Standout performances by youngest and oldest competitors marked Saturday’s AKtive Triathlon, the first communitywide triathlon held here in about 20 years.
Sixty-one solo and team competitors entered the event, which included a 500-yard swim, 12-mile bike and five-kilometer run.
The youth division included a one-mile run.
Competing with just one other team member, swimmer and runner Hayden Jimenez, 9, nearly caught a team of three boys who won the event’s 11-12 age class, finishing just three seconds later.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” Jimenez said afterward. Jimenez credited his strong showing to bike rider and best friend Dalton Henry. But he said he’s upping his running mileage to run in the state fair 10K and wants to compete solo in the triathlon next year.
“I run in the morning usually but I haven’t done much lately because of theater camp,” Jimenez said.
For bike rider James “Cochise” Donnelly, 58, the event was his first athletic competition since a 26-mile competition 30 years ago. He decided to participate after seeing a poster at the library two weeks ago.
“If I knew about the race two months ago, I would’ve done better. I’m just glad I finished,” Donnelly quipped after completing the bicycle leg for a team that included swimmer Matthew Green and Zane Durr.
Solo competitors Ralph Borders, age 64, and Jansy Hansen, 57, had strong showings. Borders finished third in the solo men’s division (1:20:13), behind division winner Justin Dorn of Juneau (1:07:39) and second-place finisher Chase Livingston of Oahu, Hawaii (1:20:00).
Livingston said Borders pushed his performance. “It helps to have someone behind you.”
Hansen finished second among women (1:37:20) behind Sarah Boisen of Anchorage (1:23:33). It’s the third sprint triathlon she’s competed in this summer. “They’re a lot of fun,” Hansen said.
Hansen said she trained all winter on a stationary bicycle before beefing up workouts in March. Boisen, of Anchorage, was here to take a wildnerness EMT course.
The first-place men’s team of Kyle Fossman, Ira Henry and Adam McMahan edged out Dorn to win the overall title (1:05:57). They were followed closely by the first-place women’s team of Alissa Henry, Stoli Lynch and Sarah Elliott (1:09:02).
Event organizer Fossman of AKtive, LLC said he wants the event to become annual but the cost of insurance is a possible hurdle. An oversight by his insurance company means he didn’t have to bear the entire burden this year, but that’s not likely to be the case next year, he said.
“It’ll end up being pretty expensive. You’ve got to figure out a way to offset that. I’m still working on that,” he said.
Fossman said he wanted to hold a triathlon because it allowed participants with different skills and skill levels to participate. “In terms of something for the community, I thought a triathlon would be really good, especially when you can join a team.”
The triathlon’s swim and bike events were a bit shorter than the same legs from the historic triathlon, although Fossman’s running leg included scaling the hill at Fort Seward. “I didn’t think it was too big of a hill. It wasn’t like running up Third Avenue. But if you were doing it solo, it would be tough.”
The event was staffed by 14 volunteers. Local ambulance and police crews helped. “Everybody finished and nobody got hurt. So I thought it was a pretty good success,” Fossman said.
Team winners included ages 13-14, Mark Davis, Brennan Palmieri and Kirby Faverty, 1:15:31; ages 11-12, Luke Davis, Alex Weerasinghe, Jacob Weerasinghe, 36:07; ages 8-10, Dalton Henry and Hayden Jimenez, 36:10.