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Twenty Questions with Scott Molina
By Betsy Delcour
2/12/2007 |
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What's in a name? Two Words: The Terminator, aka, Scott Molina. The Terminator made a career of pounding his competition into the ground while collecting prize money along the way. Legendary in stature for his race results, workouts and high profiled marriage to triathlon's other great story, Erin Baker, the Terminator continues to be an icon for our sport. With new found interests in coaching and his highly acclaimed Epic Camps with Gordo Byrn and John Newsom, he continues to shape the sport he once dominated and remains true to the Epic Slogan that says: There's no Easy Way...
1. Where’d you grow up? How did your family life shape who you are and the type of athlete you became? What drove you to pursue sports?
I grew up in Pittsburg, California with my 4 brothers and 2 sisters. All the kids in my neighborhood played sports at home and at school. It was the main thing we did with our spare time. My dad always loved sports so we were always signed up for something. He also took us to watch a lot of sports - mostly track and basketball. When I was growing up I always thought to be a great athlete was the best thing in the world to be. I was already a swim/run/basketball sports nut when my dad and I went to the Montreal Olympics. After that trip I was super motivated to do something great.
So in a nutshell I’d say my parents gave me all the tools I needed to excel in sports and life.
 2. What was high school like for you? Were you a classic dork geek or were you the big man on campus? Buddies of yours like Tinley had somewhat of a rebel streak in them at that time in their lives. What was it like for you?
I went to an all boys High School called De La Salle which had a great tradition of success in sports. Out of a roll of 600 guys I think we had 55 come out for x-c. I just trained my ass off all 4 years and although I had a 3.5GPA all I can remember of my classes is mostly falling asleep! Swimming, track and x-c were respected sports at my school and I was good at all 3 so I had a lot of friends and had a blast. I trained 2x/day all through high school – holidays and summers included. I think I went on about 2 dates in high school – girls looked great but looked kinda time-consuming! I was as scared as hell of them anyway.
3. How did you get into the sport of triathlon in the first place? What was your first race like?
Before I ever heard of triathlons I had been a decent swimmer kid and then also a serious runner for 5 years so it wasn’t much of a leap to think about doing a triathlon when I first heard about it.
Keep in mind that there were about 10 tri’s in the whole USA at that time – 1980. Not a lot to choose from. I was watching ABC’s Wide World of Sports one day like I usually did on the week-ends and there on the screen was Dave Scott winning the Ironman in Honolulu. I had raced him a few times in biathlons (swim/run races) and after watching that I decided I would have a crack at it. So I signed up for the only tri I could find in Nor. Cal – one in Angwin and then one at Lake Folsom called the Sierra Nevada Triathlon which was a brutal ½ IM. I won the Angwin race by miles with my mom and brother and sister as my support crew and got 3rd at Lake Folsom to Grant Boswell and Dean Harper. They were both very hilly sufferfests which really suited me!
4. Once you showed promise, what was the motivation? Was it your family? Brother (who was damn fast too!) or did you have something to prove?
It was just a continuation of what I wanted to be – a great athlete. I had a huge advantage with my swim/run combo so had success right away which made it easier. I was also realizing at that time that I would probably never be a great distance runner, so it was easy to make the switch to tri’s.
5. What are some of the biggest changes you’ve made in your training/nutrition practices since the early days of racing? What was it like having to feel your way through your nutritional needs in the 80s and early 90s?
Well, there’s been a lot of changes as I went to being a pro, then retired, and now a committed age grouper. I’ll save that topic for a book one day. Plenty we could talk about for weeks there as I was experimenting with a lot of different ideas. In general I gradually ran less and less over the years as I began to become injured more often. In the early years as a triathlete (’82-’86) I was running about 4,000 miles a year (80 miles/week) and that included 25+ races per year.
Nutritionally – Well where to start!? HA! I gradually (over a period of many years – I’m still working on it!) ate less and less junk and fine-tuned my supplement program. I always believed in a thorough anti-oxidant program to speed recovery and help my immune system function at 100% so I didn’t get sick. I always had a huge problem with long, hot training and races because my sweat rate is 3 liters/hour so figuring out how to deal with that was quite a mission for a few years. Because Kona wasn’t such a big deal back then (I could earn a nice check racing nearly every week) I didn’t put as much thought into solving my dehydration issue there as I should have.
6. What are your top three most memorable races and why. Was it something you learned, discovered or was it purely the paycheck, the accolades and the celebrity that comes from being the toughest and hardest guy out there on the day?
Hmmmm……. That’s a tough question. I raced about 250 pro races. I guess some of the early ones stand out the most.
During the Ricoh Ironman in ’83 (I think….) running down Wilshire Blvd with the whole road closed for hours and having 4 cops on Harleys escort me through L.A. with the 2nd place guy about 2 miles behind me was kinda fun. People on the side of the road who had not ever heard of a triathlon were looking at me like I was some sort of alien.
The first couple of World’s Toughest Triathlons stand out as they helped cement the idea that I was good at this sport and could earn a good living. My first trip to Nice in ‘82 was amazing. That was my first time out of the USA. I was 22 and I realized then I had a chance to see the world through this sport.
7. You were married early on in your career. What was that like and how did the pressures of providing for your family affect your training, racing and results? It must be quite a motivator to get the results and the paycheck.
My first wife and I came from humble families and we expected to live a pretty humble life so the money that starting rolling in when I was 22-23 seemed pretty damn good! I certainly did look at maximizing my earning potential by focusing on racing often.
So that affected how I trained and went about the sport. I didn’t view the sport as a long term career at that age. I expected to go maybe 4-5 years and then get tossed on the scrap heap and have to get a real job
 8. How did Epic Camp come to be? How did you meet Gordo Byrn?
I usually ride my bike indoors most of July because it’s so cold here. I met some friends inside my buddy Pete O’Brien’s garage watching the Tour and we talked about how we could get the hell out of winter more often and how we could create businesses out of doing camps and tours. He then formed an event and bike tour business and I branched out by forming Epic Camp with Gordo.
Gordo and I came to know each other when he moved to Christchurch part time and asked me to work with him (in about 2001 I think) as he was just getting serious in pursuit of reaching his potential as an athlete.
He already liked doing camps and point-to-point training and challenging training and we got along great so it was a natural partnership. We like taking on super tough challenges and we like sharing the experiences. We also like spending time in great places with great people so these camps are all of that combined. I also felt there was a gap in the types of seminars and camps that were available to really good age group or pro athletes. Most of what’s been available was centered on giving information. I wanted to put together something that would challenge the very best.
I wish I could do more of them but I need to be here at home to do my main job which is to be a good father and husband.
9. What’s your take on the Macca-Stadler drama? Do you think triathlon needs more personalities like it had when you were racing as a pro?
I think all sports thrive when there are good rivalries. Those two guys obviously push each others buttons pretty naturally. It does make for entertaining reading, but the racing is damn good too. I don’t know that we had any more personality in my era than they have now. The women on the other hand used to be a bit more venomous.
10. You are married to legend in her own right, Erin Baker. What’s it like being a married couple (with kids) with such extraordinary backgrounds? Do you race and train together, or not so much?
We used to train together a lot when we were pros but always realized that was going to change when we had kids which was always agreed upon right from the beginning and was a priority. When I met Erin she was ready to retire as she wasn’t enjoying the sport at all the way she was going about it. But we had a lot of fun together as pros and when she decided to have kids and move onto whatever was next she never looked back.
She had a struggle for years trying to come to terms with my continued love affair with the sport but as long as I take care of all of my family responsibilities and do them with some love and genuine enthusiasm!!! Then she’s OK with whatever the hell I want to do.
She just got a new bike from Steve and Annie HED and that seems to have lit a spark under her ass so she’s riding again regularly for the first time in over 12 years which is nice cuz she was getting a big flabby! We do manage to run together when I’m not injured and now that she’s riding again we’re seeing a bit more of each other out there on the roads.
11. Do you think your kids will follow in your footsteps?
I don’t know! It’s a bit early to tell. Miguel is 13 and although he does whatever I tell him ……….if left to his own devices he’s pretty lazy for anything except for Xbox games, anything on the computer or TV. He does like to get out to surf if it’s not freezing. But he certainly hasn’t caught any fire in his belly for any sports yet.
My 10-year old daughter Tandia runs like the wind and does well in all her school running races. She also plays tennis and swims like Miguel.
My kids do tri’s here like most Kiwi kids. It’s a common sport here for school kids so there’s plenty of opportunities for them to race if they want to. But I only sign them up for tri races outside of school if they train for them. They are required by me to do a little exercise every day. They don’t hate me for it most of the time!
12. Who or what inspires you?
I am inspired every day by athletes of all sorts – elites or those over-coming adversity. I follow a lot of sports closely every single day. I’m pretty self-motivated but still make sure to do all the things I know I need to in order to stay inspired and positive. I read about 1-2 hours/day (other than work) and a lot of it is just recreational reading following sports.
13. What book are you currently reading? Favorite movie?
Books – I tend to read bits of several books at a time when at home. When traveling I read a lot more cover to cover. Tinley does a good job of keeping me educated! He always makes sure I have a stack of books to get to.
At the moment I’m reading a NZ author named Witi Ihimaera. It’s a light, funny book titled Sky Dancer. I just finished a book by another Kiwi author named Celia Lashlie titled He’ll Be OK about raising teen boys. Erin made me read that one.
On my bedside for the last year has been Running with the Legends by Mike Sandrock which is my favorite running book and also How to Live Long Enough to Live Forever by Ray Kurzweill and Terry Grossman. I just read a page at a time of either of those most nights to make sure I keep my subconscious active and happy all night!
My next book is French Revolutions by Tim Moore which a friend told me was hilarious.
Movies – I like light, uplifting stories and don’t like a lot of violence but Raging Bull is one of my all time favorites.
Anything with scantily clad hot chicks is fine with me.
14. What’s it like coaching athletes? What’s your philosophy on training and racing?
I like coaching and it’s a natural extension of what I’ve been doing all my life. It’s very nice to have something I know I can get better at for a long time.
To give you a succinct answer to sum up my philosophy on training and racing I’ll give you one of my favorite slogans - “Train hard. Satiate the need.” By that phrase I mean do whatever makes you happy. Feed your addiction if it’s a positive one. But train hard too! Even if you don’t want to! Because whatever it is you want is probably going to come from a lot of hard work.
15. Who’s the athlete to watch in 2007?
Among the men - Reinaldo Collucci who is one of Brett Sutton’s projects, young Kiwi sensation Terenzo Bozzone who had a lot of injury problems last year and two of my projects that I have high hopes for – Chris McDonald and Billy Edwards.
Among the women I hope Karin Thurig decides to really focus on triathlons soon. It would be exciting to see what she could do if she did. Sam McGlone seems to be smart and versatile as does Emma Snowsill.
16. What were your three biggest lows in the sport and your career and why. Go into detail, we want to hear what it was really like for the Terminator!
Ohhhh boy. I’ve spent what seems like a lifetime trying to forget my real lows……
But a few of the many are:
1) Some of the DQ’s at races where I thought the athletes were treated very unfairly – as an example - I was there in Hilton Head when Jimmy Riccatello was DQ’d for crossing the center line to pass a big pack of guys drafting each other and taking up the whole road. That cost him a ton of money that he really needed and had earned through the whole USTS Series that year. It was just such a huge injustice. It was a big race and I remember thinking how the sport was never going to be properly officiated.
2) My DQ in Nice for an alleged drug test failure for Nandralone. Not a lot has improved for the athletes in 20 years has it??? That period of time was just so hard for both Erin and I.
3) My DNF’s were always tough, but my last one in Kona a couple of years ago which was supposed to be just a bit of fun ended very, very badly with my back in spasm. That one was especially hard to take. I felt so utterly worn out and hopeless. I remember crying like a baby and the good doctor Bob Laird trying to console me.
17. In hindsight, how important has Gordo Byrn been to you since hanging up your pro license and spending time raising your kids in New Zealand. It would seem that you caught a second wind of sorts since collaborating and becoming friends.
I needed a good break from the sport when I retired in’95 so I took it. After a few years off I was already having quite a lot of fun racing age group when the G-Man came to Christchurch and we’ve enjoyed a lot of great training together. The Epic Camps are just an extension of that, but what I didn’t anticipate was how much fun it would be just getting ready for them.
18. Have you thought of writing a book? You've got more wins than any triathlete ever (with the exception of Erin, of course), you were the highest earner of your time period, you've traveled the world, met thousands of people and still have the fitness to be at the very top of the age group ranks (as you proved at the inaugural Ironman Arizona). Have you documented this life time experience and if not, who would be best qualified to do the job? Who knows you best and who knows what makes you tick?
First of all I think there are a few others who’ve won more pro races than I have – like Michellie for example. And I wasn’t the highest earner of my timer period either! Sponsorship income was substantial in the 80’s and others did better in than department than I did.
Since the demise of many of the events that I did well at like the USTS for example I really don’t think there’s enough of an audience out there who even know what the hell I did as a triathlete, so the book would have a limited audience if that’s what it was about – my life as a pro.
I really don’t’ have an interest in doing it anyway. I have been working on a long term project that should result in a book to come out when I’m about 50 but it will be for a more general audience.
 19. Do you have any non-tri related hobbies, talents or interests? What’s the best part of being a “retired” professional athlete?
Not a lot! Between my family, home and this sport I don’t have a lot of excess time or energy. I have spent thousands of hours renovating my 100-year old house and working on the yard since I retired and I think I’m just about done doing that stuff! My next place will be a high-rise apartment with no maintenance at all!
The best part about being a retired pro is there’s no pressure to be very good at it for the money. The pressure is off.
20. Where do you see triathlon in the next ten years?
Let’s save that for another time. I’ll have to give that some more thought. I just hope the popularity of internet coaching doesn’t dry up any time soon!
Besides – this interview is waayyyy too long and taking up too much bandwidth already! Nice to chat with you and I love the site! Keep up the good work.
Please visit Scott's website at www.scottmolina.com
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