Sophomore Competes in Triathlon

This story was originally reported by Nick Walsh ’19 in the September 23, 2016 issue of The ReMarker student newspaper. Click here to read the full issue.

 

Mind racing, heart beating out of his chest, sophomore Jayan Joshi counts name after name from the unnumbered results of the qualifying race, hoping he will find himself in the top 19 people who will advance to the 2016 USA Youth and Junior Elite Triathlon National Championship.

 

As he finds his name in the 20^th spot, he thinks, ‘I must have made a mistake.’ He counts the names off and finds himself in the 19th spot. There was no mistake this time — he was going to nationals.

 

Joshi finished 33rd out of 75 at nationals with the 16th fastest run. Overall, he feels pleased with his results:
 “I feel like I did much better than I expected to do. I’m really happy with my performance.”


 

He feels especially proud of how he did on the run, finishing with the 16th fastest run time.

 

“When I came off the bike before the run I heard my mom yell, ‘you’re in 48th place!’ and so I just took off on the run,” Joshi said. “Last half mile of the run I had a blister on my foot, and I was basically dying, but I ended up with the 16th fastest run out of everyone so it was pretty cool.”

 

He has been competing in triathlons since 6th grade, but he joined a triathlon team Tri4Him last spring to help prepare for nationals in July. He feels his practices with the team were a big reason for his recent successes.

 

“Last year, I did a tutorial for triathlon with Tri4Him in the spring instead of playing baseball,” Joshi said. “I had to wake up at 5:30 two days a week to swim and had other practices too. It probably hurt my academics a little bit, but it helped in the long run because those practices were really the reason I qualified for nationals in the first place.”

 

Overall, Joshi’s coach Jeff Booher feels very happy with his performance.

 

“I thought he was great,” Booher said. “I was very proud of him, very pleased that he was able to turn all of his hard work into results on race day. I think he did a great job representing the team very well, and himself and his family.”

 

Joshi finished the race with a time of 35:25.36 in the Youth Elite division.