In 1513, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León went looking for the Fountain of Youth, but the poor sot landed in Florida. Almost 500 years later, Todd Richards, a ‘godfather’ of snowboarding and Encinitas resident, has discovered that great secret which eluded Ponce de León and keeps plastic surgeons in business. Nearing his 40th birthday, Richards has an ambiguously ageless face and a wiry, strong frame. He keeps up with kids less than half his age on the slopes, in the water and on vert ramps. He owns a snowboard manufacturing company in Encinitas called O-Matic, along with partners Jason Kanes and Tara Dakides. Richards is also a commentator for ESPN. Last year, he probably logged as many air miles as P-Diddy. He has a wife, two kids and a second home in Breckenridge, Colorado.

How does he do it?

Richard’s youthful energy may come from a nervous habit or an irrepressible drive for success. Oddly, for one with so little time, he just doesn’t seem to be that stressed out or in a hurry. While sitting in the Pannikin one morning, (his favorite local spot) he looks surprisingly un-twitchy. He doesn’t tap his foot, crack his knuckles or exhibit any other annoying nervous ticks, even after a double coffee. He doesn’t sit on the edge of his seat or constantly look around the room. On the flip side, he’s not the creepy, repressed, ‘Zen’ type that seems ready to go postal at any minute. For lack of a better word, he’s just…normal. So how does he stay so young? All the way back to Ponce de León and even before, philosophers, inventors and celebrities have been exploring the concept of the seemingly unattainable: Eternal youth.

If growing old is a vice, then Richards has assiduously avoided it. The fact is he’s rarely ever in one place for a long stretch of time. To truly get old, one must park oneself in a Barcalounger, stare mutely at the television and wait for the body to decompose. Richards doesn’t even know his neighbors of eight years. In 2007, his snowboarding career took him back and forth to Breckenridge, Utah, Fiji, Japan, Tahoe, Mammoth, Oregon, Whistler, New Zealand, Tahiti, Vancouver and Montreal. He is sponsored by the biggest companies in the action sports industry; Quiksilver, Nixon, DC and Spy, to name a few.

Maybe Richards got stuck somewhere in the aging process. He says it himself, “As far as I’m concerned, I’ve been in arrested development since 18. I don’t think I’ve aged past 18 for better or for worse.” What happened at age 18 that would make Richards want to stay there?

It was 1989 and Richards was attending a small graphic arts college in Massachusetts, not far from Paxton, where he grew up. After being a “little runt kid” skateboarder in high school that “never really fit in” he picked up snowboarding in college, because the school was in the mountains. In 1990 he won the New England Half Pipe Championship. That was also the year Richards’ father passed away. His father was there at the competition and was able to see the beginning of Richards’ career—to witness the world that was about to open up for his son. Richards says, “He saw me just start to gain momentum.” His father had his own dreams of being a professional hockey player that were never realized, so it may have been the prospect of living his dream vicariously through his son that increased his pride. It was a year that marked great tragedy and triumph.

Richards spent his college years being courted by sponsors, being flown around the United States to compete (after never having been on an airplane in his life) and meeting his snowboarding heroes. In his 20s, after graduating from college, he was ready to play. His mother bought him a Volkswagen GTI, gave him his inheritance and said, “Go!” With his entire young life, consisting of “TVs, skateboards, T-shirts, helmets, whatever,” packed into the car, he set out like a modern-day pioneer. Richards says, “My whole goal was to get past the Midwest. I just wanted to go west.”

He dropped his girlfriend off at the University of Colorado in Boulder and stayed in town. Drawn to Boulder’s youth culture, he became enmeshed in the college scene. There, Richards met life-long friends, bought a house in Breckenridge, fine-tuned his snowboarding skills and met Lindsy, who later became his wife. He calls these years, “the salad years,” because, flush with ‘crispy green’ prize winnings and paychecks, he was “living this pretty disposable lifestyle. No one to answer to. Just making stupid purchases after stupid purchases.” Yet even during the apex of his youth Richards was never self-destructive, which quickly leads to burn-out.

The good times didn’t end, but as Richards neared his 30s, the fun merely took on a different tone. Chad DiNenna, owner of Nixon, was instrumental in coaxing Richards to move to Encinitas, offering him a long drink from the Fountain of Youth Culture; warm weather, beaches, surfing and Mexican food. Richards calls Encinitas a “little bubble” where everybody is young, or at least they look it. He says, “There’s a couple of spots on the planet that are like this and this is one of them.”

While living on Neptune Avenue in Leucadia, he “caught the surfing bug.” The first time Richards surfed was with Tim Swart at Cardiff Reef, “on a nine foot heavy surfboard. I actually caught one to the sand and it was like the ‘I’m doing it!’ moment.” After that, DiNenna had boards and bags made for Richards and Lindsy and they took them to Hawai’i. “[Lindsy] was better than me at first and I was so mad. It pretty much consumed my life from that point.”

Richards is passionate about surfing, especially at his local break, Beacon’s. If he had to choose between snowboarding and surfing, right now he would choose surfing, because he revels in the freedom of anonymity. He says, “When I show up it’s not a bunch of kids staring at you like ‘okay, go. Be a performing monkey and let’s see if you’re worth all the coverage.’ With surfing I don’t care. I just want to go out there and it’s almost as pure as it was in the beginning of snowboarding.”

In 2000, Todd and Lindsy were married on surfboards in Honolua Bay, Maui. That year they also bought the house in Encinitas they still live in, which looks “like an East Coast doll house.” Add their two children, Camden (a 6-year-old boy) and Reef (a 3-year-old girl) and it sounds like a road map to an idyllic old age, except what drives Todd Richards’ life isn’t comfort but pure competitiveness.

When Richards is asked point blank about his edge, or what keeps him young after all these years, he lights up from within. He becomes emphatic and passionate. He says, “I’m insanely competitive with myself. I just want to be better. I just want to constantly learn something…. I’ve never been content with where I’m at.” This inner drive is so dramatically different than the hungry, insecure need to be better than everyone else. It’s the former that keeps Richards young, and the latter that has consumed so many people’s youth and vitality.

After all these years, he’s still snowboarding. On the TRANSWORLD Snowboarding message boards, a fan reverently writes, “Todd Richards has been snowboarding since the beginning of time. Before there was God, there was Todd Richards. And he was snowboarding.” Another writes, “The fact that he has just improved as every year has passed (what is he now, 38?) is just incredible.”

If it’s not snowboarding, then it’s surfing. He’s studied Taj Burrow’s Book of Hot Surfing. He says, “I’ve read that thing so many flippin’ times I can’t even tell you. It’s my quest to improve in any little thing. All I want to do is learn, learn, learn.”

If it’s not surfing, it’s cars. “I guess you could say that I’m a German car nut, especially Audis. I’m constantly working on my car in some form or fashion.”

When the notion arises that one day, as for all of us mere mortals, his body won’t comply with his mind, that one day he won’t improve because he’s just too old, he vehemently denies such a thing, “I don’t think that’s ever going to happen. I just think that there’s always room for improvement.”

Not to belabor the point, but what about when Richards is 50? Or 60? Seriously, is he still going to be riding the hill and sitting in the line-up? He refutes, “If I can go out on my 50th birthday and do a 720 off a jump, then I’ll be the first one that does it.”

At the risk of sounding like a cynic, age can’t be just a state of mind. At some point, you have to take care of your body, so that you can do a 720 on your 50th birthday. There is a laundry list of what Richards does not do; drugs, smoke, soda, fast food. Another list of what he does do; alcohol in moderation, one cup of coffee a day, lots of Raul’s burritos. Plus, “I try to take care of myself. I stay insanely active.” He says Lindsy, his wife, is more extreme, having a fondness for holistic health food and products, “If it tastes like dirt and looks like sludge, she’s probably eating it.” Doubtless some of that has rubbed off on him.

Richards coyly claims, “everything in moderation,” but that doesn’t explain the disparity of 50 year olds on jumps. If Juan Ponce de León were taking such a modest stance he would have gone looking for the Fountain of Middle Age. Truly Richards is engaging in some extreme behavior. It’s his insane passion that keeps him alive and young. If he could bottle it and we could all drink from Todd Richard’s well, then we’d be forever young. We would ride with him on the slopes doing 720s on our 50th birthday, too. •