Tarrant first gave the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Columbus Marathon a shot and finished with relative ease, so he decided to take it one step further with a triathlon. But not just any triathlon. The Ironman.
“It was just something no one else in my family had ever done before, and I guess I wanted to be the first person to do it,” Tarrant says. “After completing the marathon, I just wanted to continue that feeling of accomplishment.”
The Ironman is an extreme, brutal athletic event. Athletes start by swimming 2.4 miles with a 112-mile bike race after. Directly following the biking portion is an entire marathon. It’s one the most physically and mentally challenging races created, and therefore has an age requirement of 18 years old.
Tarrant wanted to finish an Ironman between his 18th birthday and before school started back up. Lake Placid was the only race that fit this timeframe and was the closest location to him. So, he signed up, becoming the youngest competitor in the entire race.
“I would definitely say the biking portion was the toughest,” Tarrant says. “A lot of people say it’s a biker’s race because it’s located in the mountains. After that, it was just really tiring.”
It’s no surprise that pedaling up steep, treacherous mountains was exhausting, and being hunched over the entire ride wiped Tarrant out by the time he started the 26.2-mile run.
“I was so tired by that point,” he says. “I literally stopped the entire race, and while I was between the transition tent, I took 10 minutes to stretch everything because I was just sore everywhere. I felt like I could barely walk, let alone run.”
By mile three of the marathon, Tarrant wanted to give up. This was a very bad sign, as he still had 23 more long miles to go. Somehow, at 18 years old, he managed to muster up enough mental and physical strength to persevere.
“I just looked around me and thought about where I was and saw that everybody else was in the same boat as I was,” he says, “and I started to get right back on track. I knew that this was the moment I had been training six months for, and I didn’t want to let it slip away.”
Tarrant finished the Ironman with an impressive time of 12:43:12 and ended up placing 10th in the 18-24 age group.
Besides being an ultimate athlete, Tarrant loves to travel. He has been all around the world with his family, from Machu Picchu, Peru, to Cannes, France, and Angkor Wat, Cambodia. In fact, he has been to all seven continents.
“We actually just got back from Antarctica,” he says. “We did a lot of hiking around on the glaciers. Saw some penguins and some seals and spotted lots of icebergs and some whales, too. It was a really neat experience.”
This Jerome senior leads a very busy life. He is involved in cross country, wrestling, track and field, drama club, and choir. He also created his school’s geography club this year. On top of his busy life now, he has ambitious plans for the future. Tarrant ran the Columbus Marathon in 2019 in hopes of qualifying for the Boston Marathon but was off by eight minutes.
Oh, and he has one other minor feat to conquer.
“And I’m going to summit Mount Kilimanjaro next summer,” he says.
Brendan Martin is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
