Ariana Luterman is an endurance athlete whose IRONMAN journey began after a year‑long battle with an unexplained illness that left her extremely weak and often bedridden. In 2023, she completed an IRONMAN just ten months into rebuilding her health and went on to pursue a Guinness World Record for finishing six IRONMAN races on six continents within one year.
Ariana Luterman is an endurance athlete whose IRONMAN journey began after a year‑long battle with an unexplained illness that left her extremely weak and often bedridden. In 2023, she completed an IRONMAN just ten months into rebuilding her health and went on to pursue a Guinness World Record for finishing six IRONMAN races on six continents within one year.
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Ariana Luterman:
I wanted to prioritize movement. I just couldn't stop thinking about how if my body was healthy enough to move like I wanted to. So I sat down and I was like, "Alright, It'd be so fun to reconnect with my childhood sport, triathlon. But no, no, no. Not just do a triathlon. Bigger. What about an IRONMAN? Not just an IRONMAN, something bigger, something even more bold, something to reclaim autonomy over my life."
Shelby Stanger:
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 aren't 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 bedridden to finishing an IRONMAN in just 10 months. And she didn't stop there, she 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 Luterman, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living. I'm excited to have you on.
Ariana Luterman:
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.
Shelby Stanger:
Wait, I'm so curious. So what would you guys do every weekend at REI?
Ariana Luterman:
Do you really want to know?
Shelby Stanger:
Yes.
Ariana Luterman:
We would do the cute thing that you do when you're like 7, 8, 9, 10, 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.
Shelby Stanger:
I love the snack section too.
Ariana Luterman:
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. I was born to be a freaking triathlete because there's so much gear in the sport, I swear. But, yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
I love it.
Ariana Luterman:
It's dangerous.
Shelby Stanger:
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?
Ariana Luterman:
So like I mentioned, I grew up in Texas. It was 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.
Shelby Stanger:
How did you get into it? Were your parents triathletes?
Ariana Luterman:
No. Actually, not at all. They didn't know what a triathlon was when I started doing them. So I'll give you the full story. I was in second grade and every year we hosted ... Our grade hosted an all grade running race. It was boys, girls. It was 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 really into this race. Okay?
I showed up. 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.
Shelby Stanger:
I love it.
Ariana Luterman:
Afterwards, all the boys were like, "Ariana, you cheated. 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.
Shelby Stanger:
At seven, these kids knew what this was.
Ariana Luterman:
I was seven.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay, I love it.
Ariana Luterman:
Yeah, these boys. They were like, "No, come on, come at us." And I was like, "Okay, 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.
Shelby Stanger:
Wait, where was this race that a seven-year-old could enter?
Ariana Luterman:
It was at YMCA.
Shelby Stanger:
I love it.
Ariana Luterman:
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. That time, you owned that time. And those boys ended up becoming my training partners and some of my closest friends.
Shelby Stanger:
It's kind of full circle. San Diego is the birthplace of triathlon. It started 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? It seems like you were always just an amazing athlete.
Ariana Luterman:
I actually wasn't always an amazing athlete. I kind of prided myself on being 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 in 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 age literally six or seven, I wanted to cure childhood obesity. That was 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. Your senior year, everybody's 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. It 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? If you're not living a fulfilling life, literally what the heck are you doing? Tomorrow is not guaranteed. Next week is not guaranteed. Next year is not guaranteed." So I did what any slightly traumatized 22-year-old would do, I moved to Australia.
Shelby Stanger:
In 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.
Ariana Luterman:
It kind of came on slowly at first. It was fever, chills, nausea, some vomiting, all had to do with really severe stomach distress.
Shelby Stanger:
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 US. Back home, she saw specialist after specialist, but still she says no one could tell her what was wrong. Then about seven months into being sick, she had a conversation with a doctor that changed everything.
Ariana Luterman:
It's now August 2023. I went to one particular doctor's appointment that was different. 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." It was 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, you've seen all these doctors, you've tried all these medications, kind of worried about you." I went home that day and I was like, "Huh, I guess it has been seven months." 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?" A lot of people think about that death row meal. They think about that friend that they never called back. They think about the family members that they never talk to anymore, that 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?
Shelby Stanger:
I mean, I've thought about that question a lot, so I've done a lot of it.
Ariana Luterman:
It's a pretty deep question. 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? Movement. 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. 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. I was totally unemployed. I couldn't function. I was so sick. I slept next to my toilet almost every night.
Shelby Stanger:
It was awful.
Ariana Luterman:
It was horrible.
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah.
Ariana Luterman:
But my heart was racing at the thought of a second chance of life, and so I did something wild.
Shelby Stanger:
What did you do?
Ariana Luterman:
I Googled Guinness World Records in IRONMAN triathlons.
Shelby Stanger:
I love it.
Ariana Luterman:
And 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 14-ish hours per race. " This is a test of longevity, right? 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.
Shelby Stanger:
You basically sprint an Olympic distance, tough.
Ariana Luterman:
Yeah, as a kid. And I was sick as a dog at this point, so we were dreaming big, but people do crazy things when they have nothing to lose, and I had nothing to lose.
Shelby Stanger:
Even 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.
Ariana Luterman:
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. I 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 ... It's crazy to even think about and say out loud. It kind of makes me emotional thinking about because 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, et cetera, 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. 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.
If 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 costs $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, you've been approved to chase a world record. Ready, set, go."
Shelby Stanger:
Wow.
Ariana Luterman:
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."
Shelby Stanger:
In 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.
Ariana Luterman:
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. Four of them responded. And talking to a coach is kind of like talking to a therapist. 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?" Three of them had the same response. They were like, "Yeah, 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 where you're at, dah-dah-dah, maybe, but I'd need to see. We need to get started. Blah-blah-blah."
Jason Lentzke with Toro Performance based in Arizona, when I asked him that question, he said, "F*** 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."
Shelby Stanger:
So just really quickly, tell me what a typical training day is like.
Ariana Luterman:
Okay. So at my peak, a typical training day would be 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 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 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.
Shelby Stanger:
I'm also curious really quickly, before you start doing this, like logistically, it's expensive, there's a lot to do. How do you assemble a team that helps you?
Ariana Luterman:
Where do you even start?
Shelby Stanger:
How do you fundraise? Where do you get the money?
Ariana Luterman:
It makes no sense, the sport of IRONMAN triathlons. 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. Luckily, 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 new running shoes. I didn't have to buy a swimsuit. All of my gear was old and tattered, don't get me wrong, but it worked.
Shelby Stanger:
For 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.
All right. Take me to the first race. You're in the United States.
Ariana Luterman:
Yes.
Shelby Stanger:
So somewhat home turf.
Ariana Luterman:
Yes.
Shelby Stanger:
And you'd never done a marathon before, and yet you finished an IRONMAN. What was it like to cross the finish line?
Ariana Luterman:
I was sobbing. Immediate tears. Have you ever been to an IRONMAN?
Shelby Stanger:
Oh, yeah.
Ariana Luterman:
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. 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.
Shelby Stanger:
Wow, that's incredible. What was your recovery like?
Ariana Luterman:
In between the first and the second one?
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah. What do you do?
Ariana Luterman:
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, but 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, like dragging-my-foot-behind-me kind of limping. So after that race, it was pretty much no activity before Australia. I had 30 days to walk again, get the inflammation down, a lot of ice baths, a lot of very, very calming meditative things, a lot of ocean time, a lot of filling my cup in other ways with friends.
Shelby Stanger:
After 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?
Ariana Luterman:
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. So 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, the wind doesn't just go away.
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah.
Ariana Luterman:
We jump in the water and you can't see anything. Literally nothing. I put my watch in front of my eyeballs. I can't see anything and it's lit up. I'm like, "Okay, 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. Pretty typical. First buoy, turn 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 specific part of Japan.
Shelby Stanger:
Interesting.
Ariana Luterman:
Really not much English. This volunteer is looking at me and I'm going towards the buoy. And he screams, 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 and 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." 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 stabilize it and we'll get there, go around it. Might be a little bit longer, but it's not bad."
Shelby, we tracked this buoy down, get all the way. I don't know, God knows how far away. Look up, realize 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.
Shelby Stanger:
Oh, that sucks.
Ariana Luterman:
And it was one of those moments where you're just like, "Oh my God, this is what's going to happen today." Okay. It set the tone for the worst race in my life.
Shelby Stanger:
So how much extra did you end up swimming?
Ariana Luterman:
Oh my God, 30 minutes. 30 minutes extra in IRONMAN is a lot. Okay. I know that it's a 12-hour race, but it's a lot.
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah, the swim is the worst part.
Ariana Luterman:
No. Oh my God, not a fan. The bike, my chain fell off five different times. Ridiculous. 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. That was gnarly.
Shelby Stanger:
Did you have anything where something really funny happened?
Ariana Luterman:
Oh my gosh. So when you're doing an IRONMAN, it's a long race. You probably have to go to the bathroom at some point.
Shelby Stanger:
I knew you were going to go there.
Ariana Luterman:
That's usually the funny line, right?
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah.
Ariana Luterman:
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 you're probably dehydrated." Have you ever peed on yourself on a bike?
Shelby Stanger:
I have. It sucks. That's what I've done.
Ariana Luterman:
It takes really a lot of mental relaxation. It doesn't come naturally. Okay?
Shelby Stanger:
No.
Ariana Luterman:
All right. So I'm in Australia and I am ... I didn't pee on myself for my first IRONMAN because I was just kind of nervous. All right. I'm like, "Okay, IRONMAN number two. Ariana, you got this. You got to pee on yourself. 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 pass 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."
Shelby Stanger:
That's so awkward.
Ariana Luterman:
So we both peed together in unison on the bike.
Shelby Stanger:
Love it.
Ariana Luterman:
Homie. Love him.
Shelby Stanger:
So the last race is October 5th, 2025 in Barcelona, which is Barcelona. I don't know.
Ariana Luterman:
Barcelona.
Shelby Stanger:
I can't say it.
Ariana Luterman:
When I was in Spain, 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. 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."
Shelby Stanger:
And you didn't even want to really run, bike or swim.
Ariana Luterman:
No.
Shelby Stanger:
It's interesting.
Ariana Luterman:
At that point, I was having a really hard time pulling from gratitude because I feel like I'm doing harm to my body.
Shelby Stanger:
So what did you do?
Ariana Luterman:
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.
Shelby Stanger:
So what was that like, that run?
Ariana Luterman:
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, but I met some incredible people. That course is gorgeous. If you want to pick a European IRONMAN, that was a beautiful, beautiful race.
Shelby Stanger:
But at that point, how fast did you have to go to know you were going to break the record? Did you just have to complete it and you knew you'd break the record, or did you have to kind of come in pretty fast to do it?
Ariana Luterman:
I knew that I was going to break the record.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. But you had to kind of-
Ariana Luterman:
But I kind of wanted to set. I kind of wanted to give it everything.
Shelby Stanger:
You wanted to send it.
Ariana Luterman:
I wanted to send it.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. How fast did you do that one in?
Ariana Luterman:
It was my second fastest time.
Shelby Stanger:
Amazing.
Ariana Luterman:
11:56.
Shelby Stanger:
Wow.
Ariana Luterman:
My fast time was still Brazil, but my second fast time-
Shelby Stanger:
11:56 is really fast. So what was it like to cross the finish line?
Ariana Luterman:
A culmination of 643 days of chasing a goal that wasn't promised. I crossed that finish line. I sobbed at every single race. Every single race, I crossed the finish line and I was in tears. That one was different. That one, I actually stopped and I just looked around and I just took it all in because I was like this right here. I am staring down the finish of 643 days of unrelenting sacrifice and dedication to break a world record. And I just took it all in.
Shelby Stanger:
That's really cool. So usually when I interview people after this big finish line, there's just kind of like calm down a little bit. How do you feel? I mean, it's pretty soon after, so I guess you're still riding high, which is awesome.
Ariana Luterman:
Definitely still riding high, but I also will be so transparent and say post-race blues hit different when you've made something your entire identity for 643 days. So it's not like I'm feeling low or anything like that, but I am grappling with the, "Who do I want to be next?" And I think now I'm just giving myself the space and the time to figure out what that thing is, because it'd be pretty easy for me to jump into something right now. It's pretty easy for me to run 100 miles an hour towards a goal, but I want to make sure that it's the goal that I actually want and not one that I'm just grasping for.
Shelby Stanger:
You can follow Ariana on Instagram at Ariana Luterman. That's A R-I-A-N-A L-U-T-E-R-M-A-N. You can also find out more about her work and records at teamarriana.com. Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Pierce Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. Our senior producer is Jenny Barber. Our executive producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby.
Thank you again to our partner, Capital One and the REI Co-op Mastercard. As always, we love it when you follow the show. Take time to rate it and write a review wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.