After a difficult finish to her 2025 campaign, the 2022 World Champion reflects on a year that tested her limits and redefined her relationship with the sport.
When Chelsea Sodaro’s 2025 season began, the plan seemed straightforward: stay close to home, race smart, build toward Kona. After moving to Boulder, Colorado and overhauling her entire training system under renowned coach Neal Henderson, the 36-year-old former World Champion had reason to believe this could be her year to reclaim the title she won in 2022.
But elite sport rarely follows the script. And 2025 would test Sodaro in ways she never anticipated.
The Rocky Start
The troubles began in April. Illness forced her withdrawal from IRONMAN Texas during race week, just days after announcing her new partnership with Ventum Bikes. The race that was supposed to launch her season never happened.
Two weeks later at IRONMAN 70.3 St. George, she tried to race through lingering sickness. Her body wasn’t ready. Another DNF.
For someone whose career depends on physical performance, starting the season 0-for-2 was a setback. Two races, two withdrawals, zero finish lines crossed.
Finding Her Footing
Then came June, and finally, a breakthrough. At IRONMAN 70.3 Eagleman in Cambridge, Maryland, Sodaro chased British powerhouse Lucy Charles-Barclay across the finish line. Second place. Her first completed race of 2025.
“Stoked to get my 2025 season started, officially!” she wrote afterward, relief evident in every word. “More than anything, I’m stoked to be happy and healthy and back in the game.”
A week later at IRONMAN 70.3 Pennsylvania, she claimed another silver medal, this time finishing behind hometown favorite Lydia Russell. Two races, two runner-up finishes, two complete performances.
The momentum continued into August. At IRONMAN Sweden, Sodaro crossed the line in third place behind Denmark’s Katrine Graesbøll Christensen and the Netherlands’ Marlene De Boer. More importantly, the result validated her automatic qualification for the World Championships.
After the difficult start to her season, Sodaro had strung together three consecutive podium finishes. She was healthy. She was racing well. Kona was within reach.
Race Day in Kona 2025
Standing on the Kona pier on October 11, 2025, Sodaro felt better than she had all season. The training under Henderson had been her best ever. The acclimatization camp on the Big Island had gone perfectly. Everything aligned for her return to the course where she’d claimed the World Championship title three years earlier.
And for 2.4 miles, the race unfolded exactly as planned. Sodaro exited the water in eighth place, right in the chase pack behind Charles-Barclay, positioned where she wanted to be.
But shortly after the swim, Sodaro began experiencing severe gastrointestinal distress. Whether from nutrition issues or swallowing saltwater during the choppy swim conditions, her race began to unravel. She continued on the bike, but lost positions rapidly.
By eight miles into the bike course, she had dropped nearly four minutes from the leaders. By the time she reached the decision point before Hawi, she had fallen from eighth to 28th place. At mile 49, she withdrew from the race.
The 2022 World Champion’s 2025 season ended on the Queen K Highway. DNF.
The Power of Perspective
In the days after Kona, Sodaro reflected on her season with notable composure.
“I loved every moment of preparing for this race,” she wrote. “Not done yet.”
Consider what that statement represents coming from an athlete who started her season with two DNFs, rebuilt herself to three consecutive podiums, then saw her biggest goal of the year end prematurely. That perspective doesn’t come from winning. It comes from experience and choosing to keep moving forward.
This wasn’t her first major setback. In 2023, she dealt with injuries and mental health struggles throughout the season. In 2016, she had what she calls “the worst race of my life on the most important day” at the Olympic Track and Field Trials.
Elite athletics is as much about managing disappointment as celebrating success.
The System That Built Her Back
Behind Sodaro’s mid-season resurgence lies a complete philosophical shift in how she approaches training. After beginning work with Henderson in mid-2024, everything changed.
“My training is much more periodized now and the focus is on quality,” Sodaro explains. “I don’t do a ton of ‘junk’ miles. My training is very intentional and I feel super present in my approach.”
Henderson, whose coaching resume includes Olympic medalists Flora Duffy and Taylor Knibb, brought a calculated approach to Sodaro’s preparation. Volume gave way to purposeful, high-quality sessions.
Julie Dibbens took over swim coaching, leading Sodaro through demanding group sessions in Boulder that sharpened her weakest discipline. A new sports psychologist, new medical team, and new bike partnership with Ventum rounded out the complete overhaul.
“I’ve made a lot of changes to my team, and I think that can be scary for a lot of athletes,” Sodaro said in a September podcast. “But I’ve always approached this work with a sense of curiosity and real eagerness to evolve into a better version of myself and into a better athlete.”
The Ventum Tempus she rode in Kona featured custom paint with her daughter Skye’s name emblazoned on the frame alongside her signature “YES YES YES” rainbow detail, a callback to her toddler’s favorite phrase.
Training Through Colorado Winters
One constant throughout the season’s ups and downs has been the Wahoo KICKR RUN. When Boulder’s winter weather made outdoor running risky, the KICKR RUN allowed Sodaro to maintain quality without injury risk.
“I’ve been incorporating the KICKR RUN into my training routine, especially for runs off of the bike,” she explains. “The pacing is accurate and I’m able to get in tempos, interval training, and easy runs. This has been a key asset during the winter months in Colorado when we’ve had snow on the ground and I don’t want to risk injury.”
For an athlete whose season was interrupted by illness and whose career has been marked by injury battles, that risk management matters. Every quality session completed is an investment in the future.
What Drives Her Forward
Ask Sodaro what motivates her after a season that included two early DNFs and ended with another, and the answer comes quickly.
“My daughter was only 18 months old when I won in 2022. She’s 4 now and starting to understand what I do for work,” she shares. “To deliver a big performance and hug her at the finish line again… that would be a dream come true.”
Throughout her Frontiers film interview, Sodaro spoke powerfully about the intersection of motherhood and elite athletics, about systemic barriers facing athlete-mothers, and about her determination to leave the sport better than she found it.
“Even in something as all-consuming as motherhood, you still deserve to have the space to pursue things that light you up and set your soul on fire,” she said. “I don’t want her to put limits on herself. I want her to know that she can have all of the things that she wants in life, but she doesn’t have to do it by herself.”
The Road Ahead
Look at Sodaro’s 2025 season as a whole: two early DNFs, three consecutive podiums (second at Eagleman, second at Pennsylvania, third at Sweden), then a DNF at the World Championships. It’s a season marked by both adversity and achievement.
Her second-place finishes at Eagleman and Pennsylvania showed she still has the speed. Her third-place finish in Sweden proved she can compete with the world’s best on a full-distance course. And her Kona swim demonstrated that when conditions are right, she can position herself among the leaders.
The final result in Kona wasn’t what she hoped for. But the season also showed the resilience required to rebuild from early setbacks, the courage to completely overhaul a training system, and the ability to return to elite-level racing after significant challenges.
“I’m healthy and strong and really excited to see what I can do in Neal’s system and with everything I’ve learned over the past few years,” she said before Kona. That mindset continues into the off-season as she evaluates what’s next.
Because for Chelsea Sodaro, the story isn’t finished.
