Lorraine Moller began her career running barefoot on the natural grass tracks of her native New Zealand in the 1960s. She went on to become a Bronze Medalist in the Women’s Marathon at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain. Lorraine concluded her running career with her fourth Olympic marathon in 1996, becoming the only woman in the world to have completed each of the first four Olympic marathons for women. Moller’s many other running accomplishments include three victories in the Avon International Women’s Marathon, three wins in the Osaka [Japan] International Ladies’ Marathon, and a 1984 Boston Marathon title.
Lorraine believes that Arthur Lydiard, the legendary coach from New Zealand who died in 2004, is one of the most running influential coaches of all time and was key in her development as a competitive runner. In 2006 she co-founded the Lydiard Foundation to bring Lydiard’s concepts into the 21st century and to continue spreading his wisdom.
Moller has lived in Boulder since 1982, where she now resides with her husband and eight-year-old daughter. Her acclaimed autobiography, On the Wings of Mercury, was released in 2007 by Longacre Press (ISBN: 9781877361999) and is available at www.onthewingsofmercury.com
What have you been up to since the 1992 Olympics Marathon?
I ran my last marathon in 1996 at the Summer Olympics in Atlanta. I really thought that I had a gold medal in me if I had one more chance, so I went for another round after my Barcelona bronze medal. But opportunities never quite come around the same way again. Even though I didn’t come close to achieving my goal in Atlanta, I had come to realize that the inner journey is as important as the outer journey, which always takes place in tandem. After that race I was finally able to walk away from competition with a satisfaction and appreciation for the time that I’ve had as a competitive runner. I could not retire until I came to that place.
What made you settle in Colorado?
I came here in 1982. I had been living in Minneapolis, married my coach, and then got divorced. Since Minneapolis was his hometown, I was the one who had to leave. I came to Boulder because I heard it was a really good place for runners. It has been a fabulous place and I have just loved living here for more than just the runner-friendly lifestyle. It’s become home to me.
What’s do you remember about the New Zealand running and racing scene like? How does it differ from the U.S.?
It’s hard to compare now because times have changed a lot. When I was growing up in New Zealand the country had a very, very strong sporting tradition probably because it has a climate and terrain that is really conducive to being in the outdoors and the Europeans that settled there were typically hard-working, pioneering types Any Saturday morning every field in the country was just filled with kids playing sports. That was the culture I grew up in. There was also a very strong club system based on the English club system. Every little town had its own running club which would do cross country in the winter and track and field in the summer. I remember running on a grass track without shoes, it was all very simple. The older people would coach the younger people. It was really fun and I got a very sound basis in training. Unfortunately the club system has broken down a lot now as the physical habits of kiwis have changed, like it has in many western countries. With computers and TVs children are just not as physical as they were back in those days. I feel like I was really, really lucky. Not only did we have this really strong running tradition and environment that really supported what I was doing, we had great New Zealand runners we all looked up to.
The limiting factor was being a girl, which was probably not as limiting a factor in New Zealand as in other countries. Girls just did not run distances. I believe the 1500 meters [for women] was not run for the first time until the Munich Olympics, so the longest Olympic event at the time was 880 yards. Prevailing belief systems then did not include women as endurance creatures and certainly not performers. A huge renaissance in women’s sports started in the late 1960s. I was very lucky because that was the beginning of my athletic career. I had a front side seat and could watch the whole thing unfold while being a part of it at the same time.
What was it like running in four Olympic marathons?
In my mind the Olympics stand head and shoulders above any other event for an athlete. All four were different. The first [Olympic women’s marathon in Los Angeles] was my fifth Olympics. But it was phenomenal because we knew we were a part of history. I really think that marked the beginning of the recognition of women as marathon runners. It was after this hallmark event that other women’s events were added into the Olympic Games. The Olympic governing body old boy networks were resistant for so long to adding endurance running events for women because they thought it was unfeminine, physically harmful to women and too boring fro spectators. We have come so far from that. The women’s events are now much watched and are highly acclaimed events in the Olympics in their own right. I see that the whole process of sports has such significance for society, particularly for women, because it has helped to break down many barriers and given women opportunities today that were not available to them a generation ago.
Seoul for me was a very hard event. I finished poorly, 34th overall. However I learned a lot about dealing with expectation, especially as a public figure. I felt burdened by my country and the expectations they had set for me. The lessons I learned from that Olympics helped set me up for the bronze medal that I won in Barcelona, where I pulled it all together after many years of experience. I went into that race as a 37-year-old meeting another social barrier, the age barrier. The expectations for a woman of my age were low. I think for me that was my biggest personal trial in running. I can now quite confidently say to others that you can still keep improving, that experience is one of our greatest assets, especially for endurance events.
I also found that as I got older the intrinsic rewards became far more important. When you are young ambition and material things are more important. I think that’s just the way it is. But as I got older I wanted more depth and greater meaning [to my competitive running] and became very interested in the transformation that the whole experience offered.
What was the highlight of your running career? Why?
Barcelona was the highlight of my running career because there’s really nothing more wonderful than standing up there on the podium and getting an Olympic medal. It was a real rush.
If you could re-live your running career, what (if anything) would you do differently?
If I could do one thing over again I would have believed in myself more. If I had I would have taken more risks, such as going with the leaders at the 16 mile mark in the Barcelona Olympics. I would have just gone for broke; instead there was a part of me that played it safe. I would also have been easier on myself. I would have not have taken myself so seriously. I would have had a lot more fun.
Who would you consider to be your greatest running heroes?
From a very early age I admired Peter Snell of New Zealand, who was a triple Olympic gold medalist. He’s a doctor of exercise physiology in Texas now and a friend of mine. I came to admire Katherine Switzer when I came to the United States [editorial note: Switzer was the first woman to officially enter and run the Boston Marathon in 1967]. She made me see how powerful women could be and that marathon running need not be exclusive of feminity. My present day hero is Constantina Tomescu [of Romania] who won the gold medal in the 2008 Olympic Marathon in Beijing. She was the one who ran the race that I would have loved to have run in Barcelona if I had the chance again. For a woman of 38 years to win the gold to me signifies that women have pretty much caught up to their male counterparts in terms of what they see themselves of capable of doing.
What was your preparation like leading up to what you believe was your most successful race?
Because of my age my emphasis was much more on mental preparation than harder physical training for the 1992 Olympics. You have to remember that by the time I got to Barcelona I had been running for 23 years. As a real Lydiard advocate I had trained with a tremendous base. My aerobic capacity was really good, and harder, longer training was not going to be beneficial for me. It was really a matter of putting together what I already had, so more than anything it was a kind of synthesis. That meant adopting a mental framework that would allow me to achieve what I wanted to.
I knew that there were a few things that were not in my favor and I spent a lot of time going over those in the period leading up to the games. One was that it was going to be hot and that the marathon finished on a huge hill. There were two things that I didn’t consider myself good at: being a heat runner and an uphill runner. I knew that if I was going to do well in the Olympics I had to learn to love to do both of them. So my training program consisted of always finishing up the biggest hill I could find. I ran up it as if I was running into the Olympic stadium. When I got to the top I threw my hands into the air as if I had won. I really started to enjoy hills. It was not a question of being able to do it or not, it was a matter of changing a belief system. I also learned everything I could about heat training and instigated a really good heat training program. Barcelona was the hottest Olympics that we’ve had for the marathon. When we got to the start line it was 96 degrees. The road temperature was 118. When I ran the race I never felt it was hot. My mental muscle was fairly well defined at that Olympics.
What has your own training regimen been in recent years?
I don’t race anymore. I knew that the 1996 Olympics would be my last race. Then I was faced with the next phase: what do I do? Is there life after running? My real desire was to have a child, which I had put off for many years because I had been racing. So I stopped running altogether for a period because I thought it would help me conceive and have children.
The other thing was that I had been running for so long that my life was geared around my running regime and my thinking was in certain patterns, which were like knee jerk reactions. To get into the mindset of being a mother I completely cut out the running. I took a break for quite a few years – I didn’t read running magazines and I stopped looking at race results. It was a period of having to accept a death in some ways and remake myself into something completely different. I had a baby at the age of 45 during the 2000 Summer Olympics. It was wonderful.
Recently I went to the New York City Marathon and I was very inspired by Steve Jones and Rod Dixon. Steve is the same age as me and Rod is a little older. Both are fit as ever. I realized I didn’t want to go into my middle age as sedentary. So I am running now 5 days a week. I do it truly for my own pleasure, my physical fitness and also to “invoke the muse”. That is, to give me really good ideas that I write down when I come home.
I have a fairly close relationship with [the Roman god] Mercury, who is the quintessential runner. I always liked the idea of running with wings on my feet and being the mediator between heaven and earth. As well as being a runner, Mercury is also the god of communication. So its no mistake that when you go out and run you also get very creative and come home with great ideas.
What do you believe is the most important training advice to share with competitive long distance runners (5k to marathon)?
I’m a real advocate of the Lydiard training, which is a sequential, progressive system. The first thing you have to do is develop your aerobic capacity before anything else because that is the basis from which everything else springs. The other thing is the need to tune into your own inner coach. We all have one: that voice inside that tells us what is optimal for us at any one time. Just like any relationship it takes time to develop a rapport. You are going to have plenty of people to tell you what to do, but ultimately its going to be your own inner voice that is going to give you the guidance that is particularly tailored for you. That’s the only voice you can rely on when you are in a race.
What advice do you have for Colorado runners training at altitude and racing at much lower elevations?
The general rule of thumb when I was racing was that the timing was crucial. They said you had to race within 24 hours or 10 days and the ideal was about 3 weeks. So I tried to time it that way, but then I started doing these races in Japan and they would fly you over 5 days in advance – and that was supposed to be completely wrong. But, I discovered, anything can be overridden with intent. I finally took the attitude that no matter what the situation was I was going to make it work for me. I won the races in Japan and other major marathons with less than ideal preparations. The trick is to take whatever circumstances you are faced with and decide to make the most of it. Again, it takes tuning into the inner voice. The fitter you are, the more honed you are, the more adaptable you are, the better you will do, period. Being prepared is only half the equation; the other half is maximizing your opportunities at every moment. The rules are only guidelines until you get tuned in. Then you can break all the rules.
Explain your belief that running is a personal and spiritual journey that can enable people to develop the crucial element to success in both athletics and in life: self-understanding and the mental framework of a champion.
Sports are a wonderful way to learn the tools for becoming masters of our own destiny. When we set a worthy goal for ourselves we have begun the process of transformation: to make ourselves into the athlete we hope be in order to achieve something that is presently beyond our reach. We cannot achieve the goal without changing who we are mentally and physically. The path to our dreams is never a straight one. It will take us off on twists and turns that always go by way of our own limitations and shortcomings. Each time we rise to the occasion our world literally expands. Our awareness becomes more. We are changed. This molding, shaping, expanding of self is the spiritual journey, and, although it is often not spoken of, is the underlying prize of being an athlete.
Please explain your views on athletics and the sporting world as the ideal arena for social change.
I believe that the beauty of sports is that it transcends all other barriers – of gender, race, and culture. The commonality is that we all have a human body and that we like to use it in movement. Sport is one way that people can come together in a very safe way. It is something that we have in common as human beings. It plays a very important role because the more people from all different walks of life get together the more we can delight in just being human. Sports and the arts are two of the very few places we can do that.
In the early part of the 20th century sport was really reserved for the upper classes. That’s how amateur code in athletics came about. It had been an elitist thing where only people who could afford to participate in sport or who were very talented partook – so it was limited to a select group of individuals. With the jogging boom in the 1960s and 1970s sport became available to all adults. It was no longer just the upper class and the physically gifted. That’s also about the time when women started to join in and were starting to get the wild idea that they could compete in the same events that men did. Running became a sport of mass participation, where anyone with a body could enjoy its benefits. What a liberation to be able to put on shorts and run on the street without being sneered or jeered at.
How do you believe the great runners of history could pass on their knowledge and experience to aspiring athletes in New Zealand and other countries?
They need a system that embraces them. Many great runners retire young and are faced with the difficult task or having to start over career-wise. It is tragic really, as so much of their knowledge and skills have been lost to the next generations of runners. I think this is why we get large dry spells of champions – the lineage of greatness is broken. With the Lydiard Foundation our goal is to preserve a very important part of running history and to provide a forum for not only great runners but also great coaches to pass on their knowledge. Lydiard himself was, I believe, one of the most influential people on the 20th century in endurance training. We are attempting to create an official basis and standard for running coaches on a bigger scale than has been done before. It has been quite lacking in the past. Now anyone can call themselves a “coach” and there’s really no way to determine what kind of credentials they have or [to be able to make] judgments about whether they are a good or bad coach.
What was it like being an inaugural inductee of the Colorado Running Hall of Fame in 2007?
I was really deeply touched because I had been recognized in Colorado as being one of theirs. What was interesting was that Colorado had inducted me into their Hall of Fame before New Zealand had inducted me into theirs. The truth is that Colorado’s induction may have spurred New Zealand to then claim me as one their own, which was wonderful too. I’m very proud to be in both Hall of Fames and to have my achievements acknowledged by the communities of both my homes, New Zealand and Colorado.
Bruce Kirschner has been a runner for over 35 years and founded the Federal Cup 5K road race in 1984 and the Coal Creek Cross Country Challenge in 1999. He first interviewed Lorraine Moller in 1982 for the Rocky Mountain Running News, a predecessor publication of Colorado Runner.