After completing her athletic and academic career at American in 2023, Kayla Winters began triathlon training as a new outlet for her athletic passion. This past November, her efforts culminated in a bid to the 2025 Ironman 70.3 World Championships and the opportunity to compete against the world’s best.

A lifelong athlete, Winters started swimming when she was four — though, she added, “I wasn’t super competitive at age four.” At seven, she was swimming competitively while also doing gymnastics.

It wasn’t until she was in middle school when she quit gymnastics to focus on swimming. But she also snuck in time to compete on her school’s cross country team. She didn’t attend any cross country practices due to swim practice, but running in “dry land” practices with the swim team gave her enough endurance to run cross country races. And at her small private school in Alparetta, Ga., the team just needed numbers. “That’s how I started to like running,” she said.

By the time she was in high school, Winters was solely focused on swimming. She competed for her high school team while also practicing six days a week and competing year-round with a club team.

And she found success in the pool: She was a state qualifier all four years of high school, becoming a state finalist and top-10 finisher twice in the 200-yard individual medley and once in and 100-yard breaststroke. She was her high school team’s MVP all four years.

In her college search, she quickly fell in love with Washington, D.C., and American. She went on an official visit, and committed to AU’s swim and dive program a week later. “I loved the team and the coaching staff,” she said, “so I knew immediately after the trip I was going to commit there.”

As an Eagle, Winters was successful as well, earning several top-16 times throughout her career. As a senior, she led the team in the 500 freestyle and 1,650 freestyle while helping three relays post AU top-16 times. At the 2023 Patriot League Championships, she scored in the 1,650 freestyle, the last race of her college career.

Leading up to the 2023 Patriot League Championships, Winters knew it would be her last meet as an Eagle. “I was having a little bit of an existential crisis,” she said. “I was stressed about having my last race in my collegiate career.”

So she signed up for a triathlon in April.

“I needed something to give me an athletic purpose after swimming in college, to see if there was something that would make the transition easier,” she said.

After her final season at American came to a close, she began training for her first Olympic distance triathlon — a 1,500-meter swim, a 26.2-mile bike, and a 6.2-mile run. The swim would come natural to Winters, and she was comfortable completing the run. The bike proved her biggest challenge.

“I [figured], ‘The bike can’t be that hard, right?’” she said. “But the first time I got on the bike, I was like, ‘This is weird. I feel like I’m going to fall over.’”

But her goal wasn’t to train intensely; it was to “find the next thing” to motivate herself athletically. So she lightly trained for six weeks, and in her first Olympic triathlon, she placed second in her age group.

“First, I felt exhausted,” she said, “and then I immediately felt that it was exactly the type of challenge I wanted to continue to do.”

After graduating from American a month later, Winters moved back to the Atlanta area to attend law school at Emory University. Soon after, she joined the Atlanta Triathlon Club, a team focused on health and building community in the sport.

“I wanted to find a way to find friends outside of law school so that I didn’t just get in the cycle of studying all the time, not leaving the library, not doing things for myself,” she said.

She thought she’d be a “casual triathlon person,” but she quickly came to love the community in the club. She competed in another Olympic triathlon in her first year of law school, placing fourth overall and second in her age group. Then she signed up for a half Ironman.

The half Ironman includes a 1,900-meter swim, a 56-mile bike, and a half marathon run. Winters never thought she’d compete that distance, but her club motivated her.

In training to handle several hours of endurance, a crucial element of Winters’ training was learning to slow down. “I still have a hard time with it just from coming from the collegiate athlete mindset of being go-go-go all the time and trying to be as fast as you possibly can,” she said.

Running and riding with other people helped her slow down because, unlike in swim training, she could see and hear her surroundings. “In swimming, it’s all just you and the lane and the black line,” she said. “Being able to talk to people is nice.”

Her community and endurance prepared her to compete for double the time at her first Ironman 70.3 a year later, placing 10th in her age group and in the top third of the race.

“I went a lot faster than I thought I was going to be able to go,” she said. “And I attribute a lot of that to enjoying it. I was really excited about it. I didn't put that much pressure on myself for this.”

She took a few weeks off to focus on her law school finals. But soon, she said, “I started to get bored again.”

In May of 2025, she traveled to Panama City Beach, Fla., for her next half Ironman. Her “A” goal: Qualify for the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Marbella, Spain. But the athletes were met with raging winds, pouring rain, and impending storms that led to the cancellation of the swimming leg.

“So they canceled the swim,” Winters said. “And I was like, ‘Okay, well, I’m a swimmer, and that's my one advantage over people.’”

The event began on the bike. Occasionally, Winters benefitted from a tailwind, but she spent the last 10 miles of the 56-mile leg battling against a 30-mile-per-hour headwind and a downpour.

After pushing too hard on the bike and fueling differently than she was used to, “my stomach just hurt so bad,” she said. “So the first four miles of the half marathon I was throwing up.”

She was unsure if she would finish the race. “I was like, ‘I’m going to be so sad because I came all the way here, my family’s here supporting me.”

After four miles, her stomach settled, and she took the next nine miles one at a time. Finishing, she said, was the hardest thing she’d ever mentally done in a race. She’d let go of her “A” goal, and after five hours of misery she was happy just to be done.

“And then, it turned out that everybody was struggling,” she said, “and a lot of people didn’t even finish because of the weather.”

Winters ended up placing seventh in her age group, qualifying her for the Ironman 70.3 World Championships. “In my North Carolina race, I felt much better the whole time. But in this race, because I was able to push through the hard conditions and still kind of stay on pace… I was able to qualify.”

In November, Winters traveled to Marbella, Spain, to compete against 3,000 of the best female triathletes in the world.

“It definitely felt like a victory lap,” she said. “I talked to people in the triathlon club who have qualified for that before, and they told me to take it as a victory lap. It’s really a privilege to be able to qualify.”

And it certainly was a victory lap: Winters finished in the top third of about 3,000 of the best half Ironman athletes in the world.

In 2027, Winters plans to race her first full Ironman, but her main goal is, and has always been, to enjoy it. “I never wanted to get into something after college swimming and have it not be fun and something I wanted to do for myself,” she said. “Once you get into it, you buy the bike… it’s hard to go back.”