Select Page

By day, FIU Law alumna Christy Lopez-Acevedo ’05 helps protect children who are living in an abusive environment by placing them in a safe home and caring for them. As the director of program operations with the Children’s Home Society of Florida (CHS), her day is spent finding ways to help brighten a child’s life. Despite the demands of her job, Lopez-Acevedo is part of a very small group of people that have done a very big feat: Lopez-Acevedo is not just a one-time, not a two-time, but a three-time Ironman finisher. The Ironman is a grueling 140.6 mile triathlon that includes a 2.4 mile swim, a 112.0 mile bike ride and a 26.2 mile run.

Up by 4 a.m., Lopez-Acevedo follows a strict multi-month training plan that will have her accomplishing more before the break of dawn than most people will accomplish all week! Then she heads to work which is emotional and often times draining, but has its rewards. She ends her work well after 5 p.m. and then it’s off for even more training.

“When children come to us, it means they have had a very tough life,” she said. “It’s difficult to understand the abuse and neglect, but when we are able to remove the bad elements from their lives and move them into a loving environment – it makes it all worth it!”

So how did the need to do something so extreme and challenging happen for Lopez-Acevedo?

“I picked up running a few years ago and entered my first half marathon,” she explained. I quickly caught the bug and from there started training for short distance triathlons. I found a coach and a team and before I knew it I signed up for my first full Ironman.”

Her first Ironman race was June 2014 in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. The conditions were ideal for her to have a smooth race, but at the start of the swim she was kicked in the side and had to brave through the next 15 hours with a bruised rib. Once she heard the announcer call out, ‘Christy Lopez-Acevedo you are an Ironman’ she knew she couldn’t stop there.

Five short months later she was registered to tackle Ironman Florida in Pensacola, and this past Sunday, just eight months after Ironman Florida, Lopez-Acevedo headed up to the Adirondack Mountains in Lake Placid, New York for her third competition in just over a year. Lake Placid is recognized as the longest running longest-running American event aside from the Ironman World Championship in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. The city has been host to two Olympic Games and is famous from its difficult climbs and challenging terrain.

“I look at training for this event, the way I look at my job – it’s all or nothing!” she shared. You cannot be mediocre. You have to do all the workouts and get all those miles in and I won’t take less than an all-out effort. The race seems easy compared to what the kids I see go through. I think of their faces when I have little left in me and it’s them I carry when I cross the finish line.”