For a third year, local and out-of-town athletes competed in the Triyakathon held at Gunn Park Saturday, featuring routes that forced participants to run, kayak and cycle through the park as individuals or members of a team.

“We love doing it,” said Frank Halsey, who helped organize the event as well as create the bike trails at Gunn Park over recent years. “It’s a fun course.”

Halsey admitted they are still trying to find the best time of year to hold the event, going back in forth between the fall, when numerous other activities are going on, and summer when it is hard to rent enough kayaks.

This year, though with a smaller crowd that included about 20 individual participants and approximately eight teams, the participants got to experience the event with near-perfect weather with a backdrop of trees with leaves already changing.

Though Halsey said they had feared the river would be too low for the kayaks, recent rains and the opening of the river to let water in made conditions suitable for the event.

Each individual or team was timed, with the fastest coming in at less than two hours for all three portions, which included 3.8 miles of running, 2.5 miles by kayak and a 6.9 mile bike ride through the trails.

Participants ranged in age from 14 to 73 years. Volunteers from Fort Scott Community College and Christian Heights helped with the event.