Nathan Ley begins most mornings with a bowl of cereal, some fruit and either swimming or cross country running practice.
He then has an afternoon run of 4 to 6 miles.
As if that weren’t enough, Ley goes on a 25-mile, hour-long bicycle ride on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
This isn’t how most teenagers spend their summer breaks, but it’s not uncommon for a triathlete who must be fast in water, on foot and on top of a mountain bike.
“A lot of people are just on the cross country team or just on the swim team,” said Ley, who’ll be a sophomore at Bentonville in the fall. “I get to be on the swim team, be on the track team, cross country, and cycling team.
“It’s the perfect combination of sports.”
The 6-foot, 168-pound Ley has followed in his father’s footsteps and gravitated to triathlons. He competed in his first triathlon as a 6-year-old in Clermont, Fla., and he has graduated to much longer races that take hours to finish.
Ley finished second in the 15 to 19-year-old age group at the Xterra Mountain Championship on July 20 in Avon, Co.
He completed the one-mile lake swim, 16-mile mountain bike ride and 6-mile run in 3 hours, 6 minutes, 21 seconds, earning him a spot in the Xterra World Championships in Hawaii in October.
“When I crossed the finish line, I didn’t think I’d been doing so good,” Ley said. “But when I checked the results and everything, I ended up doing a lot better than I thought.”
Ley grew up hanging around triathletes since his father, Alan Ley, worked for USA Triathlon and the International Olympic Committee.
The younger Ley was so accustomed to the life of a triathlete that he thought he was expected to run like them every time he got off his bike as a kid. He didn’t realize that most people just step off of it after a ride.
“He’s a good swimmer, he’s an excellent biker and he’s a good runner,” Alan said. “He has the coordination and the skills to do all three sports well, and that’s really helped him.”
Ley won his first big race at 11 years old at the State Triathlon Games in Colorado Springs, Co. That propelled him on a three-year winning streak in which he dominated the competition at every race he entered.
However, Ley has had to push himself to finish in the top 5 now that he competes in a higher age group against triathletes who are 18-19 years old.
Ley said he hopes to someday be an Ironman like his father, who has competed six times in the grueling Ironman World Championship that consists of a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride and 26.2-mile run.
The father and son often train together, though the elder Ley admitted he’s no longer able to stay in the lead during their runs.
“We went to the London Olympics,” his father said. “I let him see the Olympic triathletes actually race in the Games, and that was a lot of fun and a good motivator for him.”