My first “chat with…” had to be with Tim Marr, the person that I have been chatting with the most over the past 8 years. Tim is my husband, my best friend, my favorite triathlete, and the funniest and happiest person I have ever met. According to my mom, Tim and I never stop talking.
She says “you and Tim are always chatting, laughing, discussing, agreeing and disagreeing, or sharing something.” I think my mom is right, that’s one of our little secrets that keeps our relationship light, honest and tight.
Our chat was at Coffee Talk, one of our favorite places to have coffee, tea and breakfast.
Tim I always tell you that you are one of the happiest humans that I have ever met. What’s the secret to be such light and happy guy?
TIM: I don’t think that there is a big secret. You don’t let things bother you, I think that’s the main trick. Everybody has a million things going on, and you cannot let things overwhelm you.
I have been in situations where I have might be late or missed something important, and that situation might really bother the other person or the other people involved, but it doesn’t bother me. Its not that I don’t care, I do but you have to move on. Sometimes I will watch how they reacted to it, and I think to myself “it’s ok, no matter what it is, it’s ok there is always another time.”
I am not saying that you should be late, but things happen in life and that’s how it goes. But when something goes wrong, or when you cannot do what you want to do, it’s ok, you just move on to the next thing and to the next project, or do whatever you have going on…
I live a Hawaiian lifestyle, probably to the extreme.
What is the Hawaiian lifestyle?
T: Just being chill…
I think you are also very good in living the moment. Sometimes too much, right?
T: Definitely living the moment has been a trademark of mine during my whole life. But it has been a down fault too, when you are living in the moment, the next moment sometimes is rough. I give you an example, when you live in the moment on a big night out, then the next day you wake up shot from “living the moment”. So sometimes living in the moment can ruin the next day.
It’s like Raul Boca always says: “I will worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.” Living in the moment is awesome! Its something I have always done and will probably always do. But I understand that there are consequences in living in the moment as well.
What is your favorite thing about being a professional triathlete and what it is your least favorite thing?
T: My favorite things are the travel, the adventure, and the challenge. When you put a lot of effort into something, and then you see the results of all that hard work that you do. That’s what is pretty neat about triathlon. Basically the harder you work, the more dedicated, the more sacrifices, the bigger the reward.
That said, the one thing I don’t like about triathlon is…(lots of laugh) it’s a little bit of a lazy thing on my side. I don’t like how hard you have to work to really get a result, oh snap you have to work hard, especially on the professional level.
But isn’t that like anything in life?
T: It is like anything in life, but the professional level has improved since I became a pro ten years ago. Now there are more pros on a higher level. And I feel like back when I started we could live a more fun lifestyle and still get away with some pretty good results. But nowadays if you don’t live like a monk, living in a cave, and training 24/7, you will get your ass kicked.
So maybe we can say that the thing that you like the least in triathlon is there are too many fast guys?
T: Probably! That’s probably the correct answer.
And the last thing I don’t like about triathlon is all the science, and how scientific it has become and less adventure’s fun it has become. I feel like triathlon, especially on the pro side, has become the “revenge of the nerds”, and not as cool like it was back in late 90s and early 2000s, with the guys that I looked up to. Those pros were icons, really neat, cool guys, the Norman Staddlers, the Yurgen Zacks, the Peter Reids, the Chirs McCormacks. Those guys were all characters, fun and cool, and I feel like nowadays they are different. They are not like icons, in my opinion, like they were back then. Maybe they were cocky and this and that, but they put on a showmen. And that’s what I like, I feel like on the pro side it’s a show. I think we still have this on the ITU side of triathlon, there are a few icons there, but I feel like on the half and ironmans side it’s not like it was. And as a result the draw of sponsors and money seems to be less.
So do you think it’s missing personality on the pro triathletes today?
T: Yes!
If you could choose to be anything in life. What you would be?
T: Hmmmm, anything in life!
I would choose to be a vigilant super hero, and have super powers, and tools and take care of business. That would be pretty sweet.
How about a super power? Which super power would you like to have?
T: I wanted to be like Batman, he is pretty cool, because he doesn’t have too many super powers, he is human, a little bit extra strong. But he has all this kick as toys and tools.
One of the first question people asked us, is “how did you two meet?”. And my answer is always: “you should ask Tim, his version is much better than mine”. In 2010, the show TriHard made a short documentary on Tim, and on this video he shared how we met. So here it is:
more about tim:
web: timmarr.com
twitter: @marrhawaii
some dreams are worth sharing…
Mariane
