HUNDSONVILLE, Mich. — High school seniors have a lot to be stressed about. Some take AP classes. Some juggle jobs. A few are enrolled at community colleges to take advanced courses and elevate their education.
One student at Hudsonville High School has been doing all three. However, those weren't the biggest challenges he's faced his senior year.
No — Brendan LaFrenier needed something more.
"I just really love a challenge," he told FOX 17 Thursday. " I like to keep myself busy. I like challenge myself. I'm very intrinsically motivated.”
That "something more" was training for and completing an Iron Man — a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride and a marathon to cap it all off (26.2-mile run).
Brendan used to play water polo in high school, so he's spent a lot of time in the water. He also does cross-country, so running falls into familiar territory.
The bike ride, however, was not. Brendan called it the "toughest part" of the entire race.
Training for something like an Iron Man doesn't come without sacrifices. Brendan's support from family and friends, though, helped him stay hungry.
"Saturday mornings, or Sunday mornings, would be, like, these long bike rides," he said. "In the winter, I have a bike trainer. I just put my bike on it. Then I would just be riding. I'd have to wake up pretty early because I usually have work after this. So, I'd wake up like 2 a.m., 3 a.m. I'd wake up wake up to my friends texting me 'Good luck. I know, you got a big workout today.'"
"When it was nice outside," Brendan continued, "like Saturday, Sundays, I would bike outside. I would bike down to the lakeshore and back. My mom would actually drive in her car with her hazards on behind me for that four, five or six hours. I told her, like, a lot of people would say that I'm crazy for doing something like this, but she's just as crazy for believing in that dream as much as I did. I couldn't have done it without her."
Brendan ran the Iron Man at The Woodlands in Texas. FOX 17 learned 2,400 people participated, with 600 people dropping out during the race. Brendan was not going to be one of them.
Brendan completed the mega-triathlon in 13 hours, 15 minutes and 41 seconds. Safe to say he was very excited to cross the finish line.
"That was like the greatest experience of my life," he said. "I mean, the last four miles, I was just crying from how happy I was. All that work, everything that I've done, everything that people have done for me, is just so emotional for me when I crossed that finish line."
Perhaps even more exciting than crossing the finish line was getting to throw back a bunch of carbs in celebration.
"We got a full pizza, some chicken nuggets and some mac and cheese," he said.
Completing an Iron Man is an incredible feat for anyone, let alone an 18-year-old high school student. Many would brag about the accomplishment, and you couldn't really blame them.
However, one word many people used to describe Brendan during this process was "humble."
"I don't do this so I can go out and boast. It doesn't matter if the whole school knows to me. It's not about that. I love the feeling of tackling a challenge. The greatest thing is that all these people around me believe in me just as much as me.”
Brendan now has his eyes set on the next athletic challenge, which will eventually be a 100-mile run.
As far as his next educational challenge, Brendan will be attending Hope College in the fall to pursue his passion in chemistry. He hopes to one day be a chemistry professor in West Michigan.