Lompoc’s Juan Campos is proof that some things get better with age.
The 49-year-old turned heads in the Aug. 8 debut of the Santa Maria Recreation and Parks Department’s Tri-the-Bull Triathlon, an event consisting of a quarter-mile swim at Pioneer Valley High School, a 10-mile bike ride, and a 3-mile run along Bull Canyon Road.
A last-minute replacement, Campos blazed through the running portion of the team relay, finishing with a time of 18:46.
Campos called it one of his fastest three-milers since his high school days.
“I shocked myself,” Campos said. “It was one of those days where it all came together. I never thought I’d run a sub-20 minute again in my life.”
Describing himself as “a sprinter masquerading as a marathoner,” Campos has been running competitively for 41 years in events ranging from the 50-yard-dash to the marathon.
“I do it as a stress reliever from work,” Campos said. “I’ve always found personal satisfaction in competing and from my training runs. They call it a runner’s high. I just feel so much better when I’m out there running. It gives me a boost.”
He started as a sprinter at a Chicago Boys’ Club running the quarter-mile and long jump. In high school, he participated in cross country and track and competed in the long jump and triple jump.
In 1978, he took part in his first marathon and has since raced in a total of 27—six times at the Los Angeles Marathon. He’s also completed marathons in 12 different states and all over the world, including Antarctica, where he ran among penguins and sea lions in high winds and near whiteout conditions.
For training, Campos runs at least four days a week, often at the nearby La Purisima Mission with his wife Julie and his dogs Dudley and Hershey. The regimen has paid off so far in 2009: He’s won first place for his age group in the Lompoc Flower Festival 5K and the Beattie Park 10K.
Campos shows no signs of slowing down. In addition to competing in the Nipomo and Lompoc half-marathons, he plans on traveling to New Zealand later this year, where he’ll complete his goal of running in all seven continents.
In the long term, he hopes to run a marathon in all 50 U.S. states and compete in another at age 100.
This article appears in Sep 3-10, 2009.
