Even for someone who loves competing in triathlons, Gunner Hinger admits four races in two days is a lot to handle.

But that was the challenge on Aug. 26 and 27, and it was a challenge the 14-year-old Orland Park resident accepted.

The Chicago Triathlon offered four events and on the first day, he competed in the senior division of the Kids Triathlon and joined the adults in the SuperSprint Race.

On the second day of competition, conditions in Lake Michigan were deemed hazardous, so the swimming portion was taken out of the equation and the races took on a run-bike-run format. Hinger competed in the main event, the International Distance race, and capped off his weekend after that with a Sprint Race.

That was the race that turned out to be the toughest for Hinger.

“I was really tired and depleted,” he said. “The last race was the hardest because I was just drained from the Olympic distance race.

“I had nothing left but I tried to give it my all.”

In all, he estimates doing about 76 miles of work during that weekend. And he did well in the four races.

He won the kids event, which had 295 finishers, with a time of 22 minutes, 38 seconds. He took fourth out of 262 SuperSprint athletes with a 30:30.

In the 40th running of the International event, his time of 1:55:54 ranked him first among 28 male runners of 19-under. Overall, he was 38th out of 2,622 runners and 36th out of 1,930 males.

Even though he was exhausted from the International race, he still finished on the high end of the sprint race, placing 29th out of 2,243 with a 1:14.28.

Race officials estimated that 8,000 runners participated in ages ranging from 7 to 86 representing 44 states and 23 countries.

Hinger was one of just 116 competitors to take the Triple Challenge and his total time in the three adult races was 3:38.12, good for fifth.

Hinger is a freshman at Sandburg and this fall he is running cross country. He made his varsity debut Saturday at the Tolefree/Farley XC Invitational and finished 45th out of 104 runners with an 18:29.80 over the three-mile course at Midlothian Meadows.

In the winter, he plans on swimming and in the spring is scheduled to run track.

The Eagles cross country team has a rich history of success at the state level and some years on the national level.

But coach John O’Malley said that having a triathlete coming into a cross country program is rare.

“It’s an expensive sport and it takes a lot of time and dedication,” O’Malley said of triathlons.

Hinger has been participating in triathlons since he was 6, so he has been at it for eight years.

His father, Steve, was an Ironman triathlete and he got his sons, Ryan and Gunner, involved. Ryan tried it for awhile but found he enjoyed wrestling more, and was a state qualifier in his class for Sandburg last season.

Gunner stuck with triathlon competition and the sport has taken him all over the nation.

“Between swimming, biking and running, it’s a yearlong commitment,” Steve Hinger said. “He does triathlons all season.

“He went to the nationals in Milwaukee and the goal was to get him there and see what it was like and what he can do next year. He’s been to events in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.”

Gunner finished in 48th place out of 68 athletes in the 15-19 age group in the USA Triathlon Nationals even though he is 14.

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His mother, Cheri, is also an important part of Gunner’s career. While she didn’t play sports, she developed culinary skills which are vital to a triathlete’s training.

“I’m the chef,” she said. “I’m not a nutritionist, but I make sure he eats healthy. One thing about Gunner is that he does not eat fast foods. Barely ever. He likes home-cooked meals with high protein and lots of carbs during training season.

“You have to get those proteins and those carbs in for sure.”

With the success he has had in his early life with triathlons, Gunner is not looking too far into his future.

He would like to find a college that offers triathlon competition. But when it comes to goals beyond that, such as trying out to be an Olympian, he is not ready to talk about that.

“That’s too far away,” he said. “I just want to make sure that when I race, I am having fun.”

Jeff Vorva is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.