After winning the national championship Aug. 2, the triathlon is life for 13-year-old Josh Reilly.
“It kind of wore off, how miserable it was the first time,” he said. “I really enjoy working hard and at a high level.”
Training up to six hours a day with four different coaches, including Micah Swenson of the Aftershock Distance Club, the home-schooled Cottonwood resident’s rise was meteoric, as Reilly improved from 96th to first place in his age group at the USA Triathlon Youth & Junior National Championships in Cincinnati.
“It wasn’t my goal to make the awards podium until recently,” he said. “It felt great. It was really nice.”
Reilly came back from 15th place in the swim to record the fastest time, at 28:56.98, among all 13- to 15-year-old boys in the competition.
“He was still in sixth place going into the run,” father Scott Reilly said. “Those guys had 20, 30 seconds on him on the run and he was able to make all that up.”
He did it by not just ignoring, but inviting, the pain.
For the full story, please see the Wednesday, Aug. 13, issue of the Cottonwood Journal Extra.
