Power trip

There is drive.

And then there is Stacia-Al Mahoe.

Her inner drive to become the best athlete she could be may be only exceeded by the drive — both time and mileage — it is taking to do so.

Some days, it means 70 miles round trip from her Nanakuli home to the CrossFit Fifty gym in Kuliouou … a trek that takes just under 2 hours on a good day, not including the detour to Kapolei High where the 17-year-old is a senior.

It is a commitment and a sacrifice willingly made by the Mahoe family, who have created their personal traveling team of nine: parents Allen and Stacie and seven very active children. The efforts have begun to pay off, in ways both expected and not.

Stacia-Al’s goal was to improve her softball game by gaining speed and strength. She has done that, including dropping her home-to-first base time (60 feet) from 2.9 seconds to 2.4.

What she didn’t expect was to do so well at the recent state powerlifting meet at Kapolei Strength and Conditioning. In her first state competition, Mahoe set four Hawaii and four American records for her weight/age division (100 pounds/16-year-old), obliterating the marks in the process.

She recorded a squat of 80kg, 17.5 kg better than the previous record; a bench press of 40kg, 10kg better; and a dead lift of 120kg, 17.5kg better. Her total was 245kg, 45kg better; in terms of pounds, her total was 540.13 pounds, nearly 100 pounds better than the American record of 451.94 pounds.

Had her marks come during a national meet, her bench would have tied the world record and her dead lift and total set world records.

"We took four lifters to the meet and all had PRs (personal records)," said Jack Cambra, owner and head instructor at CrossFit Fifty. "Stacia just did what she does.

"The funny thing is I wasn’t training her for powerlifting or for powerlifting records. We’ve been powerlifting to get athletic performance. I was training her for softball."

Cambra opened his outdoor CrossFit gym nearly four years ago at his family compound in Kuliouou. He was a competitive lifter while at Saint Louis School in the 1990s and, after racing motorcycles, got back into lifting about 10 years ago.

His CrossFit Fifty is affiliated with Westside Barbell and ascribes to its methodology as developed by world-class power lifter Louie Simmons.

"We train normal people and develop them," Cambra said. "I do have someone who is going to compete at the CrossFit Games, which is the Olympics of our sport, but we get mostly normal people. We joke about having ‘soccer moms’ but we do."

He also picked up a softball mom in Stacie Mahoe, an assistant coach at Kapolei High and former player at Kamehameha and the University of Hawaii. She and husband Allen — both two-sport athletes at Kamehameha in the 1990s — got into CrossFit as a way to get back into shape.

"(Allen) started first and eventually we thought Stacia would enjoy it, she’d always been active and up for challenges," Stacie Mahoe said. "Then they added a team program and we jumped at it for our girls.

"Allie (13) and Allicia (12) are using it to help with their boxing (both are state champions who fight out of Pearlside Boxing). For Stacia, it’s about softball. The good thing is this (CrossFit) is something she can do after college."

Stacia-Al said she wasn’t expecting to set records at the powerlifting meet but "I knew that my (weight) numbers were higher than some of the records," she said, "I was just hoping that I’d perform well that day.

"I might want to do CrossFit after college but I’m doing it now to get stronger and faster for softball. I know it’s worth it. Totally."

The commitment also has come from her extended family, including Cambra. He has become part of the road team, sometimes picking up Stacia-Al from Kapolei High, driving her back to Kuliouou for a workout then back home to Nanakuli.

"Sometimes it’s four hours on the road for me," Cambra said. "It is big effort and commitment, but I see it as another level of help.

"I train athletes for big competitions all the time. But if I can help get a kid into college, for me that’s a huge achievement."