Monica Puig completes Ironman Puerto Rico triathlon in personal-best time

Since retiring from tennis two years ago, former Olympic champion Monica Puig has turned her attention to competitions of endurance. In 2022, she ran the New York City Marathon, and added races in Boston and London last year. Now in 2024, she's adding triathlons to her resume.

But what was it like to complete an IronMan event—a 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike ride, and half-marathon run—in her homeland of Puerto Rico last weekend in a personal-best time?

"It was 5 hours and 42 minutes of hell," Puig confessed on Tennis Channel Live on Tuesday during Miami Open coverage. "It was really hard."

But the 70.3 total miles were also rewarding: Puig said the time likely will earn her a berth in the women's event at the Ironman World Championships in Nice this September after she finished fourth in her age group.

"I don't know how I'm going to do that; I'm tired!" she joked with Andy Roddick and Steve Weissman.

"The conditions in Puerto Rico is hot, it's humid; the swim was really nice and refreshing. It's the first thing that you do. The run was absolutely brutal, but the course was gorgeous."

But former US Open champion and No. 1 Roddick, host of the new Served Podcast on the Tennis Channel family of networks, was not buying any of that.

"So your reward for this amazing accomplishment is having you do it again, but longer?" Roddick asked.

"It's that fever. You do it, you cross the finish line, you want to sign up for another one," Puig said.

"That's the feeling I get after having a pizza," Roddick replied. "Would I rather ... do what Monica did, or deal with the bees without being able to move? I think I'm going bees."