Rogers Runners Try Their Hand At Triathlons

Shawn Wierick, head coach for Triple Threat Running, bottom, keeps track of times Thursday as Treyton Murphy, 14, from left, Eden Randolph, 15, and Deirdre Sheets, 16, run 200-meter sprints at Mountie Stadium in Rogers. Randolph and Sheets are two of five teammates competing at the junior elite level and are currently training for a national triathlon competition in West Chester, Ohio. The triathlon consists of a 750-meter swim, 20-kilometer bike ride, and finishes with a 5-kilometer run.
Shawn Wierick, head coach for Triple Threat Running, bottom, keeps track of times Thursday as Treyton Murphy, 14, from left, Eden Randolph, 15, and Deirdre Sheets, 16, run 200-meter sprints at Mountie Stadium in Rogers. Randolph and Sheets are two of five teammates competing at the junior elite level and are currently training for a national triathlon competition in West Chester, Ohio. The triathlon consists of a 750-meter swim, 20-kilometer bike ride, and finishes with a 5-kilometer run.

— Football practice was already in full swing Thursday morning when Dierdre Sheets and Eden Randolph arrived at Mountie Stadium and began to run laps around Rogers High’s players.

The two weren’t trying to show up the players. Instead, they were in full training mode preparing to compete in the USA Triathlon 2012 Junior Elite National Championships, which takes place Saturday in West Chester, Ohio.

Sheets and Randolph — as well as Maggie Montoya and Hannah Owen — are members of Triple Threat Racing, a designated youth triathlon team formed this year and only one of 20 high performance teams nationwide. Shawn Wierick, a former track and cross country runner under coach Carlton Efurd at Rogers High, started the group and also serves as the head coach.

“The triathlon is growing so much in the US and there’s a need for it,” Wierick said. “There’s a big push to make it into an NCAA sport. If you start training triathletes when they are juniors and you see them contend, then they start to excel in cross country, track and everything else.

“There’s a need for kids to doing more appropriate things, with a better quality of coaching and monitoring. We have an extremely talented pool of athletes here in Northwest Arkansas, and the opportunities are great for potential Olympic possibilities.”

All four compete in the Junior Elite Girls Division, which consists of ages 15-19 nationwide. The field for the national championship is limited to 75 participants for the event — which consists of a 750-meter swim, a 20-kilometer bicycle ride and a 5-kilometer run — and they have to earn their spots with a strong performance in a qualifying meet.

Sheets, a rising junior at Rogers Heritage, reserved her spot when she competed in the 2012 Dallas Elite Development Race in June. She finished that triathlon in a time of 1 hour, 16 minutes, 24 seconds.

She found out about Triple Threat Racing through her teammate Owen, also a junior at Heritage, and Sheets jumped at the opportunity to compete. She had done a triathlon before when she competed in the annual SharkFest events in Bentonville, but the competition she has faced this year was completely different.

“Then, it was just mostly for fun,” she said. “It was mainly focused on running and wasn’t that competitive. This was a lot more competitive and a lot bigger. I enjoyed it, but the competition was hard.”

Two more qualified for the national championship with their outings during the Flatland Cup Triathlon, which took place July 15 in Des Moines, Iowa. Montoya, a senior at Rogers High and one of the state’s top distance runners, finished the course in 1:10:02.64, while Randolph turned in a time of 1:13:07.39.

Owen earned her spot as a wild card entry. Another Triple Threat member — Shannon Scovel, who lives in North Carolina and trains there through a friend of Wierick — also qualified with a time of 1:12:00.99.

Randolph, a junior at Rogers High, brushed off the first suggestion by Montoya to compete in a triathlon. That invitation was before she met up with Wierick, who also asked her to give the sport a try.

“I thought about it for a while and I was really scared,” Randolph said. “I was like ‘I can’t dive; I don’t know how to do this.’ I came over that fear of diving and joined the team.

“It was the best thing I’ve ever done. I love it. I feel like it was my calling. It’s something I truly enjoy doing.”

Wierick began working with his four triathletes in March, when they were already involved in the outdoor track season. It meant the girls had to go through swimming sessions at 5 a.m. or in the afternoons in open water when needed, as well as bicycle rides around the Pea Ridge area, where there is a lot less traffic.

They go through a combination of 11 running, swimming and biking training sessions in a week, with Sundays off and Wednesdays used as Wierick calls “recovery workouts.”

“This will be a year-round training program, in order to compete at the level these girls are racing,” he said. “They did really well this year, considering they’re brand-new triathletes. We looked at this as a learning experience on all fronts.

“Their first national meet, which was in Dallas, was terrifying. They were going against people who weren’t only top-ranked in the US, but in the world, and they were jumping in way behind. Their progress has been phenomenal.”

Upcoming Events