Freshman Grayson Masterson first encountered triathlons when he was 8 years old at a summer camp. A couple of days later, he completed his first race on his 9th birthday.
From that moment on, Masterson was hooked.
“It was definitely very physically challenging,” Masterson said of his first race. “But afterward, I love just, like, the atmosphere after the race. There’s not a lot of people in the area that do it, so everybody kind of knows each other. Becoming a part of that community was probably my favorite thing about it. But now, I’ve kind of grown to love the physical part of it.”
At last year’s triathlon nationals, Masterson finished with a top-10 running time out of all competitors.
In December, Masterson finished second at a competition in Florida. He’s looking ahead to heading back down to Florida for his next race in March.
There are many triathlon variations, but all involve running, biking and swimming to reach the finish. Currently, Masterson competes mostly in races that include about a quarter-mile swim, a 12-mile bike ride and a 5-kilometer run.
“It just seemed really interesting to me,” Masterson said. “Like, you’re taking all these three different sports and putting them together. It just seems really interesting.”
Soon, Masterson was touring the country for races. First, it was Missouri, then Ohio, then Florida.
“I just kind of snapped,” he said. “Like, that’s what I felt like I was meant to do.”
In 2021, Masterson competed at his first nationals, a moment he said showed him how much he loved the sport. Seeing the top competitors from across the country pushed him to work even harder to improve.
Not only did he need to work to improve physically, but also mentally. He said one of the most challenging parts of a triathlon is having to do each leg of the race one after the other.
“You keep switching and it’s working all the different muscles and you’re feeling tired the whole time,” he said. “I think that’s the hardest part, like, being able to try and push through this continuous tired feeling.”
This fall, Masterson finished his first cross country season at the high school and qualified for state. He said he didn’t start cross country until years after he was competing in triathlons. He sees it as a good way to improve the running portion of his triathlon performance.
Preparation is intense. Masterson goes on about four bike rides a week, four swims a week and three runs a week. He also trains himself to go from one event to the next by doing his workouts back-to-back.
His father, Frank, got him on this path after stumbling upon the summer camp when his son was 8 and signing him up. Now, they have traveled the country going to races.
“It’s been great for him,” Frank Masterson said. “I mean, just, you know, it has taught him the importance of hard work. And he’s really grown to love endurance sports and kind of all three sports separate, and then also together as a triathlon.”
Rarely is someone the best at all three legs of a triathlon, which has taught his son a life lesson of working hard and never giving up.
One year, he had a bad week right before a big race where he sliced his foot on the pool, crashed during a bike ride and broke his wrist. Despite it all, he persevered to finish the race.
“I think it overall shows he’s a tough kid and he loves training and working at it,” Frank Masterson said.
Masterson’s coach, Josh Wolf, has been by the freshman’s side since the 8-year-old attended Wolf’s camp. He said Masterson has continued to grow in every aspect of the sport. Wolf has done 130 triathlons, including 10 Ironmans, the longest variation of the event including a full marathon.
Wolf said Masterson’s love for triathlons was contagious.
Masterson trains six days a week on a variety of skills. Wolf said one thing he had to work on with Masterson was to tame a desire to always push harder, so Masterson knows when to conserve more of his energy.
“Every race he gives everything he’s got,” Wolf said.
Years after Masterson first fell in love with triathlons during the camp at Shawnee Mission Park, Masterson now volunteers as a coach for younger athletes at the same camp.
“It gives you the chills because he’s now doing the things that we originally coached him to do,” Wolf said. “And all the kids just look up to him and think that he’s the coolest because, you know, he is. And they get to take the enthusiasm he has and embody it themselves.”
More than all the top finishes and rewarding victories, Masterson said getting to pass down the sport he loves makes him the proudest.
“That’s probably one of my favorite things is being able to help other people get into it,” Masterson said. “It was that moment for me where I realized that I wasn’t like just a small part of it anymore, and I was helping other people get into it and that just made me really happy.”
Reach reporter Cuyler Dunn at eudoratimes@gmail.com
