by Julie Moss
Not yet, but I saw a diamond in the rough, capable of dominance.
As we trained together and became closer friends, I was drawn to something behind that handsome face: his mind. Mark Allen has one of the best minds I’ve ever known. He retains everything. Tell him something once, and he locks it in. I’m the opposite. Mark was singularly focused from the beginning. He also possessed a premed degree from UCSD, acing his MCAT exams along the way; his easy grasp of the science of sport gave him a strong edge. He invested time and energy into learning and mastering that extra bit of research, science, and strategy that champions seem to possess above others. He did acupuncture and extra activities like hyperbaric treatments to keep his body running at an extremely high performance level. He was always on the forefront of any new trends in nutrition, exercise physiology and aerodynamic technology, a proto–tech nerd. He served as a star client for Phil Maffetone’s early work in nutrition. (Maffetone is founder of the MAF program, combining nutrition, supplements, and health and fitness tools and apps.)
The same opportunities available to Mark were also available to me, but they weren’t for me. He was looking for every which way to refine his body, mind, and technique, and he had both the athletic drive and intellectual brilliance to tie them together. I have little patience for hyperbaric chambers, nutritionists, and all the rest. I couldn’t have cared less about the nerdy science side. I loved triathlon for the flow, fun, and rawness of it all.
This wasn’t to say Mark didn’t love to have fun. He did—no two ways about it. However, the public didn’t see his fun side often. When he locked into his zone, the Grip zone, the zone that broke great triathletes for more than a decade . . . I was around his intensity a lot. I thought, if that’s what it takes, I don’t know. I totally related to the fun, casual, loose side, but didn’t have the drive to do whatever it took to become a champion. Mark did.
For Mark, it was always about excellence—the ability to show up to a race and bring it. Few athletes in any sport could match his ability to focus in the middle of huge events, and then focus more while red-lining from exertion and exhaustion. Fewer still dominated their sport and advanced it in the mainstream world by being the sport’s very face. When I consider these qualities, I think of athletes like Michael Jordan, Serena Williams, Steffi Graf, Paula Newby-Fraser, Kelly Slater, Lindsey Vonn, and Roger Federer. These athletes operate from a rarefied space. So did Mark. The built-in discipline from swimming twice a day for years in high school and college was beyond anything I’d experienced. I spent a couple months training for my first Ironman, not years. When I was around Mark, it was almost like, “I don’t want to do that.” Remember the Gatorade ads? “Be like Mark, be like Mike.” Like I said, there are not too many athletes to which you can compare Mark.
We remained friends through the 1984 season and enjoyed a nice comfort level. I felt I really knew who he was. He was in a long-distance relationship with his fiancée, Bunny, who was enrolled in medical school in Texas. Mark tried to visit her often, but the distance was taking its toll and their relationship was moving onto shaky ground. I thought about what it would be like to move forward as more than friends, for sure, but for obvious reasons, it stayed on the friendship level. We trained together, hung out together, saw each other at races, and got together for meals. We both loved food and the making of good meals. We bonded over food.
Mark was hopeful his relationship would work out, and I honestly was hopeful it would not.
Our time arrived at the end of the 1984 season. So I thought. Mark was newly single and I couldn’t wait to fill the vacancy in his life. We had a brief fling before he left for an extended trip to compete in the Superstars of Cyprus event. It was similar to my Superstars competition from 1982, but with a European flair, including shooting contests and the use of polo horses. Afterward, Mark continued his travels and sent me postcards to track his journey.
Just before the new year, he returned home. I was living in a small apartment in Encinitas, one block from popular Moonlight Beach, my first time without roommates. I bought a little Christmas tree and decorated it with handmade ornaments. I cut out tree and wreath shapes and pasted on photos from the Triathlon and Triathlete magazines lying around. The fact I was alone for Christmas, coupled with reading too much into the postcards, gave me a brilliant idea: cover the tree with pictures of Mark! My troubling habit of trying too hard to secure a man and keep myself centered in his thoughts and heart was now in holiday turbo-drive. Remember when he thought I was nine feet tall?
When Mark walked into my apartment and looked at the tree, shock spread across his face. He laughed nervously. Wow. Not quite the reaction I had imagined and hoped for. My inability to cope with self-doubt, mixed with a need to prove myself essential, had driven off Reed—twice. Now I was at it again.
We rang in the new year with the Hangover 100, a New Year’s Day century bike ride. Mark suffered badly during the final twenty miles, most likely working off all those decadent European pastries and glasses of red wine. I, on the other hand, was floating above him and the others, somewhere on cloud nine. I couldn’t have felt better. I was riding into 1985 on the wheel of the man I wanted.
For Mark’s birthday on January 12, we went to dinner at an upscale restaurant in Del Mar. We also ordered a bottle of wine. Afterward, while waiting for the dessert menus, I soaked up the candle-lit ambiance and nice wine buzz. Then Mark looked into my eyes with one of his intense gazes. I knew he was feeling exactly the same way: how lucky we are to be together. He told me how much he appreciated the support I’d given him during his emotional roller coaster of the past months, and how he was now free to pursue his dream life . . .
. . . one that did not include a new relationship.
Not where I saw this conversation going.
We’d shared only a couple weeks together, so it hardly seemed worthy of a public scene, but I was heartbroken and suggested we skip dessert. On the drive home, I kept thinking about that damned Christmas tree, wondering why I needed to try so hard. Look what happened? My action to show Mark how much I cared for him resulted in an equal and opposite reaction: he pulled away.
It took years to sort out my base motivation for being this way. I now know the Christmas Stalker Tree was the action of a strong, yet deeply insecure little girl insisting again that her dad take off her training wheels—in this case, for new love. It never dawned on me that Mark’s plan might be different.
I definitely knew his plan now. My tree might not have mattered after all. Mark was emerging as the best all-around triathlete in the world, and he was chasing the dream. After he began a winning streak at the Nice World Championships, the only major piece missing in his collection was an Ironman title. His potential dominance led Nike to swoop in and sign him in 1984 for the best endorsement contract yet given to a triathlete: $50,000 per year plus performance bonuses. He became the highest-paid triathlete in the world.
I was not far behind, thanks to my sponsorships with Yoplait, Mizuno, Speedo, and Specialized bikes, and race appearance fees. While Mark was rising like a bullet to the top, I was already in a lofty catbird seat after two solid years of capitalizing on opportunities presented by my crawl of fame.
Still, I tried to win Mark over. Sometimes, I took my efforts pretty far. Once we took a long group training ride between Lake Wohlford and Pauma Valley, in the rugged northeast San Diego County foothills. It featured a lot of climbing, some of it steep. I tried to keep up with Mark and his workout group, which including ST (Scott Tinley), Scott Molina, Mark Montgomery, and Kenny Souza, all star triathletes. Not easy. Finally, I passed ST and thought, I’m staying on Grip’s wheel. My motivation was a little different than ST’s, who was slugging out the miles with Mark in mano a mano style. As I dropped plenty of sweat and rubber on the steep, twisting roads, I thought, This must be love. I’m so into this guy that I’m literally going to stay right on his wheel.
I also thought of how Mark received his triathlon nickname, “
Grip,” a symbol of fear and respect in professional triathlon. Opponents quickly associated “Grip” with “race over” if Mark caught or led them in a race. Conventional wisdom held that Mark became Grip because once he gripped you, you were done. Interestingly, that’s a very accurate way to describe his races. He rarely fell behind again once he took the lead, but you sure did. Mark was triathlon’s version of the late, great American distance running star Steve Prefontaine, who simultaneously held all U.S. track records from 1,500 meters to 10,000 meters before he died in a car crash at age twenty-four. Like Mark, Pre was fantastic at all distances. He was also the greatest frontrunner in U.S. track and field history. Pre also helped create Nike, for which Mark was running. Countless high school cross-country kids still run around the U.S. with motivational quotes from Pre planted on the backs of their team T-shirts, more than forty years after his death.
The “Grip” origin story is poetic and catchy, but the nickname originated in a different way. One day early in his career, Mark joined ST and my future manager, triathlete and top-flight swimmer Murphy Reinschreiber, for a ride in the brutal Otay Mesa hills east of San Diego (now home to the U.S. Olympic Training Center). As a kid in 1966, Murphy won twelve of thirteen races at the California State Fair swim meet. His victim every time? Future six-time Ironman champ Dave Scott.
ST and Murphy were seasoned cyclists, but Mark dropped them repeatedly during their three-hour ride. Ever the clinical, analytical mind, ST tried to sort out why it happened. He concluded that Mark’s hand position on the handlebars made the difference. With a standard hand position, you put your hands on the outer sides of the top portion of the handlebar, next to the brake levers. If you want to move fast or become more aerodynamic, you typically drop your hands to the bullhorns or lower section of the bars. When you climb, you slide them toward the center and get into a more upright position. All the while, you’re balancing a strong grip with relaxation and comfort. Don’t grip too hard or too soft.
Well, when the boys sped up or started downhill, Mark gripped the bullhorns like his life depended on it—and kept dropping ST and Murphy. ST caught up and watched him, and noticed how Mark held the handlebars. He told Murphy, “See that? It’s the grip of death.”
The next time they rode together, Mark heard his new nickname from ST. Soon enough, “Grip” became synonymous with the death-to-your-race grip belonging to a man who believed he could out-suffer all others. If you can out-suffer someone in this sport, and bring Mark’s level of talent, you’re going to the top.
Eventually, Mark and I regained the comfortable rhythm of our friendship. On New Year’s Eve of 1985, there was a shift. We quietly spent the evening together, with no fanfare or scary Christmas Stalker Tree, not even a particularly romantic ambiance. We simply hung out and enjoyed our new connection. I sometimes joke that my persistence finally wore Mark down, but truly, it was my unwavering belief in him.
Mark and I were very compatible. We’d circled the same triathlon orbit for three years, and we knew each other well. I tried to show him that I was a good addition to his life as a friend, and maybe something more. I aligned myself with his athletic vision, but I held a bigger vision for him than he carried. Did he know how big he could be in the sport? I wasn’t sure. He had no Plan B—it was triathlon or nothing. Medical school was long gone from his radar. He was so gifted, and I wanted to see him get to the very top.
“Mark owes a lot of his career to Julie,” my friend Sue Robison told my coauthor. “You think about it, she already had her place in the sport, she already knew what you had to do at Ironman, and she knew how to support him. It’s one thing to be a partner or spouse like me—who isn’t in the sports world—and support your athlete, but when your partner is cooking nutritional meals for training, and giving training advice and course knowledge like the knowledge she has of Kona . . . Julie saw Mark’s future greatness more clearly than he did, and she knew how to get him there.”
We began living together in 1986 after returning from training in Boulder, Colorado, where Mark and most of the elite triathlon world gathered for high-altitude, mountain-fed workouts. We found a unique home in Vista, about forty miles northeast of San Diego and near my hometown of Carlsbad. Sunset magazine even ran a photo spread of the house. Set on an acre of land, it was nestled into the ground, with big plastic conducting tubes forming a wall that divided the living room and bedroom. Each tube carried a different pretty color. It looked like a rainbow. Outside, you could almost grow grass on the roof, because the house was built into the side of a hill. A total hippie house. Our first mortgage was $1,000 per month, split three ways among Mark, myself, and Alana, the girlfriend of Mark’s massage therapist. She’d remain our housemate for years.
Meanwhile, our careers were flying—and so were we, all over the world. I was coming off my strong 1985 season, and Mark was becoming nearly unbeatable in major triathlons besides Kona (he did not compete there in 1985). Triathlon’s fabled Big Four now asserted their reign over the sport. Mark was among them, joining ST, Scott Molina (“The Terminator”), and Dave Scott (“The Man”).
Grip. ST. The Terminator. The Man. The Big Four are still our sport’s Mount Rushmore, two to three decades after these guys last saddled up as champions.
We traveled to Nice, where Mark won the fourth of his ten Nice Triathlons, and did the Bud Light USTS circuit. I was already backing off the USTS, preferring to race in Europe, which earned some flak from my peers. I started hearing the term “cherry picker,” which implied that I avoided competition in the U.S. to chase easier paychecks abroad. I saw it differently. Europe meant travel, always a huge priority. It also meant appearance fees and prize money in excess of USTS purses.
Sometimes, I’d travel to Europe for one of Mark’s races, and then we’d take a couple days to become tourists. In 1986, we celebrated Mark’s fifth consecutive win in Nice and my fourth-place finish by renting a red convertible BMW and driving to San Remo, Italy. On the return, just as we crossed the port of Nice, the Beamer died. We had to push through a roundabout and up the sidewalk of the old city, and then walk back to the hotel at 10:00 P.M. When we stopped along the way in Monaco, I bought Mark a new cologne, Drakkar Noir. To this day, whenever I smell Drakkar Noir, I’m transported to our rented BMW speeding along the Mediterranean coastline, my hair blowing in the wind, so in love.
As we spent more time together, I explored the nuances of the man with whom I wanted to share my life. I learned that Mark’s “Grip” persona—the intimidating, unsmiling, cold-cocked eyes, superhuman focus, a physical machine built to break you—only appeared during races and focused training sessions. He rarely took his inner iron warrior mentality home. Home was our sanctuary, a place to reboot and relax. Home fueled his artistic side; he’s keenly interested in art and cooking. It gave him a chance to be his quiet, reserved, somewhat shy natural self. He liked to kick back, observe people, and chill, to be part of the social action without having to contribute too much. He loved to laugh, especially around the dinner table. I treasure those memories—dinner parties, friends coming together, telling stories around food. No matter the culture—Italian, Jewish, French, a bunch of starving triathletes—you gather around food and you relax and talk. We’ve been doing it since our most ancient forbears huddled around a cave fire.
Mark loved to surf too. Whenever he had a chance during the off-season, he paddled into the lineup. Or we did. During the season, he wasn’t inclined to surf, no matter how much he loved it. However, once he had down time, he grabbed his board and caught waves.
There were exceptions to this rule. After racing the World Sprint Championships in early 1987 in Perth, Australia, we learned last-minute that Scott and Virginia Tinley were flying over to Tavarua, a Tahitian island with magnificent, booming surf. We quickly booked flights and paid Australian dollars, which made it really inexpensive. When we got to Tavarua, we rented boards from island locals, stayed five days, and surfed our hearts out. Unfortunately, Virginia had to
skip the welcoming Kava ceremony pulled together for us, but for all the right reasons: she was newly pregnant with their daughter, Torrie, who is now thirty.
We took several wonderful off-season surf trips. Mark embarked on some on his own as well. One in particular tapped into his spiritual side, already emerging when we got together. Mark was constantly searching for a way to grow within himself and to better the planet in the process, an exquisitely rich and interesting period in anyone’s life. Since he was a kid, his mother, Sharon, a practicing Buddhist, had discussed the tenets of Buddhism, such as dissolving the ego and the power of visualization. They also talked about how Mark’s career might lead him to serve others, the earliest antecedent of his successful online coaching career and books, which have benefitted many. Sharon wanted Mark to understand that he had the potential to impact many lives. She helped him embrace that in his heart and soul, where selfless service begins. I also understand Grandma Sharon held similar conversations with my son, Mats, as he braced for his first Kona.
Mark’s quest accelerated on surf trips to mainland Mexico. As California State lifeguards, he and his friends could go on the dole, collect unemployment, and become seasonal guards. They would head to Mexico or Central America to surf. What amazing trips! Mark knew a little about shamanism in general, but a visceral spiritual experience in deep mainland Mexico ramped up his quest. He was always intrigued and drawn to the shamanistic, spiritual side of Mexico, especially after reading the Don Juan books of UCLA anthropologist Carlos Castaneda, whose work introduced several million baby boomers to shamanism.
From there it was a progression, a hero’s journey: How do I overcome my hardships? What’s my true calling? How do I get there? I’ll do whatever it takes! Triathlon was his first hero’s journey, in the classic Joseph Campbell, Ancient Greek sense. Mark had to overcome his physician-father questioning, “When are you going to get a real job?” He broke away from the path his family had pre-laid for him. He sought his own way. The hero’s journey is different for each person and never easy to reach the other side.
