By Dana Willett
©2014
If you haven’t said it yourself, you’ve likely heard it from others: If I can just stick with this sport long enough, outlast some of those fast guys/gals, age-up a few more times, I just might make it to the podium/national championships/world championships/Kona . . .
Longmont’s Lockett Wood has been in the news lately. Not because of his long-time career as a scientist and entrepreneur, or his accomplishment of running all but two Bolder Boulder’s (one of which included his one-of-a-kind, on-course marriage ceremony). No, Lockett is in the news this month due to his age group win at the ITU World Championship at Edmonton – in the 75-79 age group.
I recently sat down with Lockett over a breakfast of steak and eggs at Good Fellows in Longmont, enjoying plenty of coffee and Lockett’s unique way of storytelling and recalling the tapestry of his life that brought him to athletic excellence.
Meet Locket Wood, 75-years-young, age group WINNER at ITU Worlds in Edmonton last month. That’s right – World Champion in the Olympic distance (and second in the sprint). From right here in Colorado, making his home in Longmont.
And it wasn’t because no one else showed up in his age group that day. Nor was it a fluke, or luck, or all his competitors had flat tires. He has worked hard, for forty years, year over year.
Locket was not an athlete as a young adult. In his 30’s, he was a talented, wicked-smart electrical engineer and physicist, testing F-16’s for NIST (National Institute of Standards & Technology), and raising a family of four with his wife. In his mid 30’s, after moving up from being a scientist (the “most fun”) to management (the “least fun”), he decided to leave the government and start his own company. Quickly becoming engrossed in the entrepreneurial lifestyle, he says he was a “workaholic,” putting in upwards of 20 hours a day.
“I noticed I just didn’t feel good. I just kind of hurt all over, and had migraines. I was 205 pounds, and I went in for a check-up and my blood pressure was 180 over 120 . . . ‘stroke city.’ I was smart enough to realize I needed to make a change,” he recalls.
“I knew if I was going to be able to work as hard as I needed to (owning my own business), I needed to live long enough to see things through.” So he bought a bike, and also discovered the Boulder Road Runners Club, who invited Lockett to run with them, and also take part in an April Fool’s Day run.
The year was 1977, and Lockett was new to everything. But he jumped in, and discovered his competitive streak. “I was really struggling,” he remembers. “But there was a lady in front of me, around 80 years old, and I thought, ‘I’m not going to be last.’ So I caught her and we finished, step for step. I realized the folks in this running group were mortals, and I could do this too.”
True to his methodical, detailed nature, Lockett went out and bought books on running, and researched how to lose weight and lower blood pressure through exercise. He says, “For the next six months I was obsessed.” He was hooked. But the road wouldn’t be easy.
Two weeks after his first marathon in 1978, feeling invincible from that accomplishment, he ran a 10k and blew an Achilles. It was four months before he was able to run again. That fall, just as he was able to run again, he was widowed, left to raise four children as a single father. Being able to run through his grief brought balance and hope to his life. “Every time I get stressed, I get in shape,” he comments. “It really does help.”
His first triathlon was in 1980 – the “Peak to Peak Triathlon.” The name was literal. The order of events was the opposite of what we know triathlon to be today – which was common back in the early days of the sport. According to Lockett, the 78 participants started with a 30 mile run over the Twin Sisters, from Allenspark to Estes Park. “It was boiling hot on that run,” he remembers. Once in Estes, athletes jumped on their bikes and headed on a mountainous ride, 56 miles round trip – and were hit with a freak snowstorm. “As we were descending back into Estes at the end of the bike, I couldn’t feel my hands or feet, and I couldn’t operate my brakes. It was painful extricating myself from the bike and getting into the water,” Lockett says. What water? The Estes Park indoor pool – for a 2.5 mile swim. Lockett entered the water in 15th place, and teenagers were on hand to count laps (Lockett is sure he swam an extra 10 laps). His total time for 50th place? Just under ten hours (9:59:30 to be exact – his goal was sub-10).
Those were the days.
Discouraged by his poor swim ability, Lockett stuck with running and duathlons (“I wasn’t smart enough to hire a swim coach”). He is a regular at Racing Underground’s Mile High Duathlon series, and wins his age group almost every time.
His return to triathlon came thanks to his brother-in-law in Washington D.C., who asked him to race the Nation’s Tri in 2009. Realizing he needed swim help, he hit the pool at CU, and also found a place with Boulder Aquatic Masters, joining the BAM open water swims at Boulder Reservoir during the summers.
Lockett has gone back to the Nation’s Tri every year since ’09, saying, “Winning gets me excited about the sport, and makes me want to do more, and keep at it.”
First qualifying for USAT National Championships in 2010, he became determined to make it to Worlds, which first happened for him in 2013, and sent him to London. This year in Edmonton he says his race was won on the run, where “the course was made for me.”
What about long distance or iron distance? “I’m trying to talk myself out of it,” he says. “I’m starting a new company, and having a life is also important. I’m not convinced you can do an Ironman and have a life – you really need about three hours a day to train properly. Right now I train one- to one-and-a-half hours a day. I wish I had more time though . . .”
What’s his secret to staying healthy and competitive at his “mature” age? “Keep doing it, particularly as you get older,” he says. “You need to do all three sports – if you don’t train regularly every week, you can’t jump back into it. Plus you have less injury with three sports; it’s easier to avoid a run injury when you are balancing with swimming and biking.”
“I feel better today than I did at 36,” he says, with a big smile, polishing off his steak and eggs. “The minute I got in shape, I never had another migraine. It’s almost a miracle.”
Watch for Lockett in 2015 at the Mile High Duathlon series, the Bolder Boulder, Nation’s Tri, USAT Nationals in Milwaukee, USAT Duathlon Nationals, and ITU Worlds once again, among “some other races here and there.”
(Read the Times-Call’s article here.)
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