No amount of medals or trophies could stack up against 12-time international triathlon winner Siri Lindley’s greatest victory: overcoming acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
The average five-year survival rate for those diagnosed with AML is 29 percent, according to WebMD. The odds doctors gave Lindley after her diagnosis six years ago were much less, she said.
“They had given me a 5 percent chance of surviving,” the Santa Ynez resident said during a recent Zoom call. “I’m basically living a miracle.”
To the rescue
The sixth annual Celebrate Life Run will take place on Feb. 21 starting at 9 a.m. at Believe Ranch and Rescue in Santa Ynez. Visit believeranchandrescue.org or runsignup.com/liferun5k for more info on the upcoming 5K run/walk, which will feature merchant pop-ups and opportunities to meet the rescue horses.
To learn more about Siri Lindley and Rebekah Keat’s workout videos, visit siriandbeksquad.com. The series includes virtual workout videos hosted by Lindley and Keat, wellness tips, nutritional challenges, and other offerings.
Both Lindley and her wife, Rebekah Keat, enjoyed long careers in professional athletics and coaching, so they didn’t think twice when Lindley began feeling fatigue and more frequent soreness in her legs than usual around a milestone birthday.
“I felt really exhausted, and I thought it was age. I had turned 50,” Lindley recalled. “I needed a hip replacement because I trained way beyond what I was capable of.”
The couple’s dog seemed to sense something was wrong too, Keat said.
“She never used to lie on the bed before, but then she started lying on [Lindley’s] legs,” Keat said. “Her legs and bones were aching. … But being athletes, we’re kind of used to pain. We were always used to being in pain, and almost switching that off.”
When Lindley went in for a pre-op to assess hip replacement options, her doctor described her blood work as “really off.”
“They came out and said, ‘Sorry, we’re not doing this surgery, you’ve got to go in for further testing,’” Lindley recalled. “Within a matter of days, they said it was AML. … My doctor said I could have been gone within weeks.”
‘It’s reminding people: Live your best life now because this is the only one you get.’
—Siri Lindley
But within less than a year, Lindley went into remission after undergoing two clinical trials at UCHealth Anschutz in Colorado (the couple moved to California about three years ago), a bone marrow transplant, and months of chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
Lindley’s battle with leukemia is the subject of a new documentary, Tri Me, which will be available on streaming platforms sometime this spring, Lindley said. Her journey toward remission also inspired an annual 5K run/walk she and her wife host at their horse ranch in Santa Ynez.
This year marks the sixth Celebrate Life Run, which is scheduled to take place on Feb. 21 at Believe Ranch and Rescue. Participants will embark from the start line at 9 a.m.
“It’s a day to celebrate your own life; someone you love and their life; maybe someone who’s passed—to celebrate honoring them, running for them—or running for someone that’s fighting a diagnosis,” Lindley said. “It’s a day of remembering what a gift every breath is, and how you’re going to use that; how you’re going to live this moment right now when you know how precious it is.
“What’s important to me is reminding people this is a day to celebrate life,” she continued. “It’s reminding people: Live your best life now because this is the only one you get.”
Proceeds of the event, which will also include several local merchant pop-ups, will support Lindley and Keat’s ranch, which operates as a nonprofit horse rescue. Part of the organization’s funding goes toward purchasing horses at public livestock sales, to prevent kill buyers from acquiring them for slaughterhouses outside of the U.S., the couple explained.
“We’ve saved 356 horses in eight years,” Lindley said. “A lot of them have been adopted out. We currently care for 51.”
Attendees of the Celebrate Life Run will have the opportunity to meet the couple’s horses, including some that are part of the ranch’s equine therapy program.
“These horses go on to heal people,” said Lindley, whose therapy horses regularly interact with clients who suffer from PTSD and other disorders.
Believe Ranch and Rescue also periodically partners with the Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation to host equine healing events for children going through cancer to meet and bond with the horses.
Outside of caring for horses at their home and some of their neighbors’ horses at other ranches in Santa Ynez, Lindley and Keat spend their time designing workout routines for those who subscribe to their monthly fitness plan.
The program includes a series of 15-minute beginner-friendly exercise sessions intended for people “who maybe never worked out their entire lives,” Lindley said.
“It’s doable and sustainable, and not just for people that have never worked out before but people that have high-pressure jobs and don’t have more than 15 minutes to work out,” Lindley said. “What we’re doing is what’s going to give them the biggest bang for their buck.”
Lindley and Keat’s mutual pursuits as professional triathlon athletes led them to each other in the mid-1990s. But they didn’t start dating until around 15 years after initially meeting.
“There was always a spark there, but every time we’d always both been in relationships,” said Keat, a six-time Ironman Triathlon champion.
Keat eventually approached Lindley, who’s about nine years older, to become her coach in the 2010s. At a training camp in Australia, the two bonded while sharing meals, conversations, and cooking space in the camp’s kitchen area.
“Every night we basically had to cook dinner in the same kitchen, and over time we fell in love. Neither of us wanted to but,” Lindley stopped with a laugh just as Keat interjected during a Zoom call.
“It’s not that we didn’t want to,” Keat said with a smile, “it’s that we weren’t really expecting it.” ∆
Reach Sun Senior Staff Writer Caleb Wiseblood, from New Times’ sister paper, at cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Health & Wellness 2026.