Like most college students, St. Louis University's Aimee Warnke is building a résumé. Hers is a little light on internships, volunteer work and character-building minimum wage jobs. In their place: class valedictorian, Army ROTC candidate, physical therapy major, world champion long-distance triathlete.

Warnke hopes to add another title Nov. 14, when she competes at the Ironman World Championship 70.3 in Clearwater, Fla.

"I want to test myself to see how much I can do," she said.

Warnke came to the sport from inauspicious beginnings, riding her Wal-Mart mountain bike around Rolla with her father, Dwight. She joined the cross country team at Rolla High her freshman year and that summer combined the two with swimming at the suggestion of her junior high counselor, Dennis Noel, a triathlon enthusiast. She entered a sprint triathlon — quarter-mile swim, 12.4-mile ride and 3.1-mile run — and liked it so much that the following summer she trained for a half ironman — 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile ride and 13.1-mile run. Add the distances, and you get the preferred name for the event, 70.3.

"That was kind of a big jump, but it was a cool experience," she said. "I did a few shorter triathlons after that, but I was hooked on the longer ones. When you go longer, it's more of a mind game."

In the meantime, she continued to run cross country and excel in the classroom. She graduated as valedictorian at Rolla High and joined St. Louis University's medical scholars program, in which she was admitted as an undergraduate with automatic acceptance into SLU's medical school.

The summer after graduation, Warnke again hit the pavement in Rolla, not only to train but to drum up sponsors for her dream trip to the International Triathlon Union Long Distance World Championships in Almere, Holland.

"I wrote about 40 sponsorship letters and went into the businesses around Rolla, looking for help," she said. Her persistence paid off, especially with major sponsorship from Forum Dental and 66 Bicycles. "This is an expensive sport, and sometimes I say to myself, 'Think of what you could do with this money.' Then I realize all the things I've been able to do, and it's more than worth it."

So, before departing for SLU, Warnke and her mom, Lisa, packed their bags for Holland, where Warnke finished first in her age group in the 2.6-mile swim, 74-mile bike and 18.6-mile run. Her favorite part of the trip, though, was that "My mom was there to share it. She's never missed a race."

Warnke joined SLU's bike team, so she had ready-made training partners a third of the time. After a semester, though, she was ready for more challenges. She switched her major to physical therapy from pre-med and joined the school's ROTC program.

"I thought about it in high school but wanted to make sure I was really committed to the military," she said. "You get a lot of leadership opportunities, and it pays for school. I wanted to serve my country and do something where I could go out in the world and help people."

The added commitments spread her thin, though. Warnke spent about 20 hours a week training for triathlons, about 12 hours a week on ROTC and countless hours studying.

"Sometimes it catches up with me; midterms were a little rough," she said. "But I love everything I do. If I wasn't busy, that would be more stressful."

She found more time to train over the summer, when she qualified for the world championships with a second-place finish in the Steelhead 70.3 in Benton Harbor, Mich.

Her lengthy résumé caught the eye of NBC, which will cover next week's event much as it does the full-length Ironman World Championships in Hawaii. The network will broadcast a two-hour special in the spring that features the stories and results of the favorites as well as intriguing competitors at every age level.

"Maybe it will be even more fun with the cameras," she said. "It definitely will be give me a little more motivation. It should be interesting."

Far more interesting for NBC and the viewers than for her.