Value of ‘healthy mind in a healthy body’ a lasting lesson

As a PE student in the early 1970s, Lorraine Moller MBE, ONZM regularly went for 32km Sunday runs with a bunch of male runners through the Waitati hills.

At the time, the longest Women’s Olympics running event was the 1500m, and further distances for women were not encouraged.

Lorraine Moller

“You have to understand that long distance running was not usual and barely acceptable for women back then,” Lorraine says.

She chose to study Physical Education as she had a passion for athletics but there were very few professional sports options for women at the time.

The third of six children born in the South Waikato town of Putāruru, Lorraine followed her eldest brother Gary Moller (Dip PhEd, PG DipSM, PG DipRehab), who is a Wellington nutritionist and mountain biking champion, and her sister Vivienne to Dunedin to study.

Lorraine says Vivienne became a dental nurse and spent many years working in Dunedin.

Meanwhile, her youngest brother Gordon Moller (BDS, 1980) is a dentist in New South Wales.

“At one time, there were four Moller children in Dunedin and myself, Gary and Gordon were all keen runners.

“Today I have two nieces living in Dunedin. My youngest sister, Delwyn, has a daughter, Lena, who’s in her second year at Otago studying Neuroscience.”

Lorraine spent all her three years at Otago at UniCol, which was new at the time, and she says it was a great time where she “had loads of fun and made many friends”.

She says the then School of Physical Education was very accommodating, supporting her running career while she was completing her studies.

In 1973 as a first-year student at Otago she represented New Zealand at the Pan Pacific Games in Toronto where she was fifth in the 800m and helped the women’s team to an overall silver medal and received her first Otago “Blue”.

As an 18-year-old second-year student she competed for her country in the 800m at the Christchurch Commonwealth Games, where she again came fifth, running the fastest ever time in her life for that distance and creating a New Zealand record that stood for 52 years.

Lorraine says she was in “absolute awe” of Professor Philip Smithells, who was the Founding Director of the School of Physical Education from 1947 until his retirement in 1974.

“He gave us newbies a lecture on ‘mens sana in corpore sano’ – a healthy mind in a healthy body – which has stuck with me to this day.” – Lorraine Moller

“He gave us newbies a lecture on ‘mens sana in corpore sano’ – a healthy mind in a healthy body – which has stuck with me to this day.”

After leaving Otago she taught for two years in the Bay of Plenty and then moved to the United States in 1979 to progress her running career. She eventually settled in Boulder, Colorado where she has lived for more than 40 years.

At 45 she gave birth to her daughter Jasmine, who splits her time between Boulder and Sydney.

Lorraine is currently president of the Lydiard Foundation, an organisation she founded in 2006, with input and oversight from Kiwi running great Peter Snell, who was a professor of the Human Performance Lab at the University of Texas Medical Centre in Dallas.

“We provide coaching education in the Lydiard method of training and have certified about 1000 coaches worldwide. Arthur Lydiard is considered the world’s greatest coach of the 20th century and was a key influence in NZ’s great endurance sports success and identity.”

Lorraine was the world’s top women’s master road racer in 1995 and 1996 and, at 41, the oldest woman to compete in the 1996 Olympic marathon, uniquely completing all 20th-century Olympic marathons.

Over her career, she won 16 international marathons – including the Boston Marathon – an Olympic bronze medal, and Commonwealth Games silver and two bronzes. She holds an eight-marathon maiden win streak and remains undefeated as a masters runner. She still holds the New Zealand 50km record (1981).

From 1997 to 2005, she founded and coached the Wings of Mercury running team in Colorado. She was Vice-President of the Japan-based Hearts of Gold Foundation, which founded the 1996 Angkor Wat Half Marathon, fundraising for prosthetics for land-mine victims.

She spearheaded a programme reinstating physical education in Cambodian schools post-Pol Pot. In 1997, she established GoldQuest, a mental and social skills conference for New Zealand Olympic athletes.

Lorraine has collaborated with KidsMarathon Foundation to enhance children’s fitness. She was inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame in 2008 and was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) in the recent New Year Honours.

And what does one of our greatest ever athletes think of the new Kiwi running sensation Sam Ruthe?

Lorraine says Sam’s mother Jessica stayed with her in Boulder, while training for a marathon, before he was born.

“He’s got great genes, and is ushering in a new era of brilliance. As long as he sticks with his sound training and loves what he does he has a bright future. The key for one so young is not to get too encumbered with others’ expectations.”

– Kōrero by Kerry Dohig, Communications Adviser Development and Alumni Relations Office.