5 swfl master athletes mike hammersly cyclist
Photography by Brian Tietz

The Winning Mindset of Five Southwest Florida Athletes

For these local champions, competition is a way of life, fueled by community, purpose and the pursuit of a longer, healthier life.

by

Sporting Life

For five Southwest Florida fitness enthusiasts, training is more than a routine, it's part of who they are. Their commitment to movement, community and lifelong wellness offers inspiration for living a healthier life.

Mike Hammersly 

The Triathlete 

Competing in a triathlon means accepting some level of risk: pulled muscles, scraped elbows, exhaustion. Other threats can’t be predicted. 

On May 16, the day of the inaugural Ironman Jacksonville, Mike Hammersley was on pace for his goal. He had 60 sprint triathlons and 11 full Ironmans at his back, and he’d recently earned the title of Gold All World Athlete—an award given to the top 1 to 2% of competitors within their age category. The transition from the swim to his bike went smoothly. Then, 18 miles into the 112-mile ride, a driver pulled their car onto the course, right in front of Mike, causing a collision and ending his race. “I really had a great shot at getting a world championship spot at Kona,” he says, “The word disappointed is an understatement.” 

For a triathlete, there’s no greater stage than the Ironman World Championships: one day, a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile cycling trek and a 26.2-mile run set against the coasts and cliffs of Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. Tens of thousands of athletes battle it out in local races throughout the year, vying for top times in their age groups in the hopes of qualifying for worlds. Only about 3,000 overall make the cut. 

Losing his shot at Kona hurts—there will be aerobic capacity to regain, endurance to rebuild. But he knows he can rise to the challenge. When a group of teammates from Mike’s baseball team convinced him to run his first sprint triathlon in 2012, the training seemed impossible. “I’d go on a run and feel like I had jelly in my legs,” he says. “I thought I’d drown just swimming across a lake. I don’t think about this that often, but yeah, I’m kind of proud of how far I have come.”

As the owner of an air-conditioning company, Mike is able to make his own hours. This flexibility has allowed him to maintain 18 to 20 hours of weekly training. Before the accident, he’d be up between 4:30 and 5:30 a.m. He’d swim with the Gulf Coast Swim Team Masters Group three days per week, cycle between three and four days weekly, and do occasional solo swim sessions at the beach, building endurance and mental stamina against the currents’ pull. Long outdoor rides around Southwest Florida with friends fill his typical Saturdays, while weekday runs tend to be solitary efforts from his front door to a nearby park. 

That level of exercise requires a ton of discipline—and food. During his typical training schedule, Mike consumes between 4,000 and 5,000 calories a day. “With this type of training, you have to eat a lot just to maintain it,” he says. “Your body will break down if you don’t.”

While the accident forced a shift in focus, Mike is bringing the same intensity and mental toughness to recovery. He has unfinished business and no intention of letting go of his goal. 

Julie Taylor Deluca 

The Body Builder

Julie Taylor Deluca knows how to perform. She danced competitively at the University of Kentucky and was an Atlanta Falcons cheerleader. There, her athletic feats were meant to look effortless. Now, as a professional bodybuilder, the Naples mom of four puts her gains on full display.

Last July, Julie solidified her pro status at the National Physique Committee Universe after ranking first in the 40+ age-group bikini division, a subsect of bodybuilding focused on symmetry, muscular balance and stage presence. She has her sights set on qualifying for the 2027 Olympia, the sport’s Olympic equivalent.

Competing at that level requires Julie to navigate dramatic shifts in training and nutrition. Months-long ‘build’ phases prioritize muscle growth, with high caloric intake, heavy lifting and long gym hours. During competition ‘prep’ phases, the focus shifts to refining muscular definition and reducing body fat to 8 to 9%—below the healthy minimum for women outlined by the American Council on Exercise. “We only hold that really low body fat for a short time,” she says. “Staying at those extreme levels year-round is not healthy.”

Over three years of competing, Julie has worked with several coaches, crediting her first, Derek Natcher, for defining healthy habits. She tracks macros and gets regular bloodwork to ensure hormonal and metabolic health. In a sport centered on physique and control, she says accountability and self-awareness are as important as training, particularly during prep phases that can intensify obsessive tendencies and body-image pressures. “That needs to be acknowledged and addressed early,” she says. 

More than the stage, Julie loves how the sport’s structure carries over. “This journey has shaped me into a more present mom, driven business owner and resilient person overall,” she says. 

Johnnie Reid 

The Sprinter 

At 63, Johnnie Reid is running faster than she did in her 50s and inching closer to the personal records she set in high school.

In 2025, the sprinter and shot put champion set the 60-64 age group record for the 100-meter dash at the National Senior Games with a time of 13.6 seconds. She’s quick to clarify that’s the Games’ record, not hers. “I was running straight into the wind that day,” she says. A few months prior, she’d tackled the same distance in 12.85 seconds in blistering Las Vegas. “It took me 10 years and a lifetime to become No. 1,” Johnnie says. “Now I’m reaping the benefits. The butterflies never go away.”

Johnnie’s senior athletic career marks a return to form. As a sprinter at Clewiston High School, she drew attention from college recruiters. But training and competing on asphalt left her battling constant shin splints. “I told my mom, ‘I’ll pay my way through school if it means I don’t have to suffer like this anymore.’”

Over the years, she stayed fit through jogging and occasional trips to the gym, but no longer thought about competing. She was busy raising her son. Around 2013, shortly after getting divorced, an old friend reached out, asking if she’d heard of the Senior Games—the Olympic-style multi-sport events held at the local, state and national level for athletes aged 50-plus. “I fell for it hook, line and sinker,” she says.

The road from shaking legs after a single sprint to gold medals was gradual. Returning to technique-driven sport required Johnnie to rebuild her form piece by piece. She videos herself at practice and studies footage of Jesse Owens, Usain Bolt, Sha’Carri Richardson and Wilma Rudolph, analyzing everything from block starts to body position.

For years, she struggled with popping up too quickly out of the blocks. Now, she explodes forward and stays low through the drive phase, carrying more power down the track.

Her training week alternates between track sessions, strength training and shot put practice, layered with recovery days. “My fitness goal is to keep being better than I was yesterday, now it’s me vs. me,” she says. 

Chiropractor visits and massages are regular parts of her routine, as are Friday visits to the NCH Wellness Center, where she loosens her muscles in the steam room and sauna. “My grandmother lived to 105. I want to live as long as I can, as well as I can,” she says. 

Shannon Cutting 

The Swimmer 

One of Shannon Cutting’s earliest memories is leaving ballet class, trading tights for cleats and heading to soccer practice. This ability to shift and pivot set her life’ stone.

By her 30s, Shannon had a career as a collegiate diver at her back and was deep in the world of club soccer. Then, a teammate talked her into triathlon training. She caught the bug.

The 1999 Ironman Florida was her first race. She won her age group and qualified for the Ironman World Championships. The Cape Coral resident went on to earn two third-place titles and one fifth-place title at Worlds between 2000 and 2004. She also set two Ironman course records.  

At 62, Shannon is still in top shape, but two hip replacements and a shoulder repair have removed running from her routine. Instead, she’s putting her experience in the water to work. “Swimming is much better for my body,” she says. “It makes me feel strong, allows me to stay social, keep a work routine and continue to race.”

A chiropractor, yoga instructor, swim coach and personal trainer, she understands demands of endurance training—particularly in a sport where rhythm, breath and focus are tested. “You need to stay calm and comfortable in open water conditions,” she says. She relies on meditation to train the breathwork necessary to ration oxygen while exerting herself. 

In the buildup to her first race since surgery, an open-water 5K in May, Shannon’s training revolved around long pool sessions, ocean swims, mobility work and recovery. She supplements with light weight training and regular stretching, and saves space for rest, using contrast therapy to help with circulation and muscular recovery.

For Shannon, the routine is less about maintaining peak performance than preserving a way of life built around movement, structure and the pull of the next challenge.

JC Franchevich

The Cyclist

The decades have given Fort Myers cyclist JC Franchevich plenty of reasons to quit. In the ’90s, a kick took out his knee and forced him to abandon soccer, a sport he’d played since childhood. Decades later, in 2024, a bike accident wrecked his knee again, requiring a surgical replacement.

The recovery forced JC back into the slow, frustrating mechanics of rebuilding: managing swelling and pain, relearning how to trust the joint.

“I never quit,” JC says. “If you let it go, then you lose. You need to be constant. The training is the key.” When soccer left his life, JC sought out cycling to fill the void, then fell in love with the freedom and physical immersion of long-distance riding. Between casual rides around town and long-haul outings with the Caloosa Riders Bicycle Club, JC built and maintained the endurance to cover 100 to 150 miles weekly into his 60s. Over the years, JC has conquered some of his sport’s most treacherous and competitive races, from the Mountain Biking Championship in the Dominican Republic to Bolivia’s North Yungas Road (also known as ‘Death Road’). 

After surgery, he pushed relentlessly to get back on the bike, supplementing physical therapy with swimming and, in a matter of weeks, walks around the neighborhood and short ‘recovery’ rides with his Peloton. But pain and stiffness revealed he’d pushed too hard too quickly. He had to find a middle ground.

Today, he rides 60 to 80 miles each weekend, 30 during the week, and plays two weekly beach tennis sessions. In October, he’s back to competition once again for the Samaipata Challenge, a 65K mountain bike race in Bolivia that takes riders on an uphill climb from 1,000 to 8,000 feet in elevation. “That’s the accomplishment. No first place, no second place, no third place,” he says. “I just want to feel the adrenaline of competing.”