6 Ironman Races on 6 Continents in 1 Year with Ariana Luterman

0:28You know, I wanted to prioritize movement. In 2023, Ariana Luterman was dealing with a serious unexplained illness that left her extremely weak. This went on for a year, and sometimes she was barely able to get out of bed. One day while Ariana was sick, she decided to do something that she'd never considered to be an option. She would attempt an Ironman. If you're unfamiliar, this type of race includes a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and a 26.2-mile run. It's one of the toughest endurance events in the world, and many athletes train for years just to reach the starting line. But Ariana went from Bedforden to finishing an Ironman in just 10 months, and she didn't stop there.

1:14She set her sights on the Guinness World Record for completing six Ironmans on six continents within one year. I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-op Studios production presented by Capital One and the REI Co-op MasterCard. Ariana Lunderman, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living. I'm excited to have you on. Shelby, I'm so excited to be here. I feel so lucky because I actually grew up going to REI. This is so nerdy of me. But every single weekend, my dad and I would go to Home Depot and REI. So the fact that this is my first in-person podcast since breaking a world record, this feels like home.

1:56Wait, I'm so curious. Like, what would you guys do every weekend at REI? Do you really want to know? Yes. We would do the cute thing that you do when you're like seven, eight, nine, ten and walk up and down every single aisle just in case they had something new. We would look at every single article of clothing. Oh, the snack section. I loved the snack section. I love the snack section. Oh, my God. The camping section. I grew up in Texas, but I was an outdoorsy kid and I just wanted to look at everything. I just wanted to be outside all the time, but I loved all the gear. I was so gear oriented.

2:30I was born to be a freaking triathlete because there's so much gear in the sport, I swear. But yeah. I love it. It's dangerous. I love it. So first of all, thanks for coming on to the podcast and being the first podcast since your world record. Okay, so let's get into this. So why triathlon? So like I mentioned, I grew up in Texas. It's kind of the middle of nowhere. And I actually started racing when I was only seven years old. The sport practically raised me. I know, crazy. How did you get into it? Were your parents triathletes? No, actually not at all. They didn't know what a triathlon was when I started doing them.

3:06So I'll give you the full story. I was in second grade and every year we hosted like our grade hosted a all grade running race. It was boys, girls. It was, you know, not very far, kind of like to the end of this meadow and back. But it was a big deal. All of the second graders were like really into this race. OK, I showed up, you know, it was during PE. I showed up and I had completely forgotten about it. So I wore my pink Crocs. Well, naturally, I put those things in sport mode and I was ready to go. And I ran and I beat everybody. I beat all the boys. I love it. Afterwards, all the boys were like, Ariana, you cheated.

3:45Like Crocs must be faster than regular sneakers. And I was like, okay. They were like, we challenge you to a triathlon. So it's swimming, biking and running. At seven, these kids knew what this was. Oh, yeah. These boys. They were like, no, come on. Come at us. And I was like, OK, mom, dad, I want to do a triathlon. And they were like, what is that, Ariana? What? I was like, I think it's swimming and biking and running. So I knew how to swim. We took the training wheels off my bike and I showed up to my first race, fell in love with it. Wait, where was this race that a seven-year-old could enter?

4:21It was at the YMCA. I love it. It was literally at the YMCA. I got 16th in my age group. I'll never forget it. And I fell in love with the camaraderie, the community. I fell in love with the fact that if you worked hard, you were in control of your own success. You know, like that time, you owned that time. And those boys ended up becoming my training partners and some of my closest friends. It's kind of full circle. San Diego is the birthplace of triathlon. It started like right here. which is really cool. So, okay, you did triathlon as a kid. You were also outdoorsy. You grew up in Texas. What else did you do?

4:56It seems like you were always just an amazing athlete. I actually wasn't always an amazing athlete. I kind of prided myself on being like jack of all trades, master of none. I was really good at triathlon, but I knew pretty early on that I wasn't good enough to go pro. I didn't have pro aspirations. I kind of wanted to use triathlon and sport as a vehicle to do other things. So actually, when I got to high school, I quit sport entirely. I went to college. I went to UNC Chapel Hill and I was fascinated by our food system. And from like age literally like six or seven, I wanted to cure childhood obesity.

5:30That was like my purpose and my goal in life. I wanted to change the nutrition facts label and fix our food system. And I went to college and I studied all about that. But actually, my life changed pretty drastically my senior year of college. You know, your senior year, everybody is kind of trying to figure out what's next, right? All of my friends were interviewing for jobs that they weren't really passionate about in cities that they didn't really want to live in. And you're kind of like, huh, I guess that's what adulting is. Settling. Bummer. Okay. I started to apply for jobs and then spring semester, my senior year, two of the most important people in my life passed away back to back.

6:12It was my grandma who helped raise me, Mimi, and my best friend and soulmate, Josh. After that, I was like, screw it. I could literally die next week. If I'm not doing what makes me happy, what am I doing? You know, if you're not living a fulfilling life, literally, what the heck are you doing? Tomorrow is not guaranteed. Next year is not guaranteed, you know? So I did what any slightly traumatized 22-year-old would do. I moved to Australia.

6:47In Australia, Ariana studied at one of the top food science programs in the world with aspirations of earning a PhD. Things started out smoothly, but after about six months into her time abroad, Ariana started feeling very sick. At first, she thought it was just the flu. It kind of came on like slowly at first. It was fever, chills, nausea, some vomiting. All had to do with really severe stomach distress. She went to the doctor. She tried medications. She got tested, but nothing showed up as abnormal. Weeks turned into a month and eventually Ariana decided to return to the U.S. Back home, she saw specialist after specialist, but still she says no one could tell her what was wrong.

7:32Then about seven months into being sick, she had a conversation with a doctor that changed everything. It's now August 2023. I went to one particular doctor's appointment that was different. You know, he came in, he sat down, he said, unfortunately, Ariana, no positive test results today. We still don't really know what's wrong with you. We're going to refer you to somebody else. You know, it's pretty standard conversation I'd had a million times over, but he did something different. He looked at me and he said, you said you've been this sick for seven months and you've had all these tests done.

8:10You've seen all these doctors. You've tried all these medications. I'm kind of worried about you. I went home that day and I was like, huh, I guess it has been seven months. You know, you kind of blindly put your faith in the medical system, assuming that somewhere, someone will tell you what's wrong. We'll figure it out. We'll fix it. I sat down and I was like, oh my gosh, what if I died? What would you do if you thought you were going to die? You know, a lot of people think about like that death row meal. They think about that friend that they never called back. They think about the family members that they never talked to anymore.

8:50That part of the world that they've always wanted to travel to. Right? I mean, what would you do if you thought you were going to die? I mean, I've thought about that question a lot. So I've done a lot of it. it's a pretty deep question like facing your own mortality it's something that people don't really have to do very often but when I did for whatever reason I didn't think about it very long because a different question popped into my mind I was like well what if I lived what would I change about my life if I lived what would I do differently what would I prioritize differently

9:31movement easy too often you don't go on that sunset walk with your friends you don't go on that run you make excuses not to go to the gym i would have given anything to move my body again are you kidding me it was seven months of total stagnation and severe stomach distress so i sat down and i was like all right hmm if i got well it'd be cool to connect with my childhood sport triathlon again. But no, no, no, not just do a triathlon. Bigger. What about an Ironman? I've never done an Ironman before. But no, no, no, not just an Ironman. Something bigger, something even more bold. I couldn't get this idea out of my head of like, what would I change about my life if I lived, if I got a second chance, if I could wake up tomorrow and not feel as horrible as I feel right now, I couldn't work.

10:25I was totally unemployed. I couldn't function. I was so sick. I slept next to my toilet almost every night. It was awful. It was horrible. Yeah. But my heart was racing at the thought of a second chance of life. And so I did something wild. What did you do? I googled Guinness World Records in Ironman triathlons. I found this record. Six Ironmans on six continents over the span of one year to be the fastest female in the world to do it with a combined time. All the race times would be added together for a cumulative total time. I did the math and I was like, okay, that's averaging about, you know, 14-ish hours per race.

11:11This is a test of longevity, right? Like this is one full year of doing six Ironmans And mind you, before this, I had never run anything close to a marathon. I had never done a half Ironman. I hadn't raced a triathlon in eight years. You basically sprint an Olympic distance. Yeah, as a kid. And I was like, you know, sick as a dog at this point. So we were dreaming big. We were dreaming bold. But people do crazy things when they have nothing to lose. And I had nothing to lose.

11:44Even though she was still quite sick, Ariana decided to apply to attempt a Guinness World Record anyway. Getting a response from Guinness can take time. And during that waiting period, Ariana's health took another turn. In November 2023, she had an unrelated surgery to remove melanoma skin cancer near her knee. The procedure left her unable to walk and completely bedridden for a month. I think that was pure rock bottom. But after not leaving my bed for who knows how long, it hit me and I was like, I'm smart. I had aspirations of getting a PhD. Maybe I can fix myself. So I tried. I started Googling.

12:35I researched every single medication ever created. I did literally googled everything under the sun I sat down with my parents and we talked to every single family friend ever like talked to every single person that we knew these are Ariana's symptoms this is how long she's been feeling them these are the foods that she can eat without feeling worse these are the foods she can't eat these are the doctors that we've seen these are the tests that we've done these are the parts of the world that she was in and we literally just

13:10it's crazy it's crazy to even think about and say out loud like it kind of makes me emotional thinking about because it's like nobody was going to come and save me I had to do it myself so I worked with my parents and we came up with a plan based off of what we'd found online family friends that we'd talked to etc we sat down with my practitioner and we put together a plan. Now, this plan that we put together, it didn't necessarily make a whole lot of sense because we still didn't have a positive test, right? We still had no idea what I had. But we were just kind of taking a shot in the dark. The plan that we put together costs$30 ,000.

13:52If somebody said$30 ,000 and your health would be 100 % back to normal, you'd probably sell a car. You'd figure something out. this cost$30 ,000 and there was no guarantee it would work. This was something that we concocted ourselves, right? So it was kind of like, yeah, that's not going to happen. Well, we appealed to insurance and we still didn't have a positive test. So there was really no guarantee that insurance would cover it. But on December 6th, 2023, my 12th month of being sick, I got a call from our insurance company and the medication that was going to cost$30 ,000 only cost$10. The exact same day I get an email from Guinness World Records saying, congratulations, Ariana Luterman.

14:39You've been approved to chase a world record. Ready, set, go. Wow. I look my parents dead in the eyes and I'm like, you guys, oh my gosh, you're going to watch me chase a world record. I'm going to get well. This is amazing. They were dying laughing. They were like, Ariana, you can't even walk down the stairs without us helping you. What are you talking about? You can't even sit down and eat like toast, huh? And I was like, no, no, just watch. Just watch.

15:22In December of 2023, Ariana Luterman started a new medication regimen to try to treat the mysterious illness she'd been fighting for the past year. Over the subsequent six weeks, her symptoms improved and she began regaining strength and energy. Finally, she could start training seriously for her record-breaking journey to complete six Ironmans on six continents in one year. The day that I finished the medication, I sat down, I ate food that I normally couldn't eat before. And literally that afternoon, I googled best Ironman triathlon coaches in the world for females. And I emailed all of them.

16:04Four of them responded. And, you know, talking to a coach is kind of like talking to a therapist. It's kind of like, you know, it's not like one coach works with everybody. So it's kind of like a mutual interview. So at the end of every single conversation, I asked each of these coaches the same question. Do you think I can actually break this world record. You know, three of them had the same response. They were like, yeah, you know, I think if I see you train, see how your body responds to some adaptations, we get you in the gym, we can kind of see like where you're at, maybe. But I'd need to see.

16:41We need to get started. Blah, blah, blah. Jason Lenski with Toro Performance based in Arizona. When I asked him that question, he said, yeah, if I'm your coach, you will not only break that record, but you will shatter it. Immediately I signed with him. I was like, if I'm going to do something crazy and totally delusional, I need to be with a coach that believes so heavily that I can do this, that on days when I wake up and I most likely don't feel like I can do this because that feels inevitable. I need him to be so strong and such a grounding base for me that it'll work. So just really quickly, like tell me what like a typical training day is like.

17:23Okay. So at my peak, a typical training day would be, you know, session in the morning, session in the afternoon. I was typically training two to three times a day, five to six days a week. It looked anything from multiple, you know, swim, bike, run sessions a day or a strength session or yoga or Pilates. My coach was really good about integrating lots of things in because, you know, this was a world record that was not just about time and speed. It was about longevity. I needed to build a body that could endure and endure for a very long time. I'm also curious really quickly before you start doing this, like logistically, it's expensive.

18:06There's a lot to do. How do you assemble a team? Where do you even start? How do you fundraise? Where do you get the money? It makes no sense. The sport of Ironman triathlons. I with all due respect to triathlon as a whole, It has to be the most expensive and gear heavy sport. You don't just need something for swim and bike, but you need something for the run too. And oh, by the way, the bike that you need for a triathlon is not just a road bike, but a triathlon bike. And you can level up in all these ways and you can minimize in all these ways. And anyways, it's a lot. I got really crafty from the beginning, like very crafty.

18:43Luckily, I grew up a triathlete, so I did have all my old gear. I didn't have to buy a new bike. I didn't have to buy a new running shoes. I didn't have to buy a swimsuit. Like all of my gear was old and tattered. Don't get me wrong, but it worked.

19:00For the rest of the money that Ariana needed, she worked several different jobs, from serving at a restaurant to acting as an Airbnb consultant. She cobbled together enough money to take on her first Ironman at the end of October 2024, just 10 months from the start of her training. Her first race took place in Sacramento, California.

19:24All right, take me with first race. You're in the United States. Yes. So somewhat home turf. Yes. And you've never done a marathon before. You finish an Ironman. What was it like to cross the finish line? I was sobbing. Immediate tears. I think if have you ever been to an Ironman? Oh, yeah. Okay. You see then how much emotion people have when they cross that finish line because of the blood, sweat and tears and sacrifice, time, money, energy. You sacrifice so much to get to that finish line because you have to, you know, the training is grueling. You have to literally sell part of your soul. It feels like you're stripped down to the basics of who you are and who you want to become.

20:09Wow, that's incredible. What was your recovery like? In between the first and the second one? Yeah. Like, what do you do? I had 30 days and I actually I have not been injured for any of these races throughout this whole journey except for the first race. I went into that first race with an injury because I it's a bit of a long story. I did end up getting a new bike closer to race day. And because of the adaptation in between my old bike and my new bike and because I had jumped mileage so quickly, a poor bike fit plus that whole situation equaled knee and hip pain. So I actually ended up limping for 13 miles of my first full Ironman.

20:50That's brutal. Like dragging my foot behind me kind of limping. So after that race, it was pretty much no activity before Australia. Like I had 30 days to walk again, get the inflammation down, a lot of ice baths, a lot of very, very like calming, very calming meditative things. A lot of ocean time, a lot of filling my cup in other ways with friends.

21:16After the Sacramento race, Ariana went on to run an Ironman in Western Australia in December of 2024. Over the next 10 months, she ran in South Africa, then Brazil and then Japan. Finally, she finished her record in Spain in October 2025. She gave each race a different nickname after she completed it. Brazil was the scare test, Japan was the selfless test, and South Africa was the solo test. Each race had unique conditions, terrain, and challenges for Ariana to navigate. Do you have any moments where things went really wrong? So many moments. So many moments where things went so wrong. in Japan there was a typhoon that hit Tokyo the day before I was racing in Hakodate in Hokkaido so it was north there wasn't necessarily a typhoon but there was the remnants of a typhoon the day before the race the weather was gnarly it stirred up the water transition was a wreck there was mud it was just gnarly race morning luckily it was more clear but after a typhoon typhoon.

22:26The wind doesn't just go away. We jump in the water and you can't see anything, you know, like literally nothing. Like I even like I put my watch in front of my eyeballs. I can't see anything and it's like lit up. I'm like, OK, cool. We're flying blind here. I'm like, all right. Luckily, I'm a really strong swimmer. I'm a comfortable swimmer. It's going to be fine. We're good. I'm swimming. I go around the first buoy. It's like out, around and over. OK, like pretty, pretty typical. First buoy turned to the right. I'm swimming towards the second buoy and one of the volunteers mind you I'm in Japan there's really not much English in this in this specific part of Japan really not much English this volunteer is looking at me and I'm like you know going towards the buoy and he like screams like points to the buoy and the buoy appears to be moving and I was like no I'm not it's moving I'm not going to the buoy and he points.

23:19And I was like, I look at this Norwegian guy who's next to me and we're both like, okay, I guess we have to go to the buoy. Like, even though it's blowing away, there were some kayakers that were going to it. So we were like, okay, they're probably going to like stabilize it and we'll, we'll get there, go around it. Might be like a little bit longer, but it's not bad. Shelby, we track this buoy down, get all the way. I don't know. God knows how far away. Look up, realized the entire race is going on so far from us and me this norwegian guy and a handful of other people had just swam so much farther out and it was one of those moments where you're just like oh my god this is what's gonna happen today okay it set the tone for the worst race of my life my bike how much extra did you end up oh my god 30 minutes 30 minutes extra in an iron man is a lot okay i know that it's a 12 hour race but it was a lot no oh my god not a fan the bike my chain fell off five different times.

24:10Ridiculous. Everybody was having flat tires left and right. They ran out of water for part of the course. And I don't know what ended up happening, but doing an Ironman without water is another level. Yeah. That was gnarly. Did you have anything where something really funny happened? Oh my gosh.

24:31So when you're doing an Ironman, you know, it's a long race. You probably have to go to the bathroom at some point. I knew you were going to go there. That's usually the funny line, right? Okay. You probably have to go to the bathroom at some point in the race. Okay. My coach always says if you're not peeing on yourself halfway through the bike, then like probably dehydrated. Have you ever peed on yourself on a bike? I have. It sucks. It's for sure. It takes some like really like a lot of mental relaxation. It doesn't like come naturally. Okay. No. All right. So I'm in Australia and I am, you know, I didn't pee on myself for my first Ironman because I was just kind of nervous.

25:08All right. I'm like, okay, Ironman number two, Ariana, you got this. You got to pee on yourself. Like, I guess this is part of the sport. I don't know. Shelby, I was nervous. So here I am biking and I'm like, well, I got to pee. This guy comes up next to me and tries to past me and I look at him and I was like, hey, so I'm kind of nervous to pee. How do I do this? And I'm having a full on conversation with this guy about peeing on a bike. And he's like, listen, it's not that hard. Let's do it together. That's so awkward. So we both peed together in unison on the bike. Love it. Homie, love him.

25:47So the last race is October 5th, 2025 in Barcelona, which is Barcelona. I don't know. Barcelona. When I was in Spain, like, I'm not going to lie, I got there a little bit earlier than everybody else. It was 21 days after Ironman Japan. Ironman number six in 12 months. I was pretty broken at that point. Like, physically, I was exhausted. Mentally, I had experienced the most insane burnout of my life. And I was kind of doubting myself. I was like, how the heck am I going to do this race? I know it's the last one, but God, everything hurts. I'm exhausted. You didn't even want to really run, bike or swim.

26:20No. You know? It's interesting. At that point, I was having a really hard time pulling from gratitude because I was like, I feel like I'm doing harm to my body. So what did you do? Well, the honest truth is I looked around and I realized 25 people had put down some serious money to fly across the world to watch me do this. If they thought I could do it, I could probably do it. So what was that like? That was a hard Ironman. I don't really remember a lot of the marathon. Let's just say apparently at mile, I don't know, 10, I was screaming, it's dark in here to my friends because I was so in the pain cave.