Wayne Mac Murray, left, and Mark Myhre celebrate their national rowing championship in Hermosa Beach Calif., while wearing their gold medals. (Photos courtesy of Mark Myhre and Wayne Mac Murray)
By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Mark Myhre and Wayne Mac Murray have been rowing together ever since they were kids growing up in Sea Isle City.
“We were both bay babies. We grew up along the back bays,” Myhre recalled with a laugh.
The so-called bay babies would later become Sea Isle lifeguards in their teens and are now in their sixties. Remarkably, they are still rowing together all these years later. Even more astonishing, they are national rowing champions together for the second time.
They dominated the 65 to 68 age group to win the surf boat race at the U.S. Lifeguard Association national championships at Hermosa Beach, Calif., on Aug. 13.
“It felt good going into the first turn,” Mac Murray said while describing the championship race. “I knew I just had to relax and keep up a good stroke. It’s important to get a good start and get past the first buoy turn. From there on, it was easy.”
Their gold medal performance in Hermosa Beach was a repeat of their surf boat championship at the USLA national races in Daytona Beach, Fla., in 2017.
The ironman-like Myhre also competed in five other events in Hermosa Beach involving running, swimming, rowing and paddling, but did not medal.
Not bad for a 68-year-old man now living in retirement in Naples, Fla.
“I feel fat and old sometimes,” Myhre joked.
Mac Murray, 67, has overcome two hip replacements, a left knee replacement, a triple hernia and two torn rotator cuffs to continue his rowing career.
But make no mistake about it, Myhre and Mac Murray keep themselves in top shape by training almost every day, including their rowing workouts.
“It comes down to training five to six miles every day – in windy days, cold days, hot days,” Mac Murray said.
Myhre and Mac Murray show the form that allowed them to win the USLA national rowing championship in 2017 in Daytona Beach, Fla.
Although Myhre and Mac Murray share two national rowing championships together, Mac Murray actually has a total of four. He also won a USLA surf boat gold medal in 2012 with partner Bill Kindle of Cape May Court House and another in 2013 with Gerry Falconer of Miami Beach.
To win the championship in Hermosa Beach, Mac Murray and Myhre rowed their surf boat through a triangular course about a quarter mile long in the Pacific Ocean. They defeated competitors from throughout the country, including heavily regarded rowers from Los Angeles County who were racing in their home surf.
“We did dominate,” Mac Murray said. “We were ahead by eight boat lengths at the first turn.”
“It’s the biggest race in the country for lifeguards. It’s pretty prestigious,” Myhre added.
Mac Murray and Myhre’s last two championships show that the former childhood buddies who plied the back bays of Sea Isle together are still formidable rowing partners at Medicare age.
As they grew up in Sea Isle, they enhanced their rowing skills while serving as lifeguards. They both started as lifeguards when they were only 15 years old.
Mac Murray, who now lives in Marmora, spent 15 years as a lifeguard in Sea Isle, 10 years in Wildwood and 22 years with the Upper Township Beach Patrol. He is a member of the Sea Isle City Beach Patrol Alumni Association Hall of Fame.
He still fills in as needed with the Upper Township Beach Patrol and teaches rowing to the young lifeguards.
“When I row by them at 67 years old, they say, ‘Hey, can I train with you tomorrow?’” Mac Murray said of the young lifeguards.
As part of his training, Mac Murray rows almost every day with another partner, Jimmy Gibbons, a retired former lifeguard in Sea Isle, Wildwood and Upper Township. Mac Murray and Gibbons plan to compete in the 17-mile Around the Island Row in the Wildwoods on Aug. 23.
Myhre and Mac Murray prepare to row out for their race in Hermosa Beach.
Myhre, meanwhile, first served as a Sea Isle lifeguard from 1969 to 1971. Afterward, he joined the Sea Isle ambulance corps as an EMT. He returned to the Sea Isle Beach Patrol in 1979 and 1980 as a medical officer.
Myhre, a U.S. Navy veteran, later moved to Florida and began lifeguarding there. He was a lifeguard in Lake Worth Beach, Fla., for 21 years, becoming its chief lifeguard. He also served with the beach patrols in two other Florida towns for a total of 10 years.
Both Mac Murray and Myhre treasure their time as former Sea Isle lifeguards as well as their time growing up in the beach resort. Both of their families have roots in Sea Isle tracing back about 100 years.
Mac Murray’s family owned a marina on 44th Street. His late father, Jack, was a fishing boat captain. His grandfather, John Mac Murray, owned a Sea Isle apartment complex.
Myhre’s grandfather, Frank, owned a Sea Isle bar, while his late father, also named Frank, owned the former Polaris Motel overlooking Townsends Inlet in Sea Isle. He comes from a family of lifeguards, including his father, uncle and his older brother, Mike.
In phone interviews Wednesday, both Mac Murray and Myhre pointed to their days in Sea Isle as the foundation for their rowing careers that continue this day.
“Basically, I’ve been a lifeguard and rower since I was 15 years old,” Mac Murray said.
“We have been rowing together since we were kids -- growing up on the bay and rowing since we were seven or eight years old,” Myhre noted.
