For his triathlon introduction, Navy SEAL Marty Taylor selected a 70.3-mile race, arguably akin to a runner debuting at a marathon.
“Other SEALs are doing it, why can't I?” reasoned Taylor, who lives in University City.
He bought a bike four months before the race, rode it all of four times and stayed up drinking with his mother well past midnight the night before the event's 7 a.m. start.
Taylor finished, in a mediocre time. He remembers being confined to his bed three days later, “a fan blowing on my nether regions.”
Four years later, Taylor, 38, joins a cast of 1,800 today, competing in the Ford Ironman World Championship in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. He didn't get in via lottery or one of the slots awarded to military personnel.
Taylor reached Kona the only way he wanted, qualifying at another race.
“I don't believe in having it unless I earned it,” he said.
Taylor grew up in rural central Texas. His parents divorced when he was 10. He paints a picture of a humble and happy upbringing, a modern-day Huck Finn, living in a trailer atop a hill with his mother and two siblings.
Starting when Taylor was about 12, he would ask his mother to drop him off on Friday afternoons at a river bridge about three miles from home. He wouldn't return home until Sunday.
Sometimes he carried a sleeping bag. Sometimes he carried a tent. Sometimes he slept in abandoned cabins.
“He wanted to live off the land,” said his mother, Judy Hawthorne.
It wasn't difficult. Corn, mellons, cantaloupe and potatoes grew nearby.
“Potatoes, it's great to stick them in your pocket,” said Taylor, armed with a smooth Southern drawl. “You can eat them all day long and be fine.”
In the winter, he trapped raccoons and sold them for $30 a hide.
Late in his junior year in high school, Taylor went to see the movie “Top Gun.” He came home after the opening-day, first showing, pedaled to a recruiter's office and laid the ground work for joining the Navy. He wanted to fly, but his vision was poor.
His father suggested becoming a SEAL because Taylor was a talented swimmer.
“I said, 'Hey, I'll do that.' That's about all the thought I put into it,” Taylor said.
Taylor admits he battled a drinking problem for years. He said he was charged with drunken driving three times in 10 years, the last offense coming in August 2004. He spent 28 days in a rehabilitation program.
“I attribute some of it to being raised in a Texas family,” he said. “Hanging out on the weekend, drinking beers, that's kind of a passing. I was no different. Then you get with a group of SEALs, where you work hard and party harder.”
Hawthorne said her father was an alcoholic late in life, adding, “and I like to drink, more than socially.”
Triathlon, said Taylor, helped him deal with his problem.
“A lot of triathlon is about valuing yourself more than you have,” he said. “You're not going to accomplish anything great by degrading yourself with alcohol or anything else.”
Taylor stopped drinking in April 2005. He said that since last November, “On a rare occasion, I'll have a celebratory beer.”
Last year, he hired a personal coach and cut his time at that original 70.3-mile race by more than an hour. Last April at the Ford Ironman Arizona, on a day when temperatures soared above 100 on the run, Taylor stunned many people, including his coach, placing fifth out of 353 in his age group.
His 9-hour, 48-minute finish qualified him for Kona.
“I was standing there (during the run) and could only stay in the sun for five minutes,” said Taylor's coach, Felipe Loureiro. “I've never seen anybody so mentally strong in my life.”
No doubt owing to his SEAL training, Taylor said he savors rugged conditions. In an e-mail to friends yesterday, Taylor signed off, “Bring on the pain.”
“We don't typically see failure as an option,” Taylor said, describing the SEAL mentality. “You grin, bear it, put your chin down and keep working.”
After he qualified for Ironman Hawaii, Taylor was asked by superior officers if he would sky dive into Kailua Bay before the race. He declined, knowing waking up by 2 a.m. for the dive would interfere with his performance.
“I didn't walk around in flip-flops the past couple weeks because I didn't want to stub my toes,” he said. “I'm here to race. Me jumping out of plane, that's kind of out of the question.”
Besides, he added, “I think the better recruiting photograph would be me standing on the (awards) podium.”
Don Norcross: (619) 293-1803; don.norcross@uniontrib.com
