TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS : Triathlete McCarthy Keeps Pace With Rivals Despite Full-Time Job
It’s surprising how much Garrett McCarthy can accomplish with so little time. Like his professional triathlon career, his life is often a race against the clock.
He needs time to train, time to travel and time for his job at a health drink company. He is the only professional triathlete in the United States Triathlon Series known to hold a full-time job.
McCarthy finished second last year and earned $20,000 from the Grand Prix Triathlon series. He recently asked his long-time girlfriend, Martha Tracey, to marry him. But it takes time to plan a wedding, too.
That is, if he and Tracey, a department store workaholic, find the time to see each other. Tracey waited five years for McCarthy’s proposal.
“She puts up with me a lot,” he said.
Even the way he proposed was a timesaver. McCarthy was riding a surfboard and Tracey was riding a bodyboard in the ocean off of Redondo Beach. McCarthy paddled over to Tracey and pulled a bottle of champagne from a pack strapped to his back. He popped the question, then the cork.
Does McCarthy ever sleep? He arrived at an early-morning training session near his home in Redondo Beach almost to the minute he said he would last week.
“Had breakfast yet?” he asked. After a jog up the bike path, it was off for a quick breakfast before he had to battle traffic to get to his job in downtown Los Angeles.
He’ll race somewhere between 30 and 40 times this year, never getting enough time for a complete workout. Friday evenings and Sunday nights are spent going to and coming home from races. He has competed around the world.
“Garrett is pretty extraordinary,” said Tim Downs of CAT Sports Inc., a Carlsbad-based organization that produces the U.S. Triathlon Series, which culminates in Grand Prix prize money. “There are maybe 20 top triathletes in the world and they do nothing but swim, bike and run every hour of the day. Garrett trains a third less than all these guys and he beats a lot of them all the time.”
McCarthy has three sponsors, including the health drink company he works for.
“I thought I’d be doing better after last year,” he said. “But in this sport, people don’t come knocking at your door.”
His sponsors kick in about $15,000 a year. McCarthy has already spent $20,000 of his own money, which makes a full-time job a necessity.
“I never could have survived without it,” he said.
Friends call him “Lucky” because “I look like that guy on the cereal box of Lucky Charms,” he said.
Currently ranked 11th in the Grand Prix Series, he has been anything but lucky this season. He suffered flat tires during four bicycle competitions, and three weeks ago in an event in Indianapolis, he finished ninth, fighting stomach cramps and intestinal bleeding throughout the race. He rebounded two weeks ago with a second place finish in an event in Idaho.
McCarthy is coming off a fantastic 1989 season, which saw him finish only 548 points behind the decade’s dominant racer, Scott Molina of Pittsburg, Calif.
“For him to win second behind Molina is a major upset,” Downs said. “He never won, but he was at the top three enough times to rack up the points.”
At the World Triathlon Championships in Avignon, France last summer, McCarthy was first off the bike, enabling himself and five American teammates to win the gold medal. More than 40 countries participated.
McCarthy’s heart, however, has always been in Ireland. He was born in New York while his Irish father attended college there. He holds duel citizenship and, although he is eligible to race for the United States in the world championships in September, he has chosen to represent Ireland.
According to Downs, if triathlon races become an Olympic sport--they are currently being considered for such status--McCarthy might have to choose between competing for the United States or Ireland.
McCarthy is a consistent triathlete, but he excels at the 1.5-K swimming race that starts each triathlon. He took up distance swimming when he was growing up in Overland Park, Kan. and later earned a swimming scholarship at USC. Although he said he long ago “burned out” on swimming, his aquatic background is an advantage.
“Garrett doesn’t have to pound it out in the water,” Downs said. “Some of the other guys are struggling with everything they have to turn out 19-minute swims and Garrett is cruising to 17 or 18-minute times at three-quarter speed.”
McCarthy said the second stage of the triathlon, the 40-K bicycle race, is the “hardest one to be consistent at.”
“Garrett comes out of the water in the top three all the time, preferring instead to concentrate on the bike race,” Downs said. “That is a great benefit to him.”
The 5-foot-10, 175-pound McCarthy does not fit the physical profile of a triathlete.
“They’re all tall, skinny, about 50 pounds less than me,” he said.
He calls himself “stocky,” but appears far from that. By overstriding, he has shaved as much as eight minutes off his 10-K time, recently turning in a 33:30. However, his build is not the greatest for the run, which closes the triathlon.
McCarthy, 26, got into the sport five years ago while he was attending USC. The university sponsored a triathlon and McCarthy was urged to enter by some of his swimming teammates.
“At the beginning of swimming season the team was doing a lot of running and I was winning all the running events,” he said. “Some of the guys told me I should enter the triathlon.”
He did, using a borrowed bicycle, and he won it. Two years later, he went on the Grand Prix circuit, finishing 25th.
McCarthy thinks he can compete into his mid-30s.
“In three years look at all the improvement I have had,” he said. “I’ve cut that running time way down. That’s why I think I have a lot of improvement left in myself.”
Now if he can find the time to work at it.