Braden River fifth grader finds the fun in triathlons

What did you do for fun at 10 years old?

Read books? Toss a baseball across the backyard? Chat with friends about which boys and girls at school had cooties? Or play video games until the character models were burned onto your retinas?

Braden River Elementary fifth-grader Abby Hite runs triathlons.

Wins them, too. She’s competed in the St. Anthony’s Meek and Mighty Triathlon in St. Petersburg five years in a row, winning her age group four times. The one time she lost, in 2015, she popped a bike tire early in the race and fell over. She still rode her bike, flat tire and all, and finished the race in eighth.

In this year’s race on April 29, competing in the 11-year-old division, Hite finished the 200-yard swim, 5.4-mile bike and 1-mile run in 31:05.

“It’s just fun to do when you’re bored instead of sitting around eating potato chips,” Hite said.

That’s a rare attitude to find in a 10-year-old, and one I wish I had in my youth. How does someone so young get her start in the triathlon game, anyway? For Hite, it started when she was 5. She was a strong swimmer, and her former swim coach at the Lakewood Ranch YMCA, Jeff Logsdon, suggested she take on a new challenge. Hite was game. Hite was too young to remember the name of the triathlon, but she remembers it was backward. Instead of the typical swimming, biking and running order, it was reversed.

She didn’t expect to win. She had only learned to ride a bike earlier that year, and it was a road bike, not the best for competitions like these. She had never run competitively, either. She won anyway.

The running portions of races still give her trouble. Hite is the opposite of her hero, two-time USA Triathlon Olympic and ITU Female Athlete of the Year Gwen Jorgensen. Jorgensen often falls behind before “kicking in” during the running section and beating everyone, Hite said. Hite gains a big advantage during the swimming and biking portions, which “saves (her)” during the running portions. She’s working to improve her time in that area, with her goal being to run a 6-minute mile by this time next year. Her current time is just more than seven minutes.

To get through the toughest stretches, Hite often plays a song in her head, an attempt to zone out and mute outside distractions. If she can’t think of a song, she’ll make one up.

Hite might as well start playing the National Anthem. If she keeps her training up, she could be hearing it a lot in the future while standing on podiums. In August, Hite will compete in the 2017 USA Triathlon Youth Junior National Championships in West Chester, Ohio.

She’ll give everything she has in that race, like she does every race. Hite admits she is always the kid putting the fright into the medical staff at the finishing line, collapsing onto the ground. When running, she’ll look around at the spectators, laying on the ground or sitting in chairs, with jealousy. She never stops, though, even when in pain.

“You might be dying,” Hite reminds herself, “But it will be over soon. Let’s just finish this thing.”

She calls enduring triathlons fun. I call it torture.

For sake of my personal health, I wish I had her perspective.