NATCHEZ — Will Devening thought his triathlon career was over. But after being on the sidelines for ten years, Devening was able to finally return to action last week in the Santa Rosa Island triathlon.

If it was up to him, Devening would have been competing all this time, but he was forced to overcome a daunting challenge.

“I had some hip issues and ended up having a hip resurfacing,” Devening said. “Because of that, I wasn’t able to do it, but since then I’ve recovered. The worst part of it was thinking I would never be able to do it again.”

Devening said a driving force to return to competition was his two daughters, Catie Grey and Conlee.

“I thought they would never see me do a triathlon,” Devening said. “And I really wanted them to see me do it. I wanted them to see me as being active and hopefully it being important to me will make it important in their lives as well.”

Unfortunately for Devening, he didn’t think his daughters would be able to see him compete.

“My wife told me they weren’t going to be able to make the race, so I didn’t think I would see them,” he said. “But they surprised me coming into the finish line of the biking and transitioning to running and they were standing on the corner holding signs for me.”

As for the triathlon, Devening said he had specific goals in mind before even entering.

“I didn’t want to do it if I wasn’t going to do it well,” he said. “I didn’t want to walk a lot and didn’t want to just finish it. I wanted to actually be in shape and enjoy it.”

Now that he is back in the groove, Devening said there is no question on if he will continue to compete.

“Oh yeah, I’m hooked again,” he said. “I’m definitely going to do more, for sure in the spring.”