'Since I began working towards my goal, Bob McRae earned his pro license aged 52 and competed in one pro race the following year,' says Jonathan Barber. 'Bob was unable to amass enough points to get his pro card renewed. Besides Melanie McQuaid who raced at Kona in 2023 aged 50, Bob is the oldest athlete to qualify as a professional that I know of'.
Ten years ago, Jonathan Barber was working towards a pretty lofty goal – earn back his USAT professional triathlon license. A past provincial champion and elite competitor from South Africa, Jonathan had continued to race abroad in the elite category after moving to the United States in the mid-1990s. Amassing some 74 wins over his career (44 in the US), he moved on to a real job in 2005, and hence a decade long sabbatical from top level sport.
Had Jonathan been successful in his quest to regain his USAT Elite License, he would have been the oldest pro triathlete by far. No easy task by any means, given the strict criteria employed by the national governing body. But it all went quiet, until recently when Jonathan checked in stating that he was now once again attempting the seemingly impossible, this time at the age of 57!
Last time we spoke you were working towards an attempt to earn your pro license back again. Give us an update – were you successful?
In short – no. I had actually been working toward the goal for two years before sharing my plans with you – so it has been 11 years since I started this process. But I have not succeeded – yet.
Does that mean you are still trying? What has kept you from achieving your goal these past 11 years?
I still have the same goal, and I am still going after it with everything that I have got. Of course it is getting more difficult with each passing year but I still think it is possible. Since we last spoke, I have experienced one calamity after another. Each has proven to be a huge challenge and road block. If you are familiar with the story of Job in the Bible, I feel a lot like him. It seems I have had to overcome one challenge after another.
For example, the first few years the main challenge was with injuries - the training load required to get to the level needed is quite extreme, especially as I had taken a seven year break from any form of exercise. So after working through some chronic injuries I was getting close to the fitness required when I had four close family members die in the space of just over a year. Focusing on intense training was difficult during this time, what with taking care of all the arrangements required.
The four years I had spent to that point in near full-time training had taken a toll on my finances so the next challenge was trying to train around a full time job. I took a job managing a very progressive engineering company that was experiencing significant growth. The job was demanding, and for the two years I worked there I could, at best, only maintain some basic fitness.
Since leaving the engineering company I have spent the last three and a half years totally focused on my goal. I moved to Santa Monica and trained full-time for nine months. I was near ready to race and planned to spend two months in Switzerland working with Brett Sutton to add some final touches. To travel I needed to get the COVID vaccine and found myself in the emergency room two days later with severe inflammation of the heart. Subsequent tests revealed tissue damage, and I was told my heart was 30% weaker than the average person. And that elite competition was out of the question.
How old are you now, and what makes you think this goal of yours is still achievable?
I've just turned 57 and the training is three times more challenging, as well as overcoming the self-doubt. Common wisdom tells us to adjust down in training for older athletes, especially regarding volume. I have done the exact opposite – I have doubled down. I have done 500 mile (800km) weeks on the bike, 130+ mile (200km) training rides, 9 mile (15km) track workouts, and since I have been in Hawaii, several dozen swim and bike workouts on the Kona course. I do weekly strength workouts and have knocked out a number of 27 hour training weeks so far this year.
All I can say is that I think I have a pretty decent idea of what it is going to take to get me into that kind of shape, and I am focusing on doing the work required. The result itself is out of my hands. What I love about endurance sports is that there is nowhere to hide. At some point the race will reveal whether you are adequately prepared or not. Seldom, and definitely not at my age, are we able to ‘pull something out of the bag’ that defies the laws of physiology.
Right now, even with the heavy training load I am seeing some signs of life in my swim. I am still pretty slow but I think some speed will come back as I drop the volume and back off the weights. My cycling, though, is as strong as it has ever been. ‘Back in the day’ I could ride a 40km in a triathlon (non-drafting) in 53 minutes; I am now holding that pace for the one hour tempo efforts I do during my long rides. Frequent big gear work has helped raise my FTP from 285W a couple of years ago to 315W. The biggest challenge is the run. Drop off in run speed is well documented in older athletes. And I am certainly no exception. I have been struggling to hold the critical volume required to be fast, and I struggle with fatigue which means that most of my running is done below the target training pace. With a strong swim and bike, and with a little more improvement in my run I am convinced an adequate performance is possible.
So what is your plan? When is your next race, and what do you have to accomplish there to get your license?
I have signed up for Ironman 70.3 Lapu-Lapu on April 21st. I am struggling a bit to cover the costs of getting there but if I can sort all of that out, I think this will be my best chance all year.
The USAT rules require an athlete place in the top-3 overall in an amateur race held on the same course and day as a pro race with a $30,000 prize purse. My guess is that I will need to finish the race in around four hours seventeen minutes in order to place in the top three. The heat and wind at this race can be brutal, but after training in Hawaii for the last two years the elements have become my friends.
You mentioned the challenge of dealing with self-doubt earlier. Tell us how you overcome this.
The mental aspect is critical in the success of any athlete. I learnt that during my earlier racing, and it has been reinforced through my experiences in coaching. This facet of sport fascinates me so much that I am now working towards completing a degree in sports psychology.
The biggest challenge for me has been overcoming the negative messages that my mind feeds, and those messages that I receive from others (including the media). Typical messages that I will hear from both sources are that “you cannot do this – you are too old.” My response is always that I do not yet know that I cannot do it because I have not yet had an honest shot at trying. I am not going to believe a message unless it has been proven to be true.
When I studied exercise physiology at Stanford University a big part of the course was dedicated to the physiological changes we go through as we age. Instead of taking that information as a performance death sentence, I have chosen to use that information as a guide when I structure my training so that I am doing everything I can to combat the effects of age on the body.
I think I am able to do what I can do in training now because I have spent the past 11 years building up to it. This gives me the confidence I need to keep going, and to go into a race believing I can compete on equal footing with the younger guys. This has been a tough process - it has pushed me to my limits, physically, psychologically, and emotionally. But I would not have traded it for anything. If I succeed it will feel really good; if I fail, I will know it was not for lack of trying. We should all have something that stretches us, not necessarily to the level that I have chosen, but something that requires us to push our limits and keep growing in some way.
