Sonoma Valley triathlete, 78, trains for future

At 78, Wayne Mehl figures it probably won’t be too long before he reaches the end.

Not of his life. Oh, no. Mehl, a partially retired telecommunications engineer and nuclear weapons specialist turned anti-war activist, is leaner, stronger and more fit than most people half or a quarter his age.

Also pragmatic, the Stanford graduate simpl accepts that aging won’t allow him to continue forever to run, swim and cycle a total of 70.3 miles in half-triathlons around the globe.

“I know I’m not going to be able to do this much longer,” said Mehl, who lives in Sonoma Valley with his wife, Helen, an artist. “I’m kind of looking at the end of it.”

But “looking at the end of it” means only that. At this moment, the top-ranked Ironman half-triathlon athlete in his age bracket in America - and, by the way, in the entire world - Mehl isn’t quitting but simply switching to the mindset of a competitor nearing the finish.

Still very much in the race, Mehl looks forward to turning 79 later this year and moving into the next age bracket, where he’ll be the kid among triathletes as old as 84.

Then there’s this: In his dreams, Mehl reveals, he envisions himself training for a return to a full, 140.6-mile triathlon - he has completed 16 of them - and attempting to become the first man 83 or older to complete one within the 17-hour time limit.

He draws inspiration from the grit and determination exhibited by 83-year-old Hiromu Inada at last year’s beyond-grueling Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii. Depleted, Inada collapsed as he approached the finish line.

With spectators wildly cheering and urging him on, Inada stood and stumbled across the finish line - a mere six seconds too late to qualify as a finisher.

It tantalizes Mehl to ponder the prospect of training to become the first man older than 83 to finish a full triathlon. But what a push that would be - he’s frank about admitting it’s far from a cakewalk for him to complete “just” a half-triathlon within the limit of 8 or 8½ hours, depending on the location of the race.

Within that time, a competitor, whether 22 or 82, must swim ?1.2 miles in the ocean, a lake or a river, race a bike 56 miles and run a 13.1-mile half-marathon. Though challenged not only by the harrowing rigors and by the approach of age 80, Mehl had an exceptionally good year last year.

He competed in six U.S. and international Ironman half-marathons. And he finished with the best time in the 75-79 age division in four of them - the Vineman in Sonoma County and in competitions in Santa Cruz, Austin, Texas, and Monterrey, Mexico.

Mehl makes no claim to be the fastest half-triathlete his age in the world.

“I know guys are better than I am,” he said. Even so, his finishes in 2015 earned him the ranking in his age division of No. 1 in the nation and No. 1 in the world, by the World Triathlon Corp., parent of the Ironman competitions.

Though there are other men in his age division who might beat him in one half-marathon or another, the competitors don’t enter every race around the globe. As they successfully finish U.S. and foreign races, they earn points.

Last year, nobody in Mehl’s division earned more points than he did. This is his second stint as No. 1 in America and the world; he also came out on top in 2013.

His competing as a triathlete, which began at age 58, complements many other aspects of a notably ambitious and full life. Having gone to Stanford on a partial scholarship for swimming, he said he believes his long experience in the water puts him at an advantage over all the triathletes and potential triathletes put off by the open-water portion of the race.

Swimming “was my strength, and still is,” Mehl said.

From Stanford, he joined the Navy, served in the 1960s in Vietnam and became a nuclear-weapons specialist. That experience convinced him of the madness of the nuclear arms race and prompted him to become deeply involved in the work of Beyond War.

He became an executive with ROLM and contributed to the development of the first digital telephone switchboard. He and his wife have worked to improve nutrition and health care overseas, and for a time lived on the south shore of Kauai, where he ran a busy botanical garden and surfed every day for a year.

Mehl trains religiously for half-triathlons, and contemplates a return to full ones in an attempt to break the record of Lew Hollander, who did something no one his age or older had ever done when he finished the 2012 Ironman World Championship in Kailua-Kona in 16 hours, 45 minutes and 52 seconds, at the age of 82.

Mehl runs and swims in Sonoma County but travels to the Yolo County countryside to train on his bike. He’s convinced that to pedal Sonoma County roads alongside cars piloted often enough by wine-tasting tourists isn’t wise for a guy who aspires to be a triathlete well into his 80s and, who knows, perhaps beyond.

Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.