SEVEN THE HARD WAY
Senior about to embark on the challenge of his life
When Robert Owens’s father was 75, he gave his son some advice. “He said, ‘You know, son, the sad part is when you get old, they just put you on a shelf and you become irrelevant. Fight to stay relevant. Fight to stay in the game, otherwise they will write you off.’ ”
Owens took his father’s words to heart by physically pushing himself beyond what most people half his age have ever done. At 66, he has completed a dozen Ironman races, along with other gruelling physical competitions such as SEALFIT (a 50-hour Navy SEAL hell week for civilians) and an endurance event in Greece that involved running 383 kilometres (238 miles) in eight days.
Later this month, he will embark on the World Marathon Challenge, where he will run seven marathons on seven continents in seven days. After starting in Antarctica, participants will sleep on a chartered plane and wake up each day to run another 42.2 km (26.2 miles) — in Cape Town, South Africa; Perth, Australia; Dubai; Lisbon; Cartagena, Colombia; and Miami. That’s 168 hours of non-stop running and flying.
Of the 54 participants this year, Owens is only the fourth-oldest; the oldest is 73. It costs about C$53,500; in his case, friends and sponsors donated.
Owens has been pushing his body to the edge since he was a Southern California surfer trying to get out of the Vietnam War. At 18, he says, he slammed his arm into a concrete wall hard enough to “make it mush” and avoid the draft. But afterward, he felt guilty. “I was really convinced that I had screwed up, that I had not done my part as a young man,” he said.
That started him on a journey of redemption.
His solution was to join the U.S. air force Pararescue special operations team, which rescues Navy SEALs and Army Rangers during war. At 27, he also participated in his first Ironman race, which includes a 3.9-km (2.4-mile) swim, a 180-km (112-mile) bike ride, and a marathon, all in one day.
Owens didn’t end up going to war, but with the special ops team he found a calling that he says “really suited my personality.” Helping people on the outside led Owens to want to help people on the inside, and he enrolled in theology school.
While there, he began working for a group called Open Doors Ministry — smuggling literature and biblical materials into Eastern Europe, and smuggling out material showing violations of the Helsinki Accords.
He then became a pastor, spending over two decades counselling troubled college kids at the University of Nevada at Reno and he started the non-denominational University Family Fellowship. He got married and had five children, and while he continued to exercise daily, the intensity of his workouts ebbed. But then he turned 50. “My oldest son said, ‘Dad, you’re really old,’” he said. “So I decided that after 23 years off I’d do an Ironman.”
And, he told his children, “You guys are going to come watch.” He enjoyed it. “I liked being in that kind of shape again,” he said. “Once you get used to going over the edge physically, you get used to things that other people say you can’t do.
“I think there’s a lot of people my age who have so much to give, they just don’t feel that they have a platform from which to share it.”
As for running seven marathons in seven days, “I think you have to have a why, and the why has to be strong enough — Why am I doing this? My cause is being a senior,” he said.
A decade ago, Owens’ life shifted beneath him: his church closed, he lost his house and his marriage collapsed.
“I crawled out of town a broken guy,” he said. He is now back in Laguna Beach, Calif., near where he grew up, and he recently married for a second time.
He acknowledges that he has been fortunate with his health. Along with swimming, cycling, running and doing CrossFit, he coaches young athletes and consults executives internationally on leadership and management.
The sad part is when you get old, they just put you on a shelf and you become irrelevant. Fight to stay relevant.