by Julie Moss
Jim Lampley, the anchor for the Wide World of Sports broadcast, introduced me. “We got back to New York [with the footage of the race] and knew we had the most extraordinary thing,” Jim told the audience. “People in edit rooms were blown away . . . We knew we had to get it on the air exactly the right way.”
When I spoke, I tacked on a postscript: “The girl who always just showed up and got by was being transformed . . . I was being transformed into someone who felt like I deserved to be thinking of myself as someone who was good at something.”
The ceremony was gracious. I felt so honored to join a great champion in Missy, and a man who changed countless lives, Jim. I wish he could have been there. We also had fun moments, such as when Alistair Brownlee came up to me and quipped of Kona in 1982, “That was the first piece of triathlon footage I saw. I don’t know why I did one actually.” Well, I do: Alistair is currently the two-time reigning Olympic triathlon gold medalist, and the 2018 Ironman 70.3 Dubai winner.
Celebration was in the air again a year later, when triathlon pioneers gathered at San Diego’s Mission Bay to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the sport’s creation. (A rock at the entrance to Fiesta Island marks the place where triathlon began—our own Plymouth Rock!) A lot of familiar faces were there, along with people I hadn’t seen in ages, including Don Shanahan, who came up with the name “triathlon.” We also saw 1975–76 Mission Bay Triathlon champ Russ Jones, fellow USA Triathlon Hall of Fame inductees Jon Noll, Scott Tinley, Jim Curl, and Bob Babbitt, Kathleen McCartney, Ironman founders John and Judy Collins, and legendary triathlon journalist Mike Plant, ST’s partner with the site trihistory.com. (Mike also shot the Crawl of Fame front cover.)
During the event, who flies by on a mile repeat workout? Meb Keflezighi! Months earlier, Meb had won the Boston Marathon before one million screaming spectators, the year after the terrible bombing. He was the first American man in thirty years to capture Boston. He couldn’t have picked a better time to help heal a city and country with his feet.
Kathleen and I moved forward with Iron Icons. As we traveled from city to city, and met with women, men, and children from all walks of life, I started focusing on our inner attitudes, how we approach our lives and what we see and think of ourselves. How do we size up a new project? Or life change? What lifts us off the couch to run a 5K? Or a triathlon? How do our attitudes aid (or hamper) the way we pursue our goals or bucket-list items? What can we do to empower ourselves?
In late 2015, I began focusing on the power of intention. When you have intention, one thing leads to another. You develop an interesting momentum of following through and reaching your potential time and again, and better things start to happen.
I was at a low spot after suffering a knee injury. I’d done two ninety-mile weeks, because I wanted to take off Christmas and New Year’s to ski. I didn’t want to feel guilty that I wasn’t looking for a gym or a treadmill. On day two of our trip, a family friend playfully tackled me . . . and that was it. I watched all those miles go down the drain, and with it, my positivity. I started thinking, “What’s the next chapter?” I had no idea. I thought I might be looking at surgery, taking years to get back.
For a couple of weeks, I focused on what I couldn’t do. Then I thought, I can go to the pool and use my Eney Buoy (a gift from my friend Eney Jones), because even kicking was hurting my knees. I picked up the first thread—getting in the pool. Sure enough, it led to a lot of things—trying out for lifeguards, and getting started on this book.
With intentionality, you might pick something that doesn’t seem to make sense at the time—either to you or your family—but then the pieces fall into place and it turns out to be the key to something bigger, a new chapter in your life. Cultivate the confidence. Cultivate intentionality.
In April 2016, I put my intentionality, training, injury recovery, and fitness to the test in front the crowd that makes me most nervous—hometown fans. In the race, my first local effort in a while, I had an opportunity to run a good half marathon at the end of the swim and bike. My thinking reflected my new attitude: the swim and the bike are done, just get out there and have a good run. The second loop was like, okay, one more loop. That’s all you have to do. That’s how you build the brick and mortar. I wanted to be that athlete who knows how to navigate any situation and adjust to races that don’t go my way at first, or at all. In my earlier years, I often missed that piece.
I learned to be efficient—key to both effective training and developing a strong inner discipline and attitude. After Mats was born, I had so much less time to myself. That made me truly efficient for the first time. I started doing back-to-back workouts.
Through this, I was developing the skills of navigating training and racing psychologically. Ironman is, above all, a mental game. So are most races—and most challenging pursuits. No matter the situation, I began thinking, “turn it around. Make it positive. Turn it around. Use it to your advantage.”
This comes back to intentionality, which operates on full awareness, taking cues when they fly onto your radar, demanding expression, or knock very quietly on your soul or heart: pay attention to this. At the Ironman Oceanside 70.3 race, the entry landed in my lap: “You want to do this race?” “Well, sure!” I had this focus, everything seemed to be healing . . . and I was thrilled. The results were better than I thought.
During the race, I had to walk up a set of short, sharp, steep hills. A gal said to me, “You go girl!” But I was walking! I reached the top of the hill and started running, and thought, “I’m going to come running by you in a couple minutes.” When I passed the runner, I’m sure she was reconsidering her decision to run up that hill. I did the best I could in the moment, and it enabled me to run through once I’d climbed the hill.
The moment reminded me of a Paula Newby-Fraser quote: “To me when people ask if I can give them my one piece of advice, I tell them it is all in how you handle the chaos of your mind. If you can direct that into the current moment of what you’re doing, it can definitely calm a lot of the chaos that goes on around competing in triathlon.”
Triathlon racing, and life, come down to managing the low parts. How do we handle things when we’re down? How do we handle crises? Bad breaks that hit unexpectedly—or suddenly? How do we rise above them? The actions and attitudes we adopt to rise from our darkest and most challenging moments form the positive, strengthening attitudes that carry us toward our greatest achievements. To paraphrase former Boston Marathon contender Don Kardong, they forge our souls. They also create mental toughness. If you have a strong body, strong mind, and strong belief in yourself, you can conquer your world or completely change the landscape of the one that hasn’t been working for you.
By handling that one hill in Oceanside, I turned my attitude around. I’ve since come to look forward to these opportunities. Now, when it’s going really well, I have these mind gaps, like, “Where did those four miles go?” It is almost a time-travel thing.
The day after the race, I sat my sore body down in the Village Pie Shoppe in Carlsbad to begin work on Crawl of Fame. I opened by recounting the 1982 race, discussing transformative life moments, and how we can develop inner attitudes so strong and resolute that nothing can take away our authenticity, power, passion, or the way we shape our lives. I burned with the desire to impact and mentor women, men, girls, and boys, to help them see what is readily available within themselves—things we often see in our friends, loved ones, family members, and colleagues that they don’t always see in themselves. Like what I saw within Mark Allen in 1982, a global superstar ready to rise forth if he put in the work. Which he did.
I also was fired up about something else—regaining my California State Lifeguard license. What’s so odd about a (then) 58-year-old trying to become a lifeguard? I give you Mats’s incisive comment: “Mom leads an unorthodox life in many ways, so to her, what might be normal seems different to others.” I’m sure not many 58-year-olds are channeling their inner Baywatch by in
tending to step into a tower, racing into the water, and rescuing swimmers caught in riptides . . . but I wanted to see if it was possible.
The idea of being a water person calls to me in the deep, soulful Hawaiian tradition, echoing from my heart to my DNA. I’ve always wanted to surf big waves, paddle across the Molokai Channel, ride stand-up paddleboards, row outrigger canoes, swim great distances, and rescue swimmers in distress. It is part of ohana, family, looking out for each other, sharing community. The camaraderie among lifeguards is close to that.
To kick off my unlikely bid to recertify, I went online, saw the requirements, and thought, these are so doable. Completing a 1,000-yard ocean swim in 20 minutes? Check. Ten minutes to complete a 200-yard soft sand run/400-yard swim/200-yard run? Check. Instead of showing up to join my friends in the recertification swim, I decided to officially start with the hundred young guns seeking their spots on a lifeguard tower near you. Leave it to me to choose the hardest path. I’ve done the same for my last two trips to Kona, qualifying the old-fashioned way despite receiving an at-large invite. I’ve ridden the 1982 coattails many times, in many ways, but I want to earn my spot in Kona, or on a lifeguard tower.
For our test, I pulled up to Ponto Beach in South Carlsbad and noticed the big surf. The playing field’s gonna level now, I thought. I should’ve been nervous at being the oldest candidate by . . . a lot . . . but I had nothing to lose, and the ocean was my element. I focused on the time cutoff. I needed to feel capable of moving on, of being in sufficient shape to save someone’s life. I finished twenty-second in the first open swim, and was second woman in the 200/400/200.
“We didn’t think you would come,” the training supervisor said afterward.
“Well, I want this.”
I really did. The training proved harder than I thought, especially since I was also prepping for an Ironman 70.3 Gurye in Korea, to be held in mid-September.
When we were done, I ran into lifeguard supervisor Julie Garcia, a two-time Molokai-to-Oahu paddler. “Julie, you did so well; I’m so stoked for you,” Julie said. It was so good to hear that. I think I out-bodysurfed her on a couple waves. I don’t remember being such a good bodysurfer, but if you have a choice of swimming to shore or catching a wave and already catching your breath when the others come in, which do you take? More than a couple of ocean triathlon swims have ended with lifeguards-turned-triathletes leading because they caught waves on the inbound swim. One that comes to mind is the 1986 Nike Triterium in Oceanside, co-managed by my manager, Murphy Reinschrieber, which now looks like a visionary prototype of closed-circuit, short-course urban races. Mark Allen’s buddy George Hoover came out of the water first, because the surf was a booming six- to eight-feet, he was an old lifeguard, and he simply caught an outside wave and bodysurfed it to shore. You’re not going to swim that fast. Interestingly, one who almost never got off the beach was one Lance Armstrong, a sixteen-year-old professional triathlete from Texas who could run and bike like the wind, but had never tackled ocean surf before.
Four months later, it was time for the eight-day, eighty-hour state lifeguard training and testing program. Would I become the oldest woman to regain a tower spot? Would I return to a tower for the first time in almost thirty-five years? Would I be able to “take command of emergencies . . . initiate first aid and resuscitation procedures, and work closely with other emergency responders . . . prepare reports, remove hazards, assist the public, and advise visitors of park rules and regulations . . . operate and maintain rescue vehicles and equipment,” as the job description states?
I didn’t quite make it. After spending the week fulfilling the physical goals and holding my own in the competitions, my exhausted brain blanked on something that should’ve been second nature: CPR certification. While more involved and advanced than the trainings available to teachers and coaches, it still should’ve been simple. My brain just wouldn’t fire. I could rescue my “victims” from the surf without a problem, but would I kill them on the beach?
As I licked my wounds, I looked forward to the Ironman 70.3 Gurye Korea. But first, I embarked on an adventure with Mats: the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail, which he was soloing.
CHAPTER 20
Mother & Son on the PCT
Like many fans of Cheryl Strayed and her wonderful book, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, I entertained thoughts on hiking the PCT. Then my notion grew legs and became serious, a challenge I envisioned myself tackling and completing.
As my triathlon training and race results continued to improve in 2016, I thought seriously of hiking the PCT, the spine of a continuous mountain range that starts in the northernmost Cascades at the Canadian border and runs south to the Laguna Mountains and the Mexican border. Along the way, you walk through the Cascade, Siskiyou, Sierra Nevada, Tehachapi, San Gabriel, Big Bear, and Cuyamaca Mountains. I thought first of hiking it right away, and then possibly as a sixtieth birthday present in 2018.
My first natural love, the ocean, got in the way of any immediate PCT plans. Or to be more specific, lifeguard training. I had a choice: ocean or mountains? I chose the sea. Then Mats called and informed me he would be hiking the PCT, alone. He asked if I would join him on a few stops along the trail.
I didn’t need to be asked twice. The significance of his ask hit home: my adult son was asking me to join him on an excursion that was in his hands, not mine. Instead of being a helicopter parent, I would be a supportive companion on the trail. We hadn’t done anything particularly long-lasting or defining since I’d moved back to Cardiff, but now that he was in his early twenties, he and I could relate as adults. And nothing brings you closer (or not) than being in close quarters on a grueling hike.
From August to November 2016, I darted to a few put-in points to the PCT while continuing to prepare for (and run) Ironman Korea 70.3. I came to spend some time hiking with Mats, and enjoying the exquisite nature and wilderness on the PCT. I ended up learning a lot about him—and he offered up a very big surprise when he finished.
Mats’s decision to hike the PCT was entirely his own. He started thinking about it nine months before his first step. It came at an auspicious time for him, as he was trying to figure out his next step, his place in the world—and kindling a brand-new romance with his beautiful girlfriend, Megan Speciale, at the same time. “I took a leave of absence from college. In hindsight, I wish I would’ve finished it up, but I knew computer programming was hard work, I was going to college for computer science, and I realized that it might be leading me to a job in Silicon Valley, in a cubicle, and that’s what I’d be doing my whole life,” he explained. “Not quite what I want, when I’m young and have all these other aspects of my life that I really enjoy. Part of me wanted to be a climbing bum, just buy a van, drive around, and climb everything I could. I decided to take a break from school to figure out what I wanted to do.
“I ended up in not the most glamorous of endeavors, working carpentry. I was going from being behind a computer to working outdoors all day, being active with my hands, learning new skills, building things. I liked it, a lot, but not finding what I ultimately wanted.
“Then I came up with my next plan of action: ‘Maybe I’ll do the PCT.’ I went up to Seattle with some friends, and one of their friends told me, ‘I’ve decided to take a sabbatical from work and hike the PCT.’ I’d hiked parts of it, little parts, so I knew what the Pacific Crest Trail was, but I’d never considered doing the whole thing. As he kept talking, I thought, ‘You know, that’s what I want to be doing right now.’ I kind of forgot about it, but a couple months later, the thought hit me again, stronger this time. I talked to my boss, and he was willing to give me the time off; he’d been a kid in his twenties who’d traveled in the world to learn more about himself, so he was very understanding. He told me, ‘If you need to take a couple months off, go for it.’ He was super cool.”
When Mats called and told me he was doing the PCT, I reacted like mothers might in that situation: I launched
into planning mode. “She bought the guidebook, searched online, trying to map it out—which is not my forte,” Mats recalled. “When I go on a vacation, I buy a plane ticket and figure out the rest when I get there. I’ve heard she was like that when she was young—I mean, what is her 1982 Kona story really about, when you look at it from a personal perspective? It’s about a girl flying to Hawaii and figuring it out when she got there—and she’s inspired people ever since. But she was all business on PCT.”
There you have it . . .
As we planned out Mats’s PCT hike, he decided to depart in July, taking the more seasonally preferable route of south-to-north, from the Mexican border just south of Campo, California, to the Canadian border. However, he was three months late. By going in that direction, he would be crossing the Cascades in October and November. Not good unless you want a PCT experience complete with gully washer rainstorms, hurricane force wind blasts, and early-season blizzards. Mats is well suited to handle himself outdoors, but digging snow caves for survival purposes wasn’t in his plans. Nor on his bucket list.
He chose to reverse course, and start at the northern terminus. A great call.
His next challenge was deeply personal. He and Megan had only recently begun dating, yet both felt their attraction to be potentially lasting. And then Mats decides it’s time to hit the trail for a few months . . . Gee, I wonder where he might have seen that kind of spontaneity and desire to take mighty solo challenges . . .