Triathletes Set to Swim, Run, Bike

The NMI National Triathlon Team has been running, swimming, and biking in the wild north of Saipan as they prepare to compete—whether under intense heat or rainy Palauan skies—at the upcoming 2025 Palau Pacific Mini Games, set for June 29 to July 9.

The sprint triathlon individual event will take each triathlete through the terrains of Palau, featuring a 750m open-water swim, a 20km bike ride, and a grueling 5K run. The six-person team—Nagi Tenorio, Shawna Brennfleck, Terra Allen, Colin Ramsey, Michael Miller, and Takeru Jim—are coached and managed by Florence Antonio and Leo Wania, and each athlete will be taking on this demanding event.

There's also the relay event, where a two-person team will compete in a shorter run and bike race.

Meanwhile, the aquathlon includes a 2.5K run, a 1,000m swim, and another 2.5K run, with only two female and two male athletes from the team participating.

Shawna Brennfleck said their training is a bit different from other teams where they practice together all the time. “With triathlon, we have a couple swimmers on the team, so they're really focusing on the swimming events on the swim team,” she said during one of their team practices. “Everyone sort of has strengths and weaknesses between the swim, bike, and run, so individually we focus on the ones maybe we need to work on individually. But we meet once a week for team training.”

For their team training, they usually do brick workouts—which they train in two of the sports, and mostly they've been doing the bike-run portions. Their newer triathletes—are new to biking so they're practicing on technical skills and biking skills in general.

On what she's expecting in Palau, she said, “I'm not exactly sure what to expect. This is my first Mini Games but I think the level is going to range significantly. I know we do have an Olympian from Guam who's going to be participating, but then we also have a lot of U19 who are new to the sport, so I think there's going to be a wide range.”

Michael Miller, who is also on the swim team, said that training for both sports is hard. “They've been mixing pretty well, but training has definitely been tougher because adding one more sport to the schedule has been really filling it up recently,” he said. On how he's mentally preparing himself, he said, “I'm just trying to keep it cool. Outside of training, I'm just focused on recovering.”

For Nagi Tenorio, she said she trains for the triathlon alone. “I'm usually biking on a portable biking machine and just go for a run.” The training load, she said, includes triathlon practice in the morning, then swim practice in the afternoon. “It's really hard but I just try to push myself every morning,” said the 16-year-old.

On why she joined triathlon, she said that her teacher is the president of the Triathlon Association, and convinced her to join.

The 161-delegation Team Marianas is supported by the Office of the Governor, Saipan & Northern Islands Legislative Delegation, Joeten Daidai Foundation, ASC Trust, Triple J, Tan Holdings, Altanx, Quality Distributors, Mobil, McDonald's, IT&E, Chinese Association on Saipan, GPPC, Marianas Press, Matson's, LaoLao Bay Golf & Resort, Dial-Rent-To-Own, NMI Local Peace Corps Reunion Committee, Y.K. Corporation, Shell/AFE Marianas, LLC, Wushin, I Love Saipan, BC Corporation, and Artman.