New Trails to Blaze : Ventura’s Mari Holden Racing Up the Ladder of Junior Triathletes Since Altering Course in ’89

Mari Holden of Ventura must have an affinity for competitions held in three stages.

For seven years beginning in 1982, Holden competed in the Three-Day Event, an equestrian competition held over consecutive days that includes dressage on the first day, cross-country and endurance riding on the second, and stadium show jumping on the third day.

She gave up equestrian competition after graduating from Ojai Valley School in 1988, but a year later she took part in a triathlon in Oxnard, “just to see what it was like.”

The Oxnard race--a 1.5-kilometer swim, a 40K bike ride, and an 8K run--left Holden exhausted after she won her age group (19 and under), but it also hooked her like a largemouth bass on a nightcrawler.

“I really enjoyed all the different aspects of it,” she said, “and it was kind of nice being in an event where the only animal you had to worry about was yourself. In equestrian, you not only had to worry about how you were feeling but about how the horse was feeling.”

Based on her performances since her initial triathlon, Holden, 20, has been in fine fettle most of the time.

Last year, she finished second in the U. S. Junior (age 19 and under) amateur championships and ninth--she was the first U.S. competitor--in the same age group in the world championships.

She qualified for this year’s world championships by finishing third among juniors in the national competition in Hammond, Ind., last month.

The top six finishers in each age group qualified for the national team that will compete in the world meet along the Gold Coast of Australia in October.

“I didn’t do very well at nationals,” Holden said of her finish. “It was just one of those days. Hopefully, I’ll make up for it at the world championships. That’s what I’m pointing for.”

Holden had meticulously planned her season with the world championships in mind, but she suffered a setback in March when the car she was driving slid off a road in Santa Barbara during a rainstorm.

The vehicle went down an embankment and rolled several times before landing upright. Holden scurried out of the car, but something was amiss.

“I was able to move my arms and legs, so I knew I was all right that way,” Holden said. “But my back was killing me. I figured something was wrong.”

Holden had suffered a compression fracture in the middle of her spine. The injury forced her to miss a month of training and pushed back her racing itinerary.

Holden originally was scheduled to resume racing in May but did not compete in her first triathlon until June 23, when she began a series of four scheduled races in Japan with a runner-up finish in a triathlon near Sendai on the island of Honshu.

She set course records in her next two races, near Kumamoto on the island of Kyushu and Tokyo, before dropping out of the cycling stage in the last one in Amano-hashidate because of unsafe road conditions on the course.

Fatigue also might have been a factor in her decision to pull out because two of the three previous triathlons had been contested over the international distance: a 1.5-kilometer swim, a 40K bike ride, and a 10K run. The Tokyo race was a so-called “sprint” consisting of a .75K swim, a 20K bike ride and a 5K run.

“With the national championships coming up, she didn’t want to take any chances getting hurt,” Holden’s mother Terry said of the Amano-hashidate race. “Plus, she was kind of worn out. That was her fourth race in four weekends, and she had been over there a long time.”

Holden, whose great-grandparents on her mother’s side hailed from Japan, had made the trip under the sponsorship of a Japanese food-research company.

“It was a great experience,” she said. “It was fun learning about the culture of your ancestors. I even met a few of my distant relatives, although we really couldn’t communicate too well because of the language difference.”

Terry Holden and her husband Jim were pleasantly surprised when their oldest daughter pursued the triathlon in a more serious manner this season, even if it meant taking time away from her studies.

A student at the University of San Francisco during the 1988-89 school year, Holden transferred to Humboldt State in the summer of ’89 and completed three semesters--she also competed for the cross-country and swim teams--before returning home to continue working toward her liberal studies degree at Ventura College.

“What really surprised us was that she wanted to come back home after being away for 2 1/2 years,” Terry said. “We told her to go for it, see what you can do in the triathlon.”

Her parents’ positive reaction was a great relief to Mari.

“I couldn’t ask for more supportive parents,” Holden said. “They’ve been behind me 100 percent. . . . I came home because Ventura is just a great place to train. The Humboldt area is beautiful, but there’s not as much interest in the triathlon up there. It’s much easier for me to find people to train with down here.”

Melissa Patterson, 20, of Ventura is one of Holden’s training partners. Patterson will compete in the world championships in the 20-24 age group. Holden (5 foot 4 inches, 125 pounds) is considered a junior because she was 19 at the start of the year; Patterson will turn 21 later this year.

A self-described “good, but not great” swimmer, “pretty good” cyclist and a runner who is “working hard to get better,” Holden has increased the volume of her weekly training regimen and now swims 15,000 to 20,000 yards, cycles 225 miles and runs 45 miles.

Like many endurance athletes, she also has started training at high altitude to improve her cardiovascular system.

She spent the previous two weeks at Lake Tahoe and its 6,000-foot elevation, and she will head for the U. S. Triathlon Federation training center in Colorado Springs, Colo., next week.

“Working out at high altitude is a totally new experience for me,” Holden said. “It takes getting used to. You always feel tired.

“It takes you time to realize that that is how you’re supposed to feel when you’re training up here.”

Holden realizes, however, that regular high-altitude training is necessary if she hopes to develop into a world-class professional triathlete in the future.

“Right now, I’m doing it because I like it a lot,” Holden said. “But eventually I’d like to go pro. That probably won’t happen for several years, but I’ll need to be in a lot better shape when it does happen. I’ll have to be a lot faster than I am now.”