It’s time to grab your swim caps and pump up your bike tires for the 14th annual Billy Loutit Triathlon July 16-17.
Participants are coming together for an event that will push their bodies to the limits in memoriam of Billy Loutit, the mail-running Métis man who sprinted from Athabasca to Edmonton in 16 hours to deliver an emergency message about a flood in the town.
The two-day event consists of four different categories: the standard triathlon, a sprint triathlon, the Kids of Steel race and a duathlon. Participants have a choice of entering as an individual or as a team, allowing everyone to be able to participate in the race.
“If you say to someone, ‘Are you going to do a triathlon?’ most people would spit out their beer and say, ‘no,’” said Mark Francis, organizer of the triathlon. “The team event gives you a chance to come out and you don’t have to heavily train in three different disciplines.”
“What we see is a group of people from the work place come together or a group of friends come together, and quite often next year we might see one or two of those team members coming as an individual athlete,” he added.
Kids will have their first splash at the competition with the Kids of Steel races on July 16. Youth from under the age of five to 15 will be racing one another, in their respected age category.
“We make it accommodating to any kid,” said Glenda Gray, treasurer of the event. “If they’re nine and they look at the distances for a nine-year-old and it looks too daunting, then we’ll accommodate to that. Kids could wear life jackets use flutter-boards. They can have training wheels on their bikes. We just want them to come and get as many kids as we can.”
Gray added that kids will receive a participation prize, t-shirt and a breakfast.
“It’s a pretty sweet deal for $25,” she said. “We’re having Zone 4 coming and doing the chip timing, so, kids and adults will all have an official race time.”
“They love it, there’s lots of fans and people cheering and they’re in an environment they’re not really use too.”
Gray said that there is still plenty of room to register for both the Kids of Steel and adult events. Those who would like to register can do so at www.athabascatriathlon.com.
“We won’t turn anybody away, unless it’s the last minute and we don’t have room in the pool or something,” she said. “The sooner they can register the better.”
