Sedona’s only active youth triathlete faces a major transition in his sporting life after Sunday, July 31.
That is when Verde Valley High Performance swimmer Josh Reilly will bike, run and swim for his second — and final — USA Triathlon National Youth Championship.
“There may be triathlons he does before the end of the year, but it’s his last sort of youth competition,” said Reilly’s father, Scott, on the road to nationals in Nashville, Tenn. “Next year, he’ll be competing in the Junior Elite division, so he’ll step up his distance and be at the bottom of the pack again.”
Reilly’s afternoon swimming training 10 hours a week at the Hilton Sedona Pool under VVHP head coach Sean Emery “dropped significant amounts of time,” he said.
It all paid dividends July 10, at his Long Course Regional swimming championships in Phoenix, when Reilly qualified for the Long Course State championship in the 800-meter freestyle, finishing third at regionals in less than 10:38.
“He’s not a sprinter,” Scott Reilly said. “In running as well as swimming, when distances spread out in longer events, he tends to do better.”
But instead of following teammates Renae and Zoe Porteous to Oro Valley — where they would qualify for March sectionals and the Far Western Zone nationals — Reilly chose to take his final shot at another national youth triathlon title after illness prevented him from participating in the event last year.
“Last year, I got a pretty bad case of the flu two weeks before nationals,” he said. “I had to basically stop training for a week.
“One of the things I’d really love is get another podium spot for age groups. I’d be really happy with that.”
But as summer ends and a new school year begins for the 15-year-old, running at 6:30 a.m. with a Cottonwood cross-country club will be Josh Reilly’s primary focus.
“There’s a good chance I step up to two practices a day,” he said. “During the summer, probably three.”
Reilly still plans on improving on some good weekend showings with head coach Eric Mace’s mountain biking team at Sedona Red Rock High School.
“That’s one of his challenges going into this race,” Scott Reilly said. “He’s taking his bike to the shop because the wheels came out from under him and he got in a crash, dented some things up.
“He makes bike workouts on the weekends just to fill in whenever he can, but he hasn’t put a lot of emphasis on it. It’s going to affect him.”
So Josh Reilly “has kind of been on his own” training on his bicycle the rest of the year, his father added.
“It would be nice if there were more triathletes in the Verde Valley,” Scott Reilly said. “He’s a better triathlete than he is an individual runner and swimmer. But at some point, kids who love triathlon really have to start specializing.”
