Great-Grandmother Brings Home the Gold to Bridgewater

Even on the hottest day of the year, Janet Moeller is cool. And that’s not only because she spends a lot of time in the pool.
         
Moeller is awesome every day. That’s because the Bridgewater resident is one of the western hemisphere’s best swimmers in her age group.

She is 79. The great-grandmother is in better shape than most of the people who are a third or a quarter of her age. And she is at the top end of her competitive age group, 75-79.

Moeller, who practices for an hour three days a week at the Bridgewater Family YMCA branch of the Somerset Valley YMCA on Garretson Road, won a gold medal last month in the 400-meter individual medley at the Pan-American Masters Championships in Sarasota, Fla.

She also returned to her Miller Lane home with a silver medal in the 200-meter butterfly and bronze medals in both the 50-meter freestyle and 50-meter fly. She also came in fifth in the 100-meter fly.

”I surpassed all my expectations,” she said. “The 200 fly was held on the seventh day of competition and many swimmers were exhausted and ‘scratched’ out of this event. It truly is a test of endurance.”

But winning is nothing new for her; she's won numerous national championships. Her unwavering faith and unyielding focus have allowed Moeller to meet tests of endurance both in and out of the pool. Those are the lessons she wants everyone to learn from her success.

“Life is meant to be lived,” she said.

For example, last fall Hurricane Sandy knocked out power to her home deep in the Watchung ridge woods for days. When she was finally able to safely leave her home, Moeller made her way to the Somerville Y so she could swim. But in the locker room, she didn’t feel quite right and passed out. She was taken to Somerset Medical Center with dehydration and she missed two months of training. But that didn’t stop her.

”I never give up,” she said.

Though she started swimming at the Plainfield YMCA as a child, she did not start swimming competitively — because there was no competitive swimming for females — until 1971 at the Somerville Y.

”I was making up for lost time,” she said.

And she will continue to make up for that lost time by concentrating on the World’s Federation International de Natacion (FINA) Championship in Montreal next year. And there are several races before then to which she will also devote her full energy.

Matt Donovan, director of competitive aquatics at the Bridgewater Y, said Moeller's accomplishments are “remarkable.” She is an inspiration to all those who swim at the facility, he said.

”We are so proud of Janet and her tremendous accomplishment,” said Dan Roth, the Somerset Valley Y’s Head Age Group Coach and director of Masters Swimming.

“The Masters program that we have here at the Y now is all thanks to the one she started here in 1971. She began her time at the Y as a lifeguard and then went onto a competitive swimming career that has eclipsed 42 years. She is a great example of how swimming can help improve anyone physically and mentally, at any age.”

Moeller always had a competitive nature, being on the girls volleyball and basketball teams at North Plainfield High School where she is a member of the Hall of Fame.            
.
Besides practicing in the pool three days a week, Moeller's only other fitness regimen are daily walks by her home, mostly to the Hawk Watch area by Chimney Rock in Somerset County’s Washington Valley Park.

But she relies on more than physical strength for her success. As the former director of religious education at Blessed Sacrament Church in Martinsville, she has an endless source of spiritual strength

On the starting block for a race, Moeller may feel jitters but then “I bless myself and I say ‘Jesus, help me get through it.’ ”

She also has an almost-sacred belief in the power of swimming. She said that she believes that all children should be able to swim by the second grade so they can enjoy being in the water for the rest of their lives.

”When I’m swimming, nothing bothers me,” Moeller said. “It’s a miracle.”