Tri Beginner‘s Luck

For over 20 years, Betty Collins led troops, mentored communities, and built others up from the inside out. So what happens when the person who is always pouring into others has to finally let others pour into her?

Betty Collins is a retired Army master sergeant, cybersecurity professional, and founder of Fit for the King, a faith-based fitness initiative she started in her church over a decade ago. She grew up in the historic Snowden community of South Carolina with a lifelong fear of the water. This year, after being invited by a friend she met at a church retreat, she said yes to something she never imagined she would do a triathlon.

What followed was four months of cold January pool sessions, private swim lessons, and a community of women who refused to let her quit. On May 15, at 63 years old, Betty Collins completed her first triathlon at She Tries Ion, swimming eight laps, biking nine miles, and running two more. She crossed that finish line not because she had conquered her fear, but because she discovered she was more capable than she believed.

This conversation covers courage, community, faith, and what it looks like to start from the very beginning, again, at any age.

Join the Tri Beginner's Luck Community: Enjoyed this episode? The best way to support the show is to leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify! Follow us on Instagram: @TriBeginnersLuck Connect on Facebook: Tri Beginner's Luck Page Questions or Feedback? We want to hear your story! Send your questions to tblpodbiz@tribeginnersluck.com, and we may feature them on a future episode. Let's tri this!

What does it take to come out of the water nearly last and choose to come back? Not once, but race after race, distance after distance, through graduate school, a pandemic, and the arrival of three children in 17 months.

Mike Nyman's triathlon story doesn't begin with a perfect swim or a podium finish. It begins with a graduation gift, a best friend, and a pool race in Lynchburg, Virginia. From that sprint in 2013, Mike has grown into a five-time Ironman finisher, Team Varlo Virginia Region captain, and an athlete who still gets nervous every single time he enters the water. That honesty is exactly what makes his story so worth hearing.

In this episode, Mike talks through the self-supported iron-distance he completed during the pandemic, the power of community and diversity in endurance sports, what fatherhood has taught him about sacrifice and partnership, and the advice he gives to beginners and veterans alike. This is a story about discipline, resilience, and what happens when you refuse to let a race define you.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

Join the Tri Beginner's Luck Community: Enjoyed this episode? The best way to support the show is to leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify! Follow us on Instagram: @TriBeginnersLuck Connect on Facebook: Tri Beginner's Luck Page Questions or Feedback? We want to hear your story! Send your questions to tblpodbiz@tribeginnersluck.com, and we may feature them on a future episode. Let's tri this!

What if the most decorated athlete you've ever seen race was doing it on stolen hours, powered by discipline she didn't know she had until the military turned it on? That's exactly the kind of story that stops you mid-scroll and reminds you why this sport is for everyone.

Michelle Christine is a competitive age-group triathlete, a Team USA athlete, and a USAT high school ambassador who balances two kids, a husband with an equally demanding career, and a role protecting the airspace of the nation's leaders as a Secret Service airspace security specialist. She came to this episode fresh off a clean sweep at Multisport Nationals, where she won all four individual events and the mixed team relay. Five starts. Five wins. And she still had notes on what she could do better.

In this conversation, she walks us through what nervous system fatigue actually feels like after back-to-back racing, how coaching changed everything for her, and why she believes problem-solvers thrive in triathlon. She also shares the moment a world podium in Hamburg made everything click, and the quiet magic of a family that runs on logistics, love, and the occasional burger.

If you've ever wondered what it looks like to build a full life and still chase excellence, this one is for you.

Join the Tri Beginner's Luck Community: Enjoyed this episode? The best way to support the show is to leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify! Follow us on Instagram: @TriBeginnersLuck Connect on Facebook: Tri Beginner's Luck Page Questions or Feedback? We want to hear your story! Send your questions to tblpodbiz@tribeginnersluck.com, and we may feature them on a future episode. Let's tri this!

Some people count down the days to their birthday. Beatriz Sampaio counted down the laps. For her first triathlon, she chose the most meaningful finish line she could think of: race day on her birthday, surrounded by the people who showed up every step of the way.

What makes Beatriz's story so refreshing is her intention. Having gone from zero to marathon in four months years ago, she made a deliberate choice to do triathlon differently. No skipping steps. No sprinting to the big race. Just building with joy, learning with her family, and letting the process be the point. She trained in the pool with her mom, rode matching road bikes with her dad, and leaned on a local tri club to make community part of the journey from day one.

She also swam the entire open water leg with one eye shut, forgot she had to pee, and placed second in her age group without mentioning it until the very end of the interview. Classic beginner's luck.

Whether you're still on the fence or about to toe your first start line, Beatriz's story is a reminder that the messy, imperfect, exhilarating first time is a gift you can never get back. Cherish it.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

Join the Tri Beginner's Luck Community: Enjoyed this episode? The best way to support the show is to leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify! Follow us on Instagram: @TriBeginnersLuck Connect on Facebook: Tri Beginner's Luck Page Questions or Feedback? We want to hear your story! Send your questions to tblpodbiz@tribeginnersluck.com, and we may feature them on a future episode.

Let's tri this!

Three weeks after writing a half-Ironman goal on his bathroom mirror, Scott Stanley got a cancer diagnosis. Forty-six days after colon surgery, he was at the starting line of a 10K.

What do you do when life hits hardest at the exact moment you decide to go bigger? For Scott Stanley, the answer was simple, if not easy: you keep showing up. A retired Air Force veteran, endurance athlete, and now a master's student in biblical studies, Scott's triathlon journey is inseparable from the losses that shaped it. He lost his late wife at 27 to a rare form of leukemia and his mother to cancer just three years later. When his own diagnosis came in 2014, he did not spiral. He channeled. And in July 2015, just two weeks before his 45th birthday, he crossed the finish line of his first Ironman 70.3 in Muncie, Indiana.

Scott also opens up about nearly four years of sobriety, the ministry school it made possible, and why he believes bringing a race mentality to your personal life might be the most important finish line of all. His advice for triathlon beginners is refreshingly unfiltered: sign up for something that scares you and trust that getting to the starting line is already the win.

This is not a polished story about someone who had it all figured out. It is an honest one about a man who kept going because the alternative was not living.

Join the Tri Beginner's Luck Community: Enjoyed this episode? The best way to support the show is to leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify! Follow us on Instagram: @TriBeginnersLuck. Connect on Facebook: Tri Beginner's Luck Page. Questions or Feedback? We want to hear your story! Send your questions to tblpodbiz@tribeginnersluck.com, and we may feature them on a future episode.

Let's tri this!