The Will to Excel Keeps Theadora Running

Theadora Fox, 37, admits that she was not a sociable tennis player.

“I take tennis very seriously,” said the 5-foot-1 athlete, who turned to body-building after other women and men shied from her aggressive play.

“I had to do something to stay in shape, so I went into body-building with that same intensity,” she said.

After two months of training at home and in gyms, Fox entered the 1982 San Clemente Body Building Show and won first place in her division.

In 1983, she won Ms. California Body Builder and Ms. USA Body Builder.

“I guess you would call me a goal-oriented person,” she said, noting that she has won trophies in all the 20 body-building contests she has entered.

“But I knew I would have to take drugs (steroids) if I was going to continue winning,” Fox said. “At the time I started body- building, women were just pioneering the sport and I really stuck to my guns about not taking drugs.”

That was seven years ago, and now she is into other adventures.

Besides earning a living by sewing custom-made men’s dress shirts, cleaning houses and working nights as a hotel food server, Fox acts as a personal trainer to others trying to get and stay in shape.

Fox said she learned how to sew as a youngster by making clothes for herself and her dolls, using patterns cut out of newspapers.

However, she is angling to become a professional biathlete (biking and running) after competing and scoring high in amateur biathlons and triathlons, as well as running in this year’s Los Angeles and Long Beach marathons.

She finished 20th and 10th, respectively, in her age division.

“There’s good money in competing professionally in biathlons, love,” said the Dana Point single mother who was born in San Francisco but raised in England in a boardinghouse.

“You get to become very disciplined in a boarding school,” she added in her English accent. “They were very, very strict, but as it turned out, I made it into a positive because it showed me why I do what I do.”

Running and bicycling are better experiences than body-building, said Fox, who admits “I was absolutely shy in front of people” even though she posed before as many as 5,000 spectators in body-building competitions.

“Body-building was fun, but it was very hard, and there was a terrific amount of pressure in competition,” she said, noting that her seven years of training left her muscular and bulky.

“I’m happier now as a runner,” said Fox, who has toned down her muscular body through different training to give her a better running stride for biathlons. She also lost about 20 pounds and now weighs 103.

“Running has been a way of life for me,” she said. “I’ve run just about every day of my life, and now I run 10 miles before I go to work.”

Fox, a self-taught pianist who thought she would someday play professionally, has other goals.

“The first is to be happy because my life has been a struggle and the second is to finish college,” said Fox, who earlier attended Saddleback College, studying in the health field.

But there is another goal.

“I thought I’d like to go to Nashville and become a country singer, love,” she said. “There’s no telling what I can do.”

Peggy Cunnison, 30, was a tad short of money but decided to splurge and bought skis that cost $238.

But after the Laguna Beach woman paid for the skis with her American Express card, she was told that she had won $10,000 in an American Express grand prize drawing.

Only card holders were eligible.

“I waited until I saw a statement with the money in it and went out and bought a set of diamond earrings for $1,500,” she said. “It was the first time I have ever won anything in my life.”

She also plans to take a couple of ski vacations.