Biking three miles, running a mile and swimming 150 yards at top speed at the Y pool is not something most youths would choose to do on a holiday morning when they have the opportunity to sleep late. Yet on July 4, that’s just what a group of kids did, biking the streets of Huntington Palisades (the same route used by runners in the Palisades-Will Rogers 5K race), then running from the library to Temescal Gateway Park and finishing with six laps in the YMCA pool. Jose Lopez’s record time of 23 minutes and 28 seconds fell this year to Jared Brown’s time of 21:22. In near-perfect weather conditions, the top five 2005 finishers, Brown, Matthew Thorson, Willy MacMiller, Nicholas Edel, and Starr Hathaway all biked, ran and swam to a faster time than the one set by Lopez in 2003. The first triathlon was held three years ago with 50 participants. This year at the third annual event, there were 162’three times as many. Palisadian Deborah Hafford, founder and director of the USA Youth Triathlon, was amazed at the number of race day sign-ups. In fact, Hafford was worried there wouldn’t be enough t-shirts for all the kids registering. Palisadians Jared Brown, 14, and Natalie Farnham, 13, were the overall male and female winners. “I usually do adult triathlons, so this is a lot easier, ” Brown said. “I pushed myself to the edge, so I still got tired.” Farnham has competed in each of the first three triathlons. She won this year’s event in 24:59, beating two-time winner Courtney Knapp (25:46), who set the girls’ record of 23:30 last year. “It it wasn’t as tough this year as last year because last year I didn’t really train,” Farnham said. “This year I went all out.” Cherie Gruenfeld, a five-time Ironman world champion, once again awoke at 4:30 a.m. to pick up members of the Cypress Exceeding Expectations Triathlon Club from their homes in San Bernardino, twenty of whom were participating for the third straight year. Eighteen members of the club ran the 10K and the other two ran the 5K before even tackling the youth triathlon. For Gruenfeld, the club and its children are a labor of love. “I started this club three and a half years ago to give them a positive direction and an opportunity to see another side of life,” Gruenfeld said, “Last year one of my members graduated from high school. He was the first in his family to accomplish that.” On the morning of the race, Gruenfeld ran into a slight problem because no one answered the door at one of the homes. “The kids don’t have alarm clocks,” Gruenfeld said. “You could tell the parents had been partying because they weren’t answering the door and the front yard was littered with empty bottles.” A cousin of one of the kids crawled through a bedroom window and woke their teammates up, and the awakened club members willingly accompanied Gruenfeld to the Palisades. This past year Hafford contacted Ninth Street Elementary’s after-school supervisor, Jose Betancourt, to see if he was interested in a triathlon training program for students. He said he was, but that “None of the kids have a bike of their own, and many have never been in a pool before.” Undaunted, Hafford put out a plea to readers of the Palisadian-Post. Their generosity supplied 21 bikes for the kids from East L.A. She solicited donations from the Amateur Athletic Foundation, who supplied helmets. The Palisades Optimists Club provided the majority of the money needed to underwrite the Youth Triathlon. In addition, Hafford used some of the money donated to buy swimsuits and goggles for the kids. Every Saturday in June, Hafford’s husband, Doug, drove a van with her to the school, picked up the interested kids and brought them back to the Palisades, where the donated bikes were brought out of storage. The first task for many of the children was learning to ride a bike. The second task was teaching kids how to swim in four sessions. Hafford wasn’t expecting to see many of the Ninth Street students at the last Saturday training session because they had been given a free trip to Six Flags Magic Mountain that same day. She was gratified when 16 of the 20 students chose to attend the pre-race tuneup over an afternoon at an amusement park. “It’s rewarding to see kids so excited and grateful,” Hafford said, “It’s so refreshing. No one complained about the bike or helmet; they were just thrilled to have them.” Even Veronica Romos, 8, the last person to finish the race, was happy. Romos hadn’t quite mastered bike riding by race day, so she rode the course on training wheels. In addition, she still hadn’t perfected a swimming stroke, so she used a kick board to help her navigate the 150 yards in the pool and wound up finishing in 51 minutes. Prizes were given to the top three finishers in each of the four divisions. In addition, every entrant in the triathlon received a t-shirt as well as a goody bag donated by Gatorade that included a Gatorade towel and bottle and sunscreen. In 2003, as a five-year-old, Joe Walker was given the best sportsmanship award. This year, he took first place in the 8 & under division in 31:41. Nicholas McConnell finished second, and Daniel Halper was third. In the female division, Rachel Martin was first in 31:22, followed by Courtney Corrin and Aracely Juarez. In a blistering race,10-year-old Nicholas Edel came in fourth overall with a time of 22:24, which won him the 9 & 10 year-old division. Second was Alex MacMiller and third was Kurtis Rossi. In the girls division, nine-year-old Kjahna O won in 26:53, Sarah Thorson was second and Kennedy Corrin third. Cody O’Connell, 11, took first place in the male 11&12 division, placing sixth overall in a time of 24:26. Second was Kyle Nadel, who finished seventh overall, and Shane MacMiller was third. Mara Silka was the top female in that age category, completing the three phases in 25:38. Her closest competitor, Carolyn Windler, who had just completed the 5K as a warm-up to the triathlon, was 21 seconds ahead of third place finisher Olivia Kirkpatrick. The boy’s 13-15 category was closely contested, with mere seconds separating the top three competitors. Brown was first in 21:22, Thorson second (21:27) and MacMiller third (21:57). A special award for best effort and most dedicated went to the Ninth Street Elementary School kids. The donated bikes used for training were given to their riders so that they can start training for next year’s triathlon.
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