Lorraine Moller

During a long and successful international career which spanned almost 25 years Lorraine Moller’s impact on the sport was two-fold.

Initially at the vanguard of a group of pioneering female Kiwi distance runners who conquered the world, during the latter half of her career she defied the sands of time to become an Olympic bronze medallist at the age of 37.

Born the third eldest of six children in the small Waikato town of Putaruru, Lorraine enjoyed an active and happy upbringing with her siblings. However, a virulent and at times life-threatening infection interrupted her childhood and required her to be hospitalised for weeks at a time.

“Those experiences in hospital were lonely and miserable. I looked out the hospital window onto the Auckland Domain and longed to run away,” she says of the illness, which she struggled with through her primary school years.

With the illness cleared, the trajectory of her life was to change after joining the Putaruru Athletics Club at the age of 13. Entering her first race over 440yd she won easily, and quickly developed into an 880yd specialist on the track.

“I had found my place,” she recalls.  “Running was my freedom and my power.”

Schools records tumbled, she started to excel in cross country and at the age of just 14 made the senior women’s 880yd final at the 1970 New Zealand Track & Field Championships.

John Davies, the 1964 Olympic 1500m champion, who lived 20km away in nearby Tokoroa, took up the coaching reins and so began a hugely successful coach-athlete relationship for the best part of a decade. Initially consulting with Arthur Lydiard on how to train a teenage girl, John introduced Lorraine to a light version of the Lydiard training pyramid gradually building up her mileage with her dad, Gordon Moller, as her training partner. “We were running partners all through my high school years. Dad wanted to get rid of his middle-age beer gut and considered he was the ‘canary in the coal-mine’ for me, making sure I didn’t overdo it. We both thrived on John’s training programme, logging up many miles in the Pinedale Forest surrounding our town. We had no watches, or GPS, or cell phones, so we just did most of it by guesstimate, in all sorts of weather. We often got lost and hitch-hiked home. These were the most fun years of my young life.”

Lorraine continued to improve and in 1972 made her international debut in the Australia v New Zealand U21 match. From there she rapidly established herself on the international stage.

In 1973, at the age of 17, Lorraine left home to attend Otago University School of Physical Education. Still coached by John Davies, she joined a training group of local runners, which included national champions, Dick Tayler, Euan Robertson and Stuart Melville and began running regularly with them. “My training went to a whole new level. I started joining them on their Sunday runs of 20 miles (32K) or more. As I got stronger I also got faster on the track.”  She competed at the Pacific Conference Games in Toronto and the following year, at age 18, she lined up for New Zealand at the Christchurch Commonwealth Games in the 800m.

“My training was quintessential Lydiard, a big build-up, followed by a hill phase and then a period of intervals, and sharpening” she recalls. “I remember going out for a training run from the Athletes’ Village just prior to race day, and I literally felt as if I had wings on my feet,” she explains. “It was an incredible feeling to be in peak shape. I ran PB’s in all my races.”

The international experiences continued in 1975 when she competed for New Zealand at the World Cross Country Championships in Rabat, Morocco. The five-week overseas adventure was an unforgettable experience for the teenage athlete. “It was such an exotic adventure with tremendous team camaraderie. These overseas trips were the making of me as an athlete and gave me invaluable international experience and confidence that I could run with anyone.”

New Zealand struck gold in the men’s team competition and Lorraine finished fifth in the senior women’s race – just five seconds outside of a podium spot – and helped the team to a silver medal. “My legs went rubbery in the last 50m, I started to fold and lost two places,” she recalls.

A national road race champion in 1974 and 1975 and New Zealand cross country gold medallist in 1976, Lorraine’s athletics career stalled for several years as she relocated to Katikati to focus on her teaching career and underwent foot surgery to remove a painful bone spur on her heel.

Lorraine was back in New Zealand colours in 1979, finishing 39th at the World Cross Country Championships in Ireland and it was on the way home from this trip that she detoured to Minneapolis to meet up with 1968 US Olympic marathon representative Ron Daws, whom she had met in Auckland at the Choysa Marathon a few months earlier.

The Kiwi relocated to Minneapolis to live with Ron and the pair eventually married – a move that was to change the whole direction of her running career. Living in Minnesota she quickly discovered the vibrant US road running circuit.

Competing as one of a just a handful of female competitors against the men she excelled in a range of distances from 5km to 20 miles, and in 1979 entered her first marathon in Duluth, Minnesota.

“I had no interest in running a marathon and joined just to get in my long run. I had people waiting to pick me up at the 20-mile mark. But I got to that point, felt pretty good and kept going,” she says.

Lorraine went on to take first place in 2:37:37 – a performance which immediately gave the Kiwi a world ranking and so began her 17-year affair with the marathon.

The following year was to prove pivotal not just in her career but for the future of women’s marathon racing after she was invited to compete at the Avon sponsored women’s only marathon in London, billed as an unofficial World Championship. Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to run the Boston Marathon, had organised the race and attracted a world-class field of 80-100 athletes including Joan Benoit, the woman who would later win the inaugural Olympic marathon at the Los Angeles Olympics.

Regularly running up to 28 miles every Sunday, Lorraine was supremely strong and that day secured a memorable victory in the August sunshine in a time of 2:35:11.

“It was a key race in the history of women’s running, and it played a huge part in enabling the women’s marathon to feature at the Olympics,” she says. “But it also represented a shift in thinking for me, because for the first time I considered myself a marathoner.”

In 1981 Lorraine ran her first sub-2:30 marathon in Duluth and continued to make her mark as a trailblazing female athlete on the US road race circuit alongside fellow Kiwis Anne Audain and Allison Roe.

“I felt like I was riding the crest of a wave and I was able to enjoy this interesting time for women’s running from the front seat. I was part of a pioneering group – it was incredible.”

Later in 1981, Lorraine – alongside Anne and Allison – featured in the 15km Cascade Run Off – the first openly professional road race in history. With the sport strictly amateur the trio knew they faced a potential lifetime ban by competing in the race but they were determined to stand up for their rights.

“There was money being paid under the table and everyone suspected the person they were competing against was paid more than them,” she says. “Certainly, the money was not filtering down to the women and the Africans. But it was not the money but the principle that motivated all three of us kiwi runners. We felt we were playing our part to challenge the establishment and finally be recognised as professionals.  We all pledged to race and take the money. All hell broke loose that resulted in our eventual ban from the sport by the NZAAA.”

The story become front page news in New Zealand. Even the Prime Minister at the time, Robert Muldoon, commented publicly on the ban praising the actions of the kiwi runners – Lorraine was at the centre of a “progressive time” in New Zealand history.

“There was a contamination rule whereby anyone that ran against a professional athlete would be deemed a professional and banned too,” she explains. “Anne and I continued to compete in road races in the US. We were contaminating people left, right and centre, like a viral epidemic. Enforcing their own rules became such a logistical problem. Eventually a compromise was made and a trust fund system was set up whereby the winnings would be taken and given back for training purposes.”

Just one week before the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games the ban was lifted and Lorraine was free to compete for her country. Benefiting from the strength gained from marathon training she went on to win 1500m and 3000m bronze medals to show she could still excel on the track.

Divorced by the end of 1982 she relocated to live in Boulder, Colorado, and so began the next phase of her career. It was Dick Quax who took over the coaching reins, and the 1976 Olympic 5000m silver medallist proved the perfect foil for the experienced Kiwi.

“By then I didn’t need someone to tell me what to do, but I did need a mentor so I wasn’t second guessing myself, especially when I was training for a championship” she explains. “We had a really nice friendship.”

Switching her attention to the marathon in 1984 she memorably qualified for the Games by winning the Boston Marathon in a PB of 2:29:28.

“Winning the Boston Marathon is one of my greatest personal achievements. I loved everything about it: the wind, the rain, the hills, the crowds. It was exhilarating.”

“Incredibly excited” to be competing in her first Olympic Games at the age of 29 she performed with pride to finish fifth behind some stellar athletes. Joan Benoit of the USA won gold in the inaugural women’s Olympic marathon with Lorraine more than three-and-a-half minutes back in 2:28:34.

“The Games was a fantastic experience but finishing fifth felt a bit safe for me,” she admits. “After the race I did a lot of soul searching.  I ran a PB, which is great, but I felt like I could have done better.”

Lorraine returned to the track in 1985, setting a New Zealand 1500m record of 4:10.35 in Brussels before the following year claiming the first of three victories at the Osaka Ladies International Marathon (she also triumphed in 1987 and 1989) and grabbed marathon silver at the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games, running a lifetime best of 2:28:17

Disappointment followed at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Having struggled with anaemia earlier that year and bogged down by a unnecessarily complex selection process, she was far from her best on the day, jogging home a distant 33rd.

A bone spur issue caused Lorraine to disappointingly withdraw from the team for the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland and surgery followed. The 1992 Barcelona Olympics loomed as the Kiwi’s final shot at a gold medal and in pursuit of a podium position she adopted a rigorous period of mental preparation.

“The year before the Games I went to Barcelona to scout out the course and to become inspired,” she says. “I went to the Olympic Stadium where the Olympic marathon would finish, I ran a lap of the track pretending I was winning the Olympics, and finished with the victory pose. I got very focused.”

There was one problem, well, three to be precise. The race would likely take place in intense heat, high humidity and the final 4km leading into the Olympic Stadium would be a brutally tough climb.

“There were three things I hated, heat, humidity and hills,” she says, “but I knew that if I was to do well in Barcelona I had to learn to be comfortable in such conditions.”

Unperturbed, Lorraine prepared for Barcelona by training in the middle of the day in Boulder wearing sweats and a rain jacket. Every run was completed on a large hill close to her house to replicate the finish of the Olympic marathon.

Despite her diligent preparation some questioned the decision to select the 37-year-old athlete, but Lorraine was ready to run the race of her life in Barcelona.

At 6.30pm, 47 competitors from 31 countries set out in temperatures of 30c and over 70% humidity to take on the 42.2km challenge.

In the brutally tough conditions, many of the leading contenders cracked but Lorraine stuck resolutely to the challenge.

At 16 miles the Kiwi moved into the bronze medal position – and it was not a position she was to relinquish. Entering the Olympic Stadium 80,000 people stood up and cheered and she crossed the line in bronze in 2:33:59.

“I was ecstatic. When I got back to the village that night, I lay down on my bed with my eyes wide open and a big grin on my face. I couldn’t sleep, I was so wired. At that moment, I felt like there was nothing in the world I couldn’t do. I felt like I was given wings and had flown to heaven.”

Lorraine continued on for one final Olympics Games in Atlanta but retired from the sport after finishing 46th. “I was then able to close the door on my running life,” she says of the 1996 Games.

Having married Harlan Smith in 1993, she tragically went through a series of heartbreaking miscarriages before finally giving birth to  Jasmine, at the age of 45.

“I sat down to watch the Opening Ceremony of the Sydney Olympic Games at nine months pregnant,” she says. “I think my body knew it was the Olympic Games, it said ‘it’s showtime’ and I went into labour. I figured Jasmine is my gold medal.”

Post-retirement Lorraine, who still lives in Boulder, Colorado, has devoted some time to coaching and was co-founder of The Lydiard Foundation. She is a published author, writing the highly acclaimed autobiography “On the Wings of Mercury” and has recently penned a sci-fi novel.

Yet she will forever be best associated with that epic run in Barcelona when she scaled her largest athletics peak at the age of 37.

So looking back, what did winning that Olympic medal give her?

“A sense of self-reliance and a feeling that no matter what comes to me, I know I can handle it and that is a nice feeling,” she says. “I believe there is tremendous value in striving for excellence, in persistence, in learning to believe in yourself.  I learned so much from the athletic arena – much more than I ever learned at school.”

 

Written by Steve Landells