Fourteen years ago, Trek Finance Manager LaToscia James (known around the office as LT) floated the idea of signing up for her first triathlon. She didn’t even know how to swim.
See, LT is the type of person who can (and will) do anything she sets her mind to. And she does it with the kind of cool, casual grace that makes you think… maybe I can do that, too.
When you talk to LT, it’s as if you’ve been friends forever, even when you’ve only just met. She’s funny, self-deprecating, forthcoming in a pleasant, disarming way. She strikes you as the type of person who would give you the shirt off her back and ask if you want her shoes, too. It’s no secret why people rally around someone like LT. Something about her makes you feel like her success will lift everyone around her — as if her triumphs somehow belong to all of us.
So, in 2024, when LT signed up to complete a Quadruple Anvil — that’s an ultra-triathlon that’s 4x the distance of an Ironman — she figured she had a long, lonely road ahead of her. But her friends at Trek had other plans.
Shane Brown, a coach at Trek, guided LT during her two workouts a day for the seven months leading up to the event. Kyle Russ, Lead Biomechanical Engineer, perfected her bike fit and outfitted a Domane with aero bars to keep her comfortable over ultra-long distances. Allie Petersen, a Financial Analyst on LT’s team and former D1 collegiate swimmer, met her at the pool down the road from Trek Headquarters to help dial in her swim.
But when it came to the big event, LT knew she was on her own. She’d have to swim 9.6 miles in open water, followed by 448 miles on the bike. And finally, she’d end with a 104.8-mile run — the only portion of the event where she was allowed to have pacers. But who’d want to come jog in the middle of nowhere, let alone in the middle of the night?
The swim took LT 7.5 hours. Coworkers and friends cheered her on from the beach. The bike tested her resolve with aching biceps, saddle pain, and long stretches of dark, quiet roads. Coworkers and friends cheered her on from the side of the road and the windows of passing cars. Towards the end of the run, LT couldn’t even lift her arms — she had to bend down to her hands to eat. But she still found the energy to smile, motivated by the unexpected presence of her never-ending parade of support.
How Trek rallied behind one employee's quadruple Ironman
Every time the road seemed too long, or the cutoff time unreachable, another coworker would show up. They arrived in shifts, cheering her on and running with her at all hours of the night into the early morning.
“I really didn’t expect it,” LT said. “But I was able to find complete joy in suffering because of these people who showed up for me. My vision was gone by noon, I was seeing double. But I was laughing and talking the entire time.”
And when LT took her final lap with her husband, who played the Rocky theme song on his phone, she could have sworn a whole village trailed behind her.
The cutoff time for the race was 96 hours. LT finished in 94 hours and 15 minutes, with only six total hours of sleep. It’s an incredible feat of endurance that’s inconceivable to most.
The only person who crossed that finish line was LT — in fact, she might be the only woman in the United States to have ever completed such a challenge. But when reflecting on her accomplishment, what LT marvels at most is the community that rallied around her.
“The culture at Trek is different. And different is good,” she says. “So many people came out to help me and cheer me on. I was the one who decided to do this, I was the one whose body was being used. But it was everyone’s spirit within my spirit that got me to the finish line.”