Chelsea Sodaro Conquered Kona. Then the Real Struggles Returned.

NYT SPORT: Chelsea Sodaro Conquered Kona. Then the Real Struggles Returned.
By Matthew Futterman
Section: Sports
Source: New York Times

Sodaro thought her life had fallen into place when she won the Ironman world championship last October. Little did she know, it was about to fall apart.

Last October, Chelsea Sodaro, a triathlon world championship rookie, achieved the grueling sport’s ultimate title. Sodaro, then a 33-year-old mother of an 18-month old, became the first American woman to win the Ironman World Championship, held in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, in a quarter of a century. Her story went viral in the endurance world, garnering the kind of attention and endorsement offers she never would have dreamed of even a few weeks before.
And that’s when her life began to fall apart.
All of a sudden, a woman whose fitness and mental fortitude had been steely enough to triumphantly swim, cycle and run for 140.6 miles through rolling seas and across the hot volcanic rock of Hawaii’s Big Island struggled to go to the grocery store without descending into panic.
After a rocky winter, Sodaro is preparing to race Saturday for the first time as the Ironman world champion at the Ironman 70.3 Oceanside in Southern California. But as the endurance world figured she would be basking in glory, she was, in fact, wondering how she would compete again — or even make it through the day.

Published Date: March 30, 2023 at 03:00AM

Read More at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/30/sports/ironwoman-kona-chelsa-sodaro.html