Jacob Kepler/ViewAmy Seidensticker stands in her home gym. She recently competed in the Ironman Triathlon in Australia.
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As a child, Amy Seidensticker of Summerlin avoided gym class like a cat avoids bath time.
She was outgoing, loved to play outdoors, but said she had no desire to join her brother's kickball games or other sports.
"The thing is, as a little girl, she was a delight, but she was not an athlete," said her father, Jerome Margolis.
Fast forward to today, and Seidensticker, now 36, recently completed an Ironman Triathlon in Australia.
She said her aversion to anything with physical exertion came to a screeching halt when she looked in the mirror at age 29 and didn't like what she saw.
Seidensticker, who lived in Wisconsin at the time, joined a YMCA.
Walking on a treadmill returned minimal results, so she tried running on it, she explained.
"That lasted about a minute because I thought I was going to die," she recalled.
But she persevered and kept at it, adding weights and a stationary bike to her routine.
She shed the unwanted 40 pounds and gained a love for working out.
Within one year of joining the gym, she entered her first 5K and has been entering events ever since.
"I'm always challenging myself," she said.
Joan Bucklew, fellow runner in the Running Connection of Summerlin, often rises at 3 a.m. to join Seidensticker for training runs in summer.
"We just kind of laugh at ourselves, being out there," said Bucklew. "We have on reflective everything and look like glow-in-the-dark people."
The two encourage each other to enter various events.
To get ready for her first half marathon in Portland, Ore., Seidensticker trained by running 20 miles at a stretch.
A marathon is only 6.2 miles longer than that. So she entered the New York City Marathon in 2004.
Sure, there were moments when her body was pushing her to stop this nonsense, but Seidensticker ignored the message and kept going, she said.
"It's therapeutic to run," she said. "You've got lots of time to work through any issues."
She also entered a sprint triathlon, which was held at Lake Mead in September 2005. The sprint consisted of a 750-meter swim, a 20K bike ride and a 5K run.
The next adventure was the Ironman Triathlon in Australia. She and her husband, James, a chef at the Suncoast, flew down for the event. It was held Dec. 2 in Busselton, Western Australia.
The triathlon required her to swim 2.4 miles in the ocean, bike for 112 miles and then run a marathon, 26.2 miles. But it wasn't the extra endurance challenge she worried about.
"I kept asking, 'Are there sharks? Are there sharks?' " she said.
There were about 930 entrants, with roughly 150 females. Having her family cheering her on along the way was a real boost to her psyche, she said.
"She'd been doing marathons and smaller triathlon events, but with this, she really took on a super challenge," Jerome Margolis said. "We're very proud of her."
Seidensticker said she finished the triathlon in 14 hours, 49 minutes, and 46 seconds. Elite athletes finished in less than nine hours.
But she said she wasn't watching the clock -- the glory was in just finishing the event, she explained.
When she's not racing, Seidensticker works as a physician's assistant. She also entered a partnership for an online business at www.tridaddycoaching.com, which evaluates the training programs of other triathletes.
Seidensticker's next challenge -- another ironman triathlon in Madison, Wisc., slated for Sept. 7.
This time, her husband doesn't plan to be on the sidelines. He is in training and plans to join her.
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