Dan Molloy does not speak Mandarin, but he’s trying: Reached on his office phone at Molloy LLC, his business and development company in Union City, he starts a conversation not with hello but with its Mandarin equivalent. Or at least, his best attempt at its Mandarin equivalent, then declaring, “That was Chinese!”
This month, Molloy, 60, of Union City, is going to China for the first time. Not as a businessman, but as a triathlete: Along with six other athletes from New Jersey, he will represent the United States in the 2011 Short-Course Triathlon World Championships, September 10 in Beijing. Molloy will be the oldest man from the New York metropolitan area to compete in the 1,500-meter swim, 40K bicycle and 10K run. Fifty nations are coming together to compete; Molloy is one of about 100 men planning to attend from the United States.
In his own way, Molloy has been working half his life to qualify.
“I used to eat Sour Patch Kids. No more. I haven’t had a drink in 11 years,” he says, retracing the journey that delivered him to tri-athleticism. It started slowly. “I got caught up in and addicted to cigarettes at age 20,” he recalls. “Two packs a day, sometimes three. It was really bad.” Then, while recovering from a hernia operation, he had an awakening. “I was miserable,” he says. “I saw myself sitting there in my robe, smoking. I said, ‘This is not me.’” He went for a walk around the block; eventually, the walks turned into runs.
Five years ago he tired of the running routine, so he started biking and swimming, too. At 5 feet 9 inches tall, he weighed 180 when he was just running; he is now 147, thanks to 16 or 17 hours a week of training, much of it in the pool at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken. He also takes Pilates classes. “It’s the best thing for core strength. I’m one of the girls,” he says. And that’s okay by Molloy, who has gotten used to heading full-bore into endeavors some might say are not suited for someone his age.
“This morning I was swimming, and I moved over to the fast lane, where the people in their 20s were,” he says. “I didn’t even think about it.”