JACKSONVILLE - For the past few months, Soledad "Cholita" Rodriguez has been laser-focused on her long bike rides and long runs in anticipation of her final attempt at the IRONMAN Triathlon.

It would be her 10th at an Ironman Triathlon, as the Ironman Jacksonville was her final shot at the 140.6-mile journey, 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride and 26.2-mile marathon run.

For the IRONMAN Jacksonville, Rodriguez fell short of the bike segment on the very hot and windy day and was taken off the course near the 90-mile mark as she didn't make the 6:45 p.m. cutoff finish time. Rodriguez started her swim at about 7:30 a.m.

"I had some stomach issues, and it was just super-hot and windy," said Rodriguez, who runs normally in the wee hours of the morning with the Fleming Island famous Pavement Killers early running crew. She also did the four-to-six-hour bike training with an indoor trainer starting at 4 a.m., including two-to-three hours indoors and another two-to-three hours outdoors. "With my life, my schedule has been very busy. I'm thinking my daily schedule would be better for a half IRONMAN distance race. The IRONMAN training is a 24/7 commitment."

Rodriguez's run training included 18 mile with her Pavement Killer cohorts joining her for segments of the run throughout the Fleming Island area.

"The training is a team effort to stay focused," Rodriguez said. "My running and bike friends help when they can. My swims are either pool swims for a couple hours or a drive to Kingsley Lake with friends."

At the IRONMAN Jacksonville race, amidst a week of equipment preparation, clothes bag preparations, kids arrangements, work and pre-race nerves, Rodriguez was optimistic after a good swim where she registered an hour, 22-minute swim segment from Metro Park by Jags stadium to Memorial Park in the Riverside area.

"The swim was okay and I got through it with a little injury to my shoulder for the last month or two," Rodriguez said. "They swam with the current of the St. Johns River, but I didn't feel any current helping me."

After her swim segment, Rodriguez did a quick change of clothes from swimming to biking and headed out for a 112-mile journey to Ponte Vedra and back with the first major obstacle — a ride over the Acosta Bridge. In Ponte Vedra, the causeway bridge was traversed four times, twice on both sides, in the turnaround segment before heading back to Jacksonville.

"I had a head wind all the way to Ponte Vedra and (I) thought I'd get a tailwind on the way back," Rodriguez said. "No tailwind on the way back. That was tough."

Rodriguez was about six miles from the bike finish when officials removed her athlete's chip after 10-hours, 33 minutes into the swim and bike.

"I have no one to train with on the bike, and I was alone on the bike the whole way," Rodriguez said. "That was tough. The fuel they had on the course was not helping me."

Rodriguez' 10-year journey with IRONMAN races came from a moved surgery in Texas 10 years ago.

"I was diagnosed with cancer 10 years ago and told I would not be able to do races like this," said Rodriguez, now 55 and a veteran of 10 IRONMAN races since that diagnosis. "I figure if I've survived cancer, I can survive an Ironman."

Rodriguez's first race was in Texas where she was going through her initial diagnosis and therapies, but a chance schedule change got Rodriguez started on her endeavor.

"They moved my surgery a couple of weeks and the IRONMAN in Texas was still on my mind," said Rodriguez, who is a nurse and also a fitness trainer at the Barco-Newton Family YMCA in Fleming Island as well as a mother of three children. "I called my coach and said I'm doing it."

When the IRONMAN Jacksonville race was announced this year, Rodriguez endeavored to make the race her final Ironman distance race after a not-so-good race up in Lake Placid last year.

"It was such a tough bike course up in the mountains up there," Rodriguez said. "We do live in Florida and wanted to finish one more."