Between adapting to college coursework, independent living, and the freshman flu, a college freshman faces plenty of challenges in their first semester.
La Salle’s Sofia Nordbeck faced those challenges while also adapting to life in the U.S. and racing in the 2025 Ironman World Championship on Oct. 11 in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii.
Nordbeck, who moved to the U.S. from her native Sweden to join the Explorers’ triathlon team this fall, completed the 140.6-mile IWC race in 13 hours, 9 minutes, and 45 seconds. She finished 51st among women aged 18-24 in the ultraendurance triathlon.
“There were so many times during the race where I thought it wouldn’t happen,” Nordbeck said. “I was very shocked, and I’ve been shocked for a few days now. I still can’t really wrap my head around what I’ve done.”
Triathlon training
Nordbeck, a 20-year-old freshman, is an experienced triathlete. When coach Sage Maaranen recruited Nordbeck to join La Salle’s triathlon program, which is in its first season, Maaranen knew Nordbeck had qualified for the Ironman World Championship and intended to run it.
“It was definitely, ‘I want to come, but I’m going to do this Ironman. Can I come and do Ironman?’” Maaranen said. “She knows it’s a huge accomplishment to qualify for Kona, and there’s no guarantee that she’ll qualify again. So I was definitely very supportive of it.”
An Ironman race is very different from the sprint triathlons in which La Salle’s team competes. The Ironman consists of a 2.4-mile swim, followed by a 112-mile bicycle ride and a 26.2-mile run. Sprint triathlons, half of the Olympic triathlon distance, typically are a 0.47-mile swim followed by a 12-mile bike ride and a 3.1-mile run. Running an Ironman is a solo task, while La Salle’s sprints are a team event. Triathlon is among the NCAA’s emerging sports for women program, which aims to create more athletic opportunities.
The differences between the formats leads to disparate training needs. For an Ironman race, one needs endurance training and mental fortitude, while sprint triathlon calls for more strength training and higher-intensity bursts of effort.
“They’re both triathlons, but they are two completely different sports,” Nordbeck said. “Ironman, yeah, it’s longer, but that’s not the big difference. The difference is you’re all alone. You’re not allowed to race with a team. … So you’re kind of stuck in your head with yourself, with your demons, the whole race.”
Maaranen, who was named the first head coach of La Salle’s triathlon team in July 2024, worked to accommodate the training needs Nordbeck had while preparing for the Ironman race.
“It’s incredibly difficult to train for an ultraendurance event like that while also doing the extreme opposite,” Maaranen said. “And so trying to balance those few needs, train her for short-course racing while she was still maintaining the endurance she needed for Kona, was quite the challenge. I think Sofia handled it incredibly well.”
Iron family
Nordbeck was born into an Ironman family. Her parents, Carl and Lotta, met at triathlon events in Sweden. Nordbeck grew up following them as they competed at triathlon and Ironman events “all over the world.”
As Nordbeck got older, she started to take interest in triathlons. She competed in shortened versions of the Ironman designed for children, then progressed to sprint triathlons once she turned 14. When she turned 18 and met the Ironman age requirement, she set out to take on the full race.
She started Ironman Sweden in 2023, but did not finish. She returned to the race in 2024, finishing the course in 12 hours, 23 minutes, and 20 seconds. The race qualified Nordbeck for the 2025 Ironman World Championship.
Nordbeck had been to Hawaii before, as her father competed at the 2017 Ironman World Championship in Kona, finishing in 12 hours, 16 minutes.
“He said he would never do the race again because it was so hard,” Nordbeck said. “He would probably never be back [to Kona].”
But with Nordbeck and her mother qualifying for the 2025 race, the Nordbecks made the trip out to Hawaii. Since the Kona race was an all-women’s event in 2025, Carl served as the family’s bike mechanic while Sofia and Lotta raced. Lotta finished in 15 hours, 52 minutes, and 12 seconds, 202nd in the 50-54 age division.
In addition to his role as bike mechanic, Carl also served as a documentarian for Sofia, posting videos from her race to her Instagram account, @sofianordbeck. Nordbeck said she gained around 3,000 followers during the race, more than doubling her follower count.
“I don’t do the social media part for my followers, I mostly do it for me,” Nordbeck said. “It’s kind of my notebook. It’s just so fun that I’ve gained so many followers and people are actually interested. I’m a bit shocked, still.”
Sofia’s setbacks
Nordbeck faced challenges in the weeks leading up to her race in Hawaii. She contracted strep throat, and on the day she flew from Philadelphia to Hawaii, Nordbeck had an allergic reaction to the antibiotic she had been prescribed.
Her ailments combined with hot, humid, and windy race day conditions on the Big Island made Nordbeck nervous at the starting line.
“You don’t really know how your body will react in that heat, and when you’ve been sick before, too,” Nordbeck said. “So, I was extremely nervous.”
Nordbeck was able to push through the challenges posed by the Hawaiian elements and her own immune system to finish the race.
“It was the hardest race of my life, and probably the worst race of my life, too,” Nordbeck said. “But, I would definitely do it again, 100%. I want to [go] back and I want to be competitive.”
It may be the first of many Ironman World Championship races for Nordbeck. Her ultimate goal is to pursue a professional career in Ironman after her sprint triathlon career at La Salle.
“If I keep combining them both and focus on sprints at the same time, I will be more than ready to, hopefully, be good enough to become [a] professional when I graduate college,” Nordbeck said.
Nordbeck returned to La Salle on Wednesday after some postrace sightseeing in Hawaii. Her body is still recovering from the grueling race, but she intends to compete in La Salle’s next event. The Explorers enter the postseason at the East Regional Championship on Oct. 25.
