CHAPTER 17
MOTIVATION CASE STUDY #2: GET A RIVAL
How a fast-swimming nurse made a doctor a better runner.
At 6-foot-6, 225 pounds, Dr. Samir Shahin, a general practitioner from Manhattan Beach, California, stood out at any race he went to. He stood out above the crowd in his 60 marathons, including the day he and 30 others ran the San Diego Rock ’n’ Roll Marathon dressed as Elvis. “We each had names; I was called ‘Tall Elvis’—of course,” he said. It was the same thing at triathlons, of which he’s done dozens, including four Ironmans. Even in the 200-plus pound “Clydesdale” category, his head would poke out of the corral on the beach like a lone submarine telescope.
That is, until the 1997 Hermosa Beach Sprint triathlon, when the then 39-year-old lined up next to the year-younger Martin Spencer, a 6-foot-7, 250-pound registered nurse from Santa Barbara by way of Manchester, England.
“We bade each other good morning, and then I took off,” said Spencer. “The sprint events favored me. He’s a good cyclist and remarkably good runner, which I can’t do well. After a fracture in my 20s, a podiatrist told me that I was too big to run. But my swimming background gave me a real and psychological edge.” The Englishman built a huge lead on the swim. Shahin, a 4-plus-hour marathoner with a PR of 3:45, inexorably closed the gap as the race went on. But there wasn’t enough time in the short race. Spencer took 3rd, Shahin 4th.
It continued like that for a couple years—Spencer 2nd, Shahin 3rd. Spencer 4th, Shahin 5th. They were always among the Top 5 in the Clydesdales, which often would account 20 or 30 people out of a field of 600 triathletes. It ate at the doctor.
Big rivals Samir Shahin (6-foot-6) and Martin Spencer (6-foot-7).
“Despite all the races I’ve done—including a marathon a month one year—I don’t think of myself as being a hardcore athlete,” says Shahin, who coauthored the book 50 Trail Runs in Southern California and is the inventor of SportSlick, the lubrication gel. “But being beaten by Marty again and again changed me. I wouldn’t miss a workout—thinking ‘I’ve done 99% of the work, but that guy beat me by 5 seconds and took away my third place.’ So I’d push it to 100%.”
“I read every article on training. I did track work; I could debate every side on nutritional issues,” says Shahin. “I did the normal carbo-loading, then went to a diet of high-protein powder made of egg whites and dried milk, a can or two of tuna fish, topped off with honey.”
His running seemed to get faster. In 2000, at a buffet at the Luxor Hotel the night before the Las Vegas Marathon, he ate roast beef, fish, fried chicken, and one piece each of cherry, apple, and peach pie. “I ate so much that I could barely walk,” he said. “And guess what happened? I broke my 5k, 10k, and half marathon records during the marathon, running 7-minute miles.”
There seemed to be no limit to what he’d try to beat his rival. “This would make normal people laugh, but I even tried a hyperbaric chamber,” he says. Super-saturated with oxygen, hyperbaric chambers were originally developed to help burn victims and diabetics. Diseased tissue that doesn’t get enough oxygen heals better this way. As a physician, Shahin had access to it for free.
“My conclusion: There is no benefit to normal people,” he says. “But it’s relaxing—1½ hours breathing 100% oxygen with no phone calls. I felt good. And psychologically, I was ready for him.”
Finally, in the Catalina Island Triathlon in 2001, Shahin beat Spencer. And for the next two years, the two Clydesdales traded places.
“It was good motivation for me to get better—especially on the bike,” says Spencer. “We competed probably 10 times—five times at Hermosa. We used to call it “our event.” Even when I moved to Monterey, I came down to compete against him.”
He’ll never forget one of their last races, the Mt. Ada Sprint, which he lost. “It was a long, hard sprint race: ½-mile swim, 9-mile bike, 5k run,” says Spencer. “There were three ascents on the bike. He had the advantage there and was fresher on the run. There’s some footage of me hobbling after the bike transition.”
The supersized rivals became friends. “He came to my wedding,” said Spencer. That was 2003. It was the last time they saw one another.
Spencer moved away with his wife. Seattle was too far from L.A. to sustain the rivalry. But neither has forgotten it.
“Looking back, our competition did make it so exciting,” says Spencer. “The anticipation for months and months, motivating you to train harder. . .” He doesn’t do triathlons anymore due to a foot injury.
Shahin doesn’t race triathlons much anymore, either. “I miss the passion of having a rival,” says Shahin. “The competition makes you enjoy life. With it, you want to learn everything you can to get better. It was fun knowing that I had to go out and exercise. But when he left, I lost some motivation. It even may have hurt my running.”
But it hasn’t stopped him. Five years later, still furiously thinking of a new way to motivate himself, Shahin’s thinking about shooting for what he calls, “The world’s most expensive T-shirt: the 50-50 club.” As in 50 marathons in 50 states.
John Strand, whom you’ll read about next, knows a little about that.