How One Age-Grouper Balances Surgery with the Road to Kona — Triathlete

In her mid-40s, Arika Hoffman is fitter than she’s ever been. Training for triathlon for the last five years has elevated her both physically and mentally in her career as a pediatric and adult transplant surgeon.

“I thought triathlon was just going to just be a physical grind; I did not realize the mental requirements,” Hoffman says. “It has given me the ability to concentrate in the OR for long days in surgery, and I teach my students that you have to be physically and mentally fit to do this job.”

The grind of transplant surgery

Transplant surgery is an incredibly time-consuming and demanding surgical speciality. Averaging four hours of sleep per night, Hoffman is often at the hospital all day seeing patients, participating in meetings, and teaching research students, then takes a small break and goes into surgery from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m.

“We have no idea when we will be doing transplants, so it is very unpredictable,” Hoffman says.

While challenging in its nature, her career is incredibly rewarding. Hoffman gets to take care of patients with grave prognoses: both adults and children with congenital kidney disease who would not survive without a transplant.

Adding in triathlon

Surgery has been a big part of her life for nearly two decades, but triathlon is a fairly new challenge. Hoffman did her first triathlon in 2021 and has completed three half-Ironmans and one full Ironman since then. Last year at Ironman Chattanooga, she finished second in her age group but was unable to stay to claim her spot for Kona because she had to get home to her three teenage daughters.

“I grew up watching Kona,” Hoffman says. “I knew eventually that I wanted to train for these races with the aspiration of going to Kona.”

Hoffman is able to find time for 12-16 hours of training per week, and sometimes can hit up to 20 hours if work allows. With the help of her coach, she has been able to hone in on what to prioritize and how to fit it in with the demands of work and her unpredictable schedule. For example, since her background and strength is in running, she will skip a run if she needs to miss something, but never a bike or swim.

“Getting a coach has been so important,” Hoffman says. “You can tell your coach what you are capable of doing and take that labor and give it to someone else who can show you how to concentrate your time.”

Unlike most triathletes who stack their bigger workouts on the weekends, Hoffman will often get her long ride and long run done during a weekday morning so she can be with her children on the weekends. She usually fits in 4-5 runs, three swims and 3-4 bike rides each week.

Hoffman trains early in the morning from 3-7 a.m. before work. On the days she will be working at the hospital and operating at night, she finds time for another workout during her break between the two. If she doesn’t have surgery at night, she works out late at night after her kids go to bed. In this process of stacking long, grueling days, she has learned to find victories along the way.

Finding small victories

“A lot of the workouts, there is a portion that you feel like you can’t get past,” Hoffman says. “So you practice overcoming every day. You build victories on top of themselves. Then the race isn’t your only victory. You have no idea how the race is going to go, but you can tell yourself, ‘Man, I overcame a hard workout every single day.’”

From her long career as a surgeon, Hoffman has become very familiar with delayed gratification. She has carried this mindset into her approach to triathlon.

“What I take from surgery into triathlon is basically that you can do hard things,” Hoffman says. “Being a surgeon is hard. It was two decades of work to get to where I am now. You have to be OK with the fact that everyday you have to find success, and I think that is so interchangeable with being a triathlete.”

Hoffman’s next race is Ironman Florida in November, where she hopes to qualify for the Ironman World Championship – and this time, if she earns it, she’ll stick around to claim her spot.

“I really want to go to Kona,” she says, “but if I don’t, at least what I have done is build small victories over time.”