college swimmers and water polo players, and all triathlons begin with the swim.
Mark’s next comment surprised me. “As a matter of fact, I’m going to. I’m doing the next Ironman in October,” he said.
I started gushing again. Maybe I gave it a little extra gush. “Are you serious? That’s awesome! You’ll probably win it.”
I thought for a moment about what I said, and that my boyfriend happened to also be a lifeguard supervisor, one Mark knew. “Don’t tell Reed I said that!”
Back to my job. With lifeguarding, the shoe was on the other foot, since I was embarking on a new learning curve. I find the best way to learn something is to locate an expert and open up his or her reservoir of wisdom, listening to and drawing inspiration or skill from that expertise. But I was self-conscious, a rookie guard on my first day on the job. Now Mark pulls up.
We watched the surf continue to build. Suddenly, the rip current swept a man off his feet and pulled him out. I looked at Mark. “Yeah, I’m going in.”
I took the phone off the hook, followed the (tower) procedure, and started to scamper down the ladder. Mark said, “You might want to take your can.”
Typically, lifeguards take their “cans”—buoys—everywhere. It is standard operating procedure. In the moment, my mind focused squarely on the man struggling in the water, I was so embarrassed. Mark might have thought me nine feet tall, but in that moment, with my gorgeous supervisor watching me space out on my can, I felt like a complete barney. In other words, a clueless novice.
Meanwhile, Reed was on his way down from Santa Rosa, California, to spend the summer guarding. “Maybe you guys should train together,” I suggested to Mark. It seemed like a good match: Mark was a solid swimmer and sneaky strong runner chomping at the triathlon challenge, and Reed was the fifth-place Ironman finisher with a strong cycling background. It was a matter of how those guys worked it.
I continued to guard while squeezing in my Ironman training, and Reed and Mark started to train together. They both had some latitude on the job as supervisors, from which they built creative workouts. They would ask their shotguns (passengers) to drive their jeeps along the shoreline of Black’s Beach, a clothing-optional spot near the UC-San Diego campus that also features awesome waves. They ran alongside their jeeps and peeled off two- or three-mile intervals on State time. They focused primarily on surges and long sprints, so it didn’t put them on the State’s radar (till now!). They’d also find early morning bike rides and other ways to train, sometimes including me.
In October 1982, Reed and I made sure Mark was well hosted for his first Ironman. We gave him the pullout couch in the one-bedroom condo we rented on the Big Island, offering creature comforts to ensure a smooth Ironman debut. Though I must say, “smooth” and “Kona” better describe a cup of coffee than the Ironman. Given how Mark eventually soared to “The Greatest Endurance Athlete of All Time,” as declared by Outside and ESPN magazines in 1996, it might surprise you that he DNFed his first Ironman—Did Not Finish. I’m not surprised. Kona has its way with you, no matter how prepared you think you are. I didn’t do that well, either, finishing fourteenth after imploding on the run. Sadly, that particular story line would mess with more of my future Ironmans.
Our results did not deter us. Mark was hooked, I was hooked, and the world was becoming hooked on triathlon. However, Reed was done. He sensed that computer science was about to explode into something that would draw in consumers as well as companies. His prescience was spot-on. Two years later, Apple introduced the MacIntosh computer and Microsoft the Windows operating platform, revolutionizing personal computing. Reed went on to start ZaneRay, a Rockies-based web design and development company that helps create brands and sell products. In 2015, ZaneRay was named one of Outside magazine’s 100 Best Places to Work. It aptly reflects the outdoor-first, balance of work and play, and eco-conscious values of its president. Reed always had an unwavering vision of how to go after his ideal life. I’m really happy for him.
Mark and I bolted forward in our careers. The rapidly growing Bud Light USTS circuit and other s
maller-course triathlons became significant events. However, for any serious competitive triathlete willing to give the ultimate effort, it was all about Kona. We gladly boarded a fast-moving train.
It was becoming a fast-moving gravy train as well. Since I was known outside triathlon as well as within it, my sponsorship opportunities drew from mainstream corporate America, along with run, bike, and swim companies. I picked up endorsements like Yoplait yogurt and Mizuno running shoes while collecting appearance fees and, soon, prize money. On the other hand, Mark focused on becoming a top-of-the-line triathlete, made possible when he joined the JDavid Team, the sport’s first elite professional unit. He didn’t have time for much else, except occasional surf trips. He ate, slept, and breathed training and races, and didn’t take long to start beating the reigning stars. His athletic talent was extraordinary. He showed strong ability as a runner, he already carried strong swimming credentials, and he was quickly learning the bike. Could I envision a career he has boiled down as “1-6-21-Infinity”? As in, victory in the first Triathlon World Championship, six Ironman World Championships, 21 consecutive races between 1988-90—and Greatest Endurance Sports Athlete ever?