https://www.active.com/donate/kenny
Like the American Indians, we in the triathlon world don’t have much of a written history of the beginnings of our sport, or of it’s founding elites and special charcters… We rely on the oral tradition of handing down the tales of past. From time to time I’ve told you my stories of the “good ole days”, and it has been fun for me to remember, and sort of relive some of the great adventures. I’m not one to dwell in the past though, and I continue to embarke on new adventurers for myself, and enjoy the stories of the paths less travelled, by my friends, and the new trailbreakers of today. Kenny is one of those guys, and I have to take responsibility for sending him down the fork in the road ,that has brought him to this point in his life. Here is the tale of how he actually became an athlete, and what kind of person he really was, good and bad, when he was just a seed, flung into the dung heap of sports…
The year was 1983, a 5 yr. veteran of the sport, and I was looking to expand my business interests in triathlon. I really loved this sport, but I could see that the real money was to be made elsewhere, race promotions.(Was I ever wrong there…) I got together with Bill Fulton, a local running shop owner who put on running races at Bonelli Park here in SO. Cal., and we mapped out a nice little triathlon course, and decided to put on a few triathlons there. It was the first LA triathlon championship series, with pro prize purses, and all the hoopla of the day. I was the course and race director, and I would also race in all the races. It was really tough for me to be out on the course at 4am, marking it, and setting up all the cones, rushing back for volunteer meetings, setting swim buoys, and then towing the start line. SO after the first race, my partner Bill told me of a young high school kid that he knew, that asked if he could help me out with all the morning course layout stuff. That’s when I met Kenny, a scrawney pimplied faced little kid, who was barley passing high school, and did a bit of running there. We put on about 8 races a year back then, including the Catalina Tri, and he would show up to everyone of them, and volunteer his time to whatever we needed him to do. He became my right hand man, and eventually I could turn over all the course stuff to him, so that I could relax for 5 minutes before I got to race.
Then one day he decided to get a bike, and asked me if I could show him how to ride. I didn’t think much of it, but what the hell, he was a good kid, so I would show him a couple things and he could go and ride around and have a little fun. It was our first ride together, and I knew in that instant that he would become a great athlete. I rode with him, and I would up the pace just to show him what real bike riding was all about. He wouldn’t drop, so I upped it some more, he still wouldn’t drop. Now I was getting mad at myself, what the hell is going on here, drop this punk and show him who the boss is and get on with it. Needless to say, he just thought that if you ride with someone, you stay with them, getting dropped wasn’t even a thought or concept that he could imagine.
Kenny eventually moved into my digs in Leucadia after High school, and became my training partner. At this time there was no real duathlon scene(Biathlon back then), and he could not swim to save his life. He tried to learn, but it was torture for him. He really just wanted to be part of this whole thing that I had molded my life around, but it just wasn’t going to happen. SO in the meantime he just rode and ran with me. I remember the first ever Wednesday ride I took him on, this was basically a 100 mile category 1 bike race. Kenny had never rode in a pack, but I figured he had to start somewhere. I told him that when he got dropped, to just keep riding and we would see him on the way back. As usual, Molina, myself, and a handful of bike racers broke the 100 person group to a small break, and we hammered the flats at 30mph. Then all of a sudden while we are changing leads and hammering our paceline, here comes Kenny, up the side, out of the draft, and just rides next to whoever is leading, pullling wind the whole time. In his mind he was along for this ride I invited him on, so he was going to ride with me, even if it meant riding 30 mph into the wind.He didn’t know about drafting, and was too scared to ride close. I remember Monlia at some point looking at me and asking “Who the helll is this guy?”. Then I quietly told him that he runs better than he bikes.
Kenny became a regular fixture on all the big guy training sessions after that, and he lived with me for 10 months or so. Never to be a great triathlete, but alas, the birth of a new sport came around, just in time for Kenny to finally have a venue to race in. No one in the world had a chance against this kid, he could out run, and out ride the best in triathlon, and often won races by up to 5 minutes. It was childs play for him, and from that time he became part of recorded history…
In the 23 years since then, his life has been pulled in all kinds of directions, some good, some bad, but his decision to get back to sport and attempt the impossible is a good decision for his life now. The example he is setting for his kids is one that they will never forget, and hopefully shape their lives to be better people. He has always been an extremely hard worker, that never asked for anything in return, except to be part of the expirence. THis RAMM thing is an 800 lb gorilla, and to wrestle this baby, he needs a little help. I’m going to sponsor team Souza because he needs it, he has earned this shot, and would never ask for it. I will watch this race with all the anticipation and excitment that I get when I get up every morning at 5am in July, and watched another kid I used to train with, dominate the TDF…
Now get out there and work out, Kenny is, Oh ya, don’t forget to become part of his team too…Monty https://www.active.com/donate/kenny