Blaine Lints craves a challenge.

That’s the only way to explain it; why else would someone willingly travel 100 miles in one day by foot, bike and kayak – then proclaim it to be easy?

That’s life for the soon-to-be junior at Newport High School, as Lints, an up-and-coming figure in the endurance athlete world, wants to make a living off doing what others can’t.

“I don’t want to do things that thousands of people can do,” he said at his home in Somerset. “I want to do the things that maybe only 30 people can do.”

He’s off to a good start.

Since his first triathlon little over a year ago, Lints has made his mark in various endurance challenges including age-group wins at the 5-Mile Lake and Seafair Triathlons, the second-youngest finisher ever in the Lake Stevens half-ironman, a cycling leg win over the fastest-ranked U18 road cyclist in the state in the Ski-to-Sea relay, and another age-group win in the North Face Endurance Half-Marathon.

Perhaps most impressive, however, is his most recent event: the 100 mile Mountains to Sounds relay, in which teams split up over four legs, each team member completing one-leg of the journey, which included a 23-mile mountain bike, a 46-mile road bike, a 12-mile kayak and a 19-mile run.

Lints decided to do the event solo.

“I was supposed to organize our team, but people got lazy and I didn’t really want to do it with a bunch of lazy people,” he said. “So I wanted to do it, and I thought that I didn’t really need a team.”

There was only one problem. Lints had never kayaked before.

“I realized I could get through that,” he said.

He set about learning the basics of kayaking in order to get through the 12-mile stage. The first time, he said, went terrible, but by the third time, he was comfortable enough to give MTS a go, ready to conquer the 100 mile beast himself.

“It actually didn’t sound that bad to me because I knew I could bike through it comfortably, and once I got through the kayak, I could run,” Lints said. “And if it got bad, I could just walk. I thought it would be fine.”

Lints set out the morning of June 21, the youngest-ever solo competitor in Mountains to Sound by more than 10 years. Besides having to power through a flat tire in the opening mountain biking stage, it was smooth sailing for the 16-year-old, who finished the competition, which starts on Snoqualmie Pass and ends in Ballard, in just over eight hours.

“It wasn’t easy, but I expected it to be harder,” Lints said. “I was able to walk just fine the next day, so it wasn’t too bad.

“Although, since it was eight hours or so, I didn’t really feel like doing anything the rest of the week,” he added.

Lints, who mentions his idea of a “rest day” is only an eight mile run, plans on running the Lake Stevens half-ironman August 16 as his last event of the summer. He said he hopes these events are only the beginning, as his hope to eventually do endurance challenges for a living.

“It will be hard, but it is definitely possible,” he said.

In the end, it all comes back to the need for a challenge; Lints is eyeing a few events in the future, including one race hosted by the Edmonds Cycling Club that includes a one-day, 275-mile bike ride.

“It definitely looks like a good challenge,” he said. “I’m not sure where my desire to do these comes from…I just want to do them.”