Ask any ath­lete about pos­si­ble con­cerns when train­ing for a triathlon, and we’d imag­ine that “crazy Otter attack” would land pret­ty far down on the list, if it placed at all.

Odd­ly enough, Iron­woman ath­lete Leah Prud­homme expect­ed a few bites from muskrats or beavers as she swam in Min­neso­ta’s Island Lake last week. Instead, she encoun­tered an unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly aggres­sive otter, The Star Tri­bune report­ed, receiv­ing 25 bites to her legs, feet, and back.

Prud­homme, 33, was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal where she received sev­er­al rounds of rabies and tetanus shots. Con­ser­va­tion experts sur­mise that the otter was either rabid or pro­tect­ing near­by pups.

With near­ly 50 triathlons under her belt, Prud­homme is no quit­ter and plans on com­pet­ing in the upcom­ing Duluth Triathlon, in the same lake, this week. Hope­ful­ly, the otter in ques­tion will have calmed down by then.

[Pho­to Cred­it: Cre­ative Com­mons]