California Track & Running News Sept–Oct 2013, Volume 39 NUMBER 3 | Page 22

CTRN-SeptOCT2013__Layout 1 9/18/13 7:51 AM Page 22

“We have to expand our ideas about who
we are. Upgrade our programs, just like
we do with our computers. Toss away all
the old programs and upgrade them into
something new and expanded because
your world should be getting bigger.
Expand your ideas and use that in the
race. During that crunch time, you ask,
‘Am I going to give it up here, or am I
going to stick with the program and
achieve what I wanted to achieve?’”
–Lorraine Moller
JH: Lorraine, you competed in the first four
Olympic marathons for women, but the depth
was at the Barcelona Olympics (1992) and you
were 37 at the time. You went from being a 800meter runner—close to world class—at age 16,
to an Olympic marathon medalist at age 37. Tell
us about the race in Barcelona and your life leading up to it.

22 ct&rn • September–October 2013

LM: I ended up marrying [Ron Daws] and got divorced within a year. And he was my coach. Don’t
marry your coach. It was not a pretty breakup. I
had had to get out of town. Anyway, I never saw
him again after I left. I got on with my career, and
eventually re-married and had my daughter.
In 1992, my dream was to win an Olympic
gold medal. It was my last chance. And suddenly,
a new thing seemed to arrive where it was an age
barrier now. At 37, everybody considered I was
so old, which was a really funny thing. My shoe
sponsor [ended our relationship] and put their
marketing dollars into somebody who was upand-coming. So I had the [freedom] of not having
to wear a certain pair of shoes because someone
was telling you to. I bought myself a pair of shoes
that I really liked.

The second thing was that I had an arch rival
that was an excellent runner. You know, you always have that person who, head-to-head, will
beat you. [Six-time New Zealand Olympian] Anne
Audain was that person for me. Our rivalry
started when I was 14 years old, and went right
through the ’84 and ’88 Olympics. In 1992, she retired. I suddenly realized that I had focused so
much on beating her that I wasn’t focused on the
race as a whole.
The third thing that happened was that the
day before the race I was in the dining room and
[1992 U.S. Olympic marathoner] Janis Klecker
from Minnesota came over and told me that Ron,
my ex-husband, had died [from a heart attack at
age 55–Editor]. It was a tremendous shock. My
[New Zealand] team had tried to keep the news
from me because they thought I would decide
not to run.
The night before the race I went out and sat
by myself and decided that the best thing I could
do in this situation was run the way he had taught
me—because he had taught me so much about
good marathoning—and use that to run the best
possible race that I could. And I ended up winning
the bronze medal in that race.
You know, life is very much about change.
And it’s about re-inventing yourself. When Peter
Snell, the great [New Zealand middle distance]
Olympic runner who won three gold medals in
the ’60s, retired—and he was only 30 or something like that—he said, “Life is a proxy, so continually re-invent yourself.” It’s very appropriate
[advice] for runners.
I retired when I was 41 at my last Olympics
[1996 in Atlanta]. It’s like, then what do you do?
We have to expand our ideas about who we are.
Upgrade our programs, just like we do with our
computers. Toss away all the old programs and
upgrade them into something new and expanded
because your world should