Carrollton teen makes United States Junior Triathlon Team

From the Times-Georgian.com

“Pain is temporary.”

That is what 17-year-old triathlete Jared Senfeld has written on his wristband. And when you compete in a sport that includes 750 meters swimming, 20 kilometers biking and five kilometers running, “a lot of the time it hurts, but you have to push through it,” Senfeld said.

The process started when Senfeld got a bike at a garage sale and started riding it, a lot.

“I got that bike and just feel in love with it and spent hours at a time on it,” Senfeld said.

He rode with local Ironman competitor David Honeycutt as much as 300 miles a week until Honeycutt finally brought up the idea of Senfeld competing in a triathlon. Senfeld has competed in running and swimming, “a little bit here and there,” so the biking was the final piece to the three-part puzzle.

Senfeld competed in his first triathlon in June 2010, and while it was a little weird at first Jared found out he was pretty good at it.

That first competition he was, “somewhere lost in the water and at first you’re nervous, but then you just kind of realize that you’ve trained for it and there’s no reason to be nervous,” Senfeld said. “The thing is everyone pushes themselves.” He ended up finishing second in his age group, 16-19, and eleventh overall.

Jared kept competing, and winning his age group. His first place finish at the John Tanner Triathlon, part of the Tri the Parks series, was enough to be selected to compete in the national championships in Alabama, there was just one problem. To compete you have to be 18, Jared was still just 16.

But recently Jared was selected to be a member of the United States Junior Triathlon Team in the Southeast region. The country is split into 10 regions and the Southeast region includes Alabama, the Florida panhandle, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee.

Read the full article here