As if a four-day adventure race wasn’t daunting enough, now there’s a 14-year-old who just showed everyone how it’s done when he became the youngest participant to finish a four-day race.
Hunter Leninger, age 14, finished one of the toughest adventure races around called the Cameco Tough Cowboy in Wyoming. He did it with the help of his father and his other teammates, but making through the roughly 400-mile course was all Hunter.
Jeff Leininger, Hunter’s father told KCWY 13 that every teammate helped pull each other through, including Hunter, who also had his rough spots.
“There was a lot of pain and a lot of suffering out there but if you really dig deep you can accomplish anything you want,” he said. “You just have to put your mind to it and Hunter puts his mind to it and it eliminates everything else. We don’t feel the pain, the soreness we just push, push, push, until we get to the finish line.”
The Tough Cowboy is a four-day adventure race that traverses anywhere from 360 to 430 miles depending on the course teams take. Part of the challenge is navigation. The other part, obviously, is endurance. The race involves trekking, biking and paddling in various capacities over a four-day period covering roughly 100 miles per day. That’s a tough haul for any competitor, let alone a 14-year-old.
