FEATURE:

Paddling partners
stay fit after 50

Moving to Hawaii in 1996 she started running for the first time at age 57. At the encouragement of her daughter, Wendi Beseris, she decided to run the Portland (Oregon) Marathon in 1998.

Beseris sent her mother an article describing how talk show host Oprah Winfrey had trained and run a marathon. “You can do it Mom,” Beseris said.

The article talked about starting with five minutes of running, then one minute of walking, then five minutes of running every day until you increased your time and distance. Joy started in early February of 1998 and could “hardly breathe” after trying the regimen.

“My goal was to run the Hawaii Kai Loop by April 22, my birthday.” She did it, running the three miles.

By then her daughter and family had moved to Hawaii and the two women joined the Mid Pacific Road Runners Club which offered a series of marathon readiness runs.

“I knew nothing about nutrition, pacing or drinking and I was running 12 minute miles then. I thought running for five minutes meant running at full speed.”

She entered the Kailua Half Marathon race which is 13.1 miles and finished third in her age group. “I was so excited to live and then I got a medal. I still have it.”

Since then she has entered and finished 11 marathons from Hawaii to Utah where her daughter now lives with four of Joy’s five grandchildren. She has entered every Honolulu Marathon since then except 2001 when she broke her foot. She will be in the group running this December.

Her next challenge was the triathlon which requires running, bike riding and swimming. Joy had joined Faerber’s Flyers, a running group at University of Hawaii named for longtime women’s track coach there, Johnny Faerber.

One of the members suggested she enter the triathlon and Joy told her, “I don’t know how to swim.” The reply was: “You have 10 weeks to learn.”

Joy, now 68, entered the Tin Man triathlon despite not riding a bike for 30 years and won first place in her age group. She still has that medal, too. “Don’t tell me medals aren’t an incentive.”

Everything she thought she couldn’t do, she has just gone out and tried and succeeded
Next, she took up paddling. “I was the oldest novice paddler,” says Joy.

She was invited by Lanakai to join its long-distance women’s paddling group to paddle from Molokai to Oahu. Now, she’s completed five of those races.

Then, Linda Kaiser calls her and asks her to be a partner for two-person paddling. Linda says they will paddle from Hawaii Kai to Kaimana Beach, a distance of eight miles, in preparation for a race.
“I’d never done two-person paddling,” Joy says, but, of course, she accepted the challenge. Linda had just lost her partner, Wendy Minor, after a particularly rough Kaiwi Channel (Molokai to Oahu) crossing in which they finished last, but were the first women to do it as a two-person paddle team.

So, Joy decides paddling eight miles is no problem, but Mother Nature had other plans. “These were the waves from hell. We huleied once. This was truly baptism by fire.” They ended up winning “some award in the race.” And, they’ve been partners ever since.

Linda, 57, grew up on the water. Born in Hilo, she’s lived in the same house in Kuiliouou for 54 years. Sharing it right now are her two dogs, a miniature Schnauzer and a Doberman.

She’s been swimming since she was a baby but didn’t take up competitive swimming until joining the Waikiki Swim Club. She is the only woman to have swum seven of the eight Hawaiian channels. Her initial attempt at the seventh channel swim, from Molokai to Oahu, had to be aborted when she got an allergic reaction to a jellyfish sting. “I never want to be that sick again,” she says.

However, undaunted, she tried again and succeeded, completing the almost 28-mile crossing of Kaiwi Channel on Sept. 22 in less than 15 hours. She is only the second woman to complete this swim. The first was Robin Isayama in 1994.

This time Linda had no encounters and “felt good the whole way. My neck and back hurt, but that’s about it. I guess all the hard training really works.”

With accomplishments like this, it’s no wonder Linda is a nominee for induction into the Hawaii Swimming Hall of Fame for 2008.

And, swimming is not her only sport. Linda ran in her first marathon in 1978 in New Zealand and now has completed 50 marathons. Her first Tin Man triathlon was in 1980 when she was working at Horatio’s Restaurant and two of the people she knew there started it. She’s now competed in all 27, one of only four or five to have done that.

She also belonged to the Hawaii Kai Fun Runners started by Val Nolasco who was the first heart transplant recipient to run a marathon.

When she’s not on the water, she’s still near it, operating her own pool cleaning business, Pool Maid, for 23 years. “I just love being in the water,” she says.

Of course, both of these women spend hours preparing for a race, be it on land or in the water. Joy runs almost every morning along Kalanianaole Highway and through the side streets of Hawaii Kai. Linda swims four hours every weekday at the Oahu Club pool and six to seven hours every weekend.

So, age is no barrier to being fit or trying new things. Just ask Joy and Linda.

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