Pro file: Gina Kehr

October 5, 3:31 PMBoston Triathlon ExaminerClaire Lunardoni

Gina Kehr celebrates her fifth top-ten finish in Kona just months after
the birth of her daughter. Photo courtesy Gina Kehr & Mark Freeland

Gina Kehr is the full package: wife, businesswoman, pro triathlete, and supermom. With over a decade of professional triathlon racing under her race belt, and a top-ten finish in Hawaii five of those years, Kehr seems to have figured out what every age group triathlete struggles to nail down: a balance between work, family, competition, and speed.

Perhaps Kehr’s key to balancing her professional career, triathlon career, and family is that she targets only a few big races a year and trains to shine. She even turned down her Hawaii slot the first time she qualified. Considering her track record in Kona compared to racing junkies, her focus seems to be working. This year Kehr’s passport got a vacation. Six of the seven races in which she participated in her Hawaii and Clearwater build-up this year were in her home state of California.

In the nine years between her first World Championships in 2000 and last year, Gina has missed the top ten only one year that she competed (in 2002 she was eleventh–hardly a bad race). Talk about consistency! In those nine years, she shattered her arm and gave birth to two children. After taking a nearly 3-year hiatus from racing between Kona in 2003 and Kona 2006, Kehr took 4th, shocking the Ironman world.

Kehr’s success rate at the world championships puts her in the company of triathlon legends. Of her contemporaries (Gina has been racing long enough to span the time gap between Paula Newby-Fraser and Chrissie Wellington), only eleven other women have seen the inside of the top 10 as often as Gina. Of those eleven women, only five are on the start list for this year: Fernanda Keller, Belinda Granger, Natascha Badmann, Jo Lawn, and Kate Major. Interestingly, of the six women competing this year who have been a frequent feature in the top ten for the past decade, only Natascha Badmann has taken home the victory. Maybe Gina will be the second to earn the distinction in 2009.

In 2008, Ironman pundits may have been ready to write Kehr off. Sure, she had had a good race in 2006, but now she had skipped another year of training and had another baby. Plus, she was getting on in years (Kehr turned 40 last month). Instead, Gina dazzled the world by capturing 9th place just after her daughter’s eight-month birthday. “The life lessons she experienced [after having children] sharpened her mental focus and, although she shocked the world at the Hawaiian Ironman… she did not surprise herself,” says Gina’s official media biography.

Kehr is also a supporter of Jenny’s Light, a charitable organization founded by Becky Lavelle to raise money and awareness for issues related to postpartum depression. Lavelle lost her sister, Jenny and infant nephew as a result of the untreated postpartum depression and psychosis. As a mother, Kehr says that she feels compelled to spread the word about Jenny’s Light. Many new mothers, especially those who have been very active in sports or a career (or both), suffer with the transition to their new role as mothers. Since a baby is meant to be the most joyful experience in their lives, they may feel like they are “bad mothers” if they complain about their depression symptoms, and so they suffer in silence. Kehr’s role as a mother has dovetailed with her pro triathlon career, but she understands that many women like Jenny Bankston have trouble making the transition to motherhood. Kehr supports Jenny’s Light’s efforts to improve the detection and treatment of postpartum depression.

Gina Kehr has proven that she is one of those women who can do everything. Pile on the pressure of a career and a family, and she only seems to get stronger. Now that she has had another year to build on her post-baby fitness from last year, Kehr will be a force to be reckoned with at the front of the women’s field. We look forward to watching her prove that female triathletes, like a good wine, only get better with age.

Gina Kehr

Nationality: American
Age: 40
Pro since: 1998
Career highlights:

• Five times top ten in Hawaii (2008, 2006, 2003, 2001, 2000)
• 1st place Stealhead 70.3, 2008
• 1st place ITU Boston 2003
• 1st place Ironman USA 2003
• 2nd place Ironman Germany 2001
• 2nd place Ironman France 2002
• 2nd place Philippines 70.3, 2008
  What she rides: Guro Crono
  Sponsors: TriBike Transport, H2O Overdrive, Guru Bikes, Zoot, Kaenon Eyeware, Gu, 3T,Health Logic LLC, Stanford Masters Swimming, Kona Endurance, Front of the Pack, Coldwell Banker, Janie and John Barman

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-19794-Boston-Triathlon-Examiner%7Ey2009m10d5-Pro-file-Gina-Kehr

Gina Kehr's finish at the 2008 Ironman in Kona

On a day when the Ford Ironman World Championships had its “teeth” back for the first time in three years, Gina Kehr, eight months removed from the birth of her second child, powered through the Kona course and finished 9th in her first full Ironman race since June of 2006.

“I knew I was going into this race with the least amount of training one could do for an Ironman and it would be difficult to compete with these girls that do nothing but train and have no extracurricular responsibilities.  I prepared for my mind to take over and to race above what I may have been able to put in during training,” said Kehr from her Redwood City home.

After a fourth place finish at this race in 2006, Gina unexpectedly became pregnant with her second child and could only cheer from the sidelines at the 2007 race.  She gave birth to Blaisen at the end of January and began training at the end of March for the October race.

To see full coverage of the 2008 Ford Ironman World Championships and Gina’s ninth place finish, tune into NBC on Saturday, December 13th from 11:30AM-1:00PM.

Click on picture below to watch Gina cross the finish line!

I have been back from Honu for two weeks now.  I am just starting to feel better since the race.  Being “out of shape” caught up to me as I tried to recover last week.  Blaisen is still getting up 2 times a night so my sleep is not what it use to be.  Long story short-I am starting to feel better (it did help that Blaisen slept form 8-2 and then did not get up again until 6am!) Yahoo!  I thought people might want to know what a typical training week is like for me.  I guess typical is a generalization, my weeks do change pending on recovery and time, so below is what has transpired this week as far as training:

MONDAY: Core, swim, run

Core: This is my focus through Vineman- My baby tummy needs some major firming up-the outside yes, but I am talking about my inside.  I can really feel it during any long stuff I do on the bike and especially the run.  I am using a TRX in my garage-30 minutes and my butt is KICKED! Check it out www.fitnessanywhere.com

Swim: Recovery swim (1000K) 

Run: Easy 1:08-feel good run 

TUESDAY: hard swim and hard bike ride. 

Swim: Woke up in the am and went to swim from 6-7am.  Could not make any intervals, couldn’t get heart rate up.  Finished the 3K workout. Main set was 400, 4 x 75, 300, 4 x 75, 200, 4×75 all on 1:15 base (yards).

Ride: change of plans due to swim disaster and body being a WRECK from the core workout; therefore ended up doing a recovery ride 1:30

WEDNESDAY: Hard ride, hard short run, Core

Hard ride was 2:10 with 7 x 5 min of 95% alternating with 100% of threshold watts with 2 min rest. Legs were TIRED!

Hard Run: Treadmil with 10 X 2.5 min with 30 sec rest, starting at 3% grade and moderate tempo finishing at 1% grade with fast tempo.  Total time 50 miutes.

TRX right after run workout

THURSDAY: swim, longer run

Swam 3000K in the am.  Felt much better than Tuesday. (Hubby took the middle of the night feedings–ahh so nice)

Run:  This was the workout that I really wanted to do well.  My body is still very much trying to handle the run mileage so I am increasing slowly to let my body adapt.  I ran with a friend, I am not going to say names…T.H. (who thought it a good idea to bring NO water on a 2 hour run in 90 degree heat) at Crystal Springs.  Anyway, started easy built to moderate hung in around there. Great stepping stone run.

FRIDAY: Easy run, swim 

Easy 20 minute recovery run

Swim: Hard at Stanford Masters 2500 Meters-this was my key workout for the day.

SATURDAY: Ride (3 hours)

Chris works so I have to get a sitter.  At 12.50/hour it gets expensive.  My plan is to do a strength workout on the bike with maybe some wattage play. 

SUNDAY: CORE, Tempo Run (1:10-1:30)

Chris was just sent to a BIG fire in Butte County (near Humbolt) yesterday.  The workout above was my plan assuming Chris would be home.  If I get a sitter then I will hit the workout, if not, then an off day. 

It is funny, I thought having a second baby the training was going to be the hard part, but really what it is, is the TIME to get the workouts.  I think with kids it is rough anyway, but when you have a partner who is not home every night and every weekend, it certainly makes for some juggling.  I have to keep my self positive-the biggest downer about him being shipped off is that he will miss his first father’s day with two kids. 

Let it go,

Gina

Some people think a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride and 26.2-mile run, all without rest, would be about the most painful experience anyone could endure.

Some people haven’t given birth.

Gina Kehr of Redwood City finished fourth in the women’s division of the Ironman Triathlon national championship Sunday in Hawaii. It was only her second triathlon in three years, after she broke her arm on a training ride in 2004, then had a baby in August 2005.

Which is worse, labor or triathlon?

“You know, the labor, quite frankly,” Kehr said Thursday. “It’s a different workout. It was the highest anaerobic hour and a half I’d ever done in my life. The contractions before the pushing, that’s kind of like the triathlon. But the pushing? That was by far the most pain I have experienced in my life.”

Kehr, 37, was back home and recuperating after her career-best effort, one that followed a third-place finish at the Coeur d’Alene event in June, the one that convinced her she was back into the thing full time.

When she wasn’t being a real-estate agent or mom, that is. Gabriella was born with a port-wine stain (a prominent birthmark) on her face, so Gina took time every month to go to UCSF for laser treatments. Her husband, Chris, picked up overtime shifts as a Redwood City firefighter to help the checkbook, and friendly co-workers took some of the load off Gina at the office in Palo Alto.

But that can add up to some stress. And here we remind you that not every professional athlete is in the Trump stratosphere; for all the trouble, Kehr won $20,000 at the Ironman.

She had reached as high as seventh before 2004. She had some doubts about getting back into it, but the race in Idaho convinced her she was doing the right thing. She made it back to Hawaii — where nature postponed her big day by a week.

“The earthquake was just part of everything I was experiencing as far as overcoming the adversity, trying to reach the goal; it was just another aspect of it,” she said.

“I definitely thought that was it. I thought the house we were staying in was coming down, no doubt, and if it didn’t come down we were going to see lava or water. It was another piece of there’s more to life than this race, even though this race was everything I had been working for. It was like, OK.”

The third Act of Gina Kehr’s professional career as a triathlete has begun. Kehr was at the top of the triathlon world in 2003 when she crossed the finish line at the Ironman Hawaii World Championship as the first U.S. Female finisher for the second consecutive year (7th overall). But then everything changed. Kehr suffered a terrible crash on the bike in 2004 that left her career in question. Although the time away from the sport in 2004 and 2005 enabled Kehr and her husband to celebrate the birth of their first child, Gabriella, the reality was that Kehr had not raced nor trained for two years.

After a stunning return to the world stage with a 4th place finish at the 2006 Hawaii Ironman, Kehr made some changes in the off-season and decided it was time to go all-in for 2007 and beyond.

“I always had a lot of confidence in my own ability and my results showed it, but if I wanted to make a run at being the best in the world, I was going to have to add a few pieces to the puzzle, said Kehr from her Redwood City, California home.

With a revamped attitude and an entirely new respect from the triathlon community, Kehr hired a new agent, and recruited one of the top exercise physiologists in the world to join forces with her longtime coach and 2-time Ironman Canada Champion Michael McCormack (www.triathloncoach.com). In addition, she surrounded herself with a team of sponsors that all shared one major goal – to make Gina Kehr as fast as possible.

At 37, Kehr is a wife, a mother, a part-time realtor, and one of the fastest female triathletes in the world. She speaks to an audience that reaches far beyond the world of triathlon and her sponsors recognized that. Kehr added Zoot Sports as the final piece of the puzzle and immediately won her first race of the year as a Zoot athlete, racing in the Zenith wetsuit and an ULTRA race day kit.

“I might be the only Zoot Athlete that has never lost a race,” Kehr joked when asked about her debut win in 2007. “Zoot is in a tremendous growth phase and there was a great symbolic fit between the two of us. I plan to take the next step in my career just as Zoot has huge plans for the next couple of years. The Ultra line is awesome and is what I will race in throughout the year.”

“We are so happy to have Gina as part of the Zoot family,” commented Eli Carlson, Director of Marketing for Zoot Sports. “Gina’s incredible talent, strong-willed character and most important, her aggressive drive to win perfectly parallel with Zoot’s strategy to be a premier global multisports brand. We look forward to continuing our success with Gina and will be cheering her on at this weekend’s Escape From Alcatraz Triathlon.”

United States Olympian Victor Plata followed in the footsteps of some of triathlon’s greatest long course personalities with his comeback victory in yesterday’s World’s Toughest Half in Auburn, CA, part of a weekend endurance extravaganza featuring a race distance and format for everyone. After competing in triathlon for eight years, in which he climbed to the highest level of competition, earning the third and final qualifying position on the three member 2004 US men’s Olympic triathlon squad in Athens, Plata hung up his Aegis bike frame and Swedish goggles in order to venture back into the world of academia as a fulltime law student.

As a present to himself for completing his second year of classes, Plata signed up for Sunday’s half-iron race, not exactly sure what the challenging and unforgiving course would throw his way. Exiting the 1.2-mile swim at Rattlesnake Bar Lake, the termination of the North Fork River, in 22:46, Plata started the bike to find his rear disc wheel was skewed.

“It sounded like a near-dead, moaning cat,” explained Plata following the race. “I apologized for the awful noise to each of the five or six racers who passed me during the bike portion.”

He figured out after the race, his wheel was not broken, but in fact was heavily underused as a result of his nine-month hiatus from the sport, and could be restored to good use again with the proper tuning and some lubrication. As a result of his minor oversight during his pre-race preparations, Plata finished the 56-mile bike featuring 5,000-feet of elevation gain, 12-minutes behind the race leader, and author of this article, Lars Finanger.

Fortunately for the Olympian, Finanger’s foot-speed over the 13.1-miles of trail and pavement would not match his race leading 2:45:48 bike split. Plata moved into the lead at the 11-mile mark at the top of the lung-sapping Cardiac Bypass hill, one of two dramatic hills on the course over one mile in length and contributing to the 1,325-feet of overall elevation gain.

Plata crossed the finish line in 4:51:03 after the day’s best 1:27:45 half-marathon split, only slower than a handful of predecessors including Tim Deboom and Clas Bjorling, over the challenging course that pits athletes against technical single-track, drawn-out climbs, and occasional obstacles like sun-bathing snakes and fresh horse patties.

Photo Credit: Lars Finanger.

Fourth-place Ironman Hawaii finisher Gina Kehr used the international race as a pre season tuner.

While 2006 Ironman Hawaii fourth place finisher Gina Kehr traveled from her Redwood City, CA home for the international event, Diana Hassel from Fort Collins biked away from her competition to win the half-iron event. The equine emergency surgeon and tenured track faculty member at Colorado State University, soldiered through the run with blisters lining the bottoms of her feet.”I made the mistake of forgetting to tighten my shoe strings,” exclaimed Hassel, pointing to her loosely tied kicks.

Hassel is no newcomer to this area having graduated from Vet School at University of California at Davis and completed a temporary stint on their faculty board. A former Ironman Hawaii age group world champion, Hassel has finished the World’s Toughest Half four times and volunteered on the course one time.

“I love the grassroots feel and I love Brad Kearns,” stated Hassel who won yesterday’s race in 5:33:52, over ten minutes ahead of her nearest competitor.

There is nothing easy about The World’s Toughest Tri. For starters, the name lends a maniacal ring even to the most cerebral and sane multisport athletes. Much like the host city of Auburn, the epicenter of the mid-1800’s gold rush, the multisport event has a mystical aura about it. While athletes can chose between an international, half-iron, or duathlon format, each race is difficult and features Auburn’s unparalleled network of hill climbs on both the cycling and running legs.

City officials passed a proclamation in 2003 naming Auburn as the “Endurance Capital of the World.” It would be difficult to argue otherwise. This tiny town of 12,000, ironically the same size it was in the years after miner Claude Chana first struck gold in 1848, is nestled at 1,300-feet in the foothills of the Sierra Mountains and sandwiched between the snowcapped peaks near Lake Tahoe 65 miles to the east and Sacramento 30 miles to the west. The town is home to no less than a 24-hour mountain bike festival, the finishing point of ultra-running’s World Series the Western States 100, the 100-mile Tevis Cup horse race, and for the last five years the World’s Toughest Half.

What the race lacks in total participant numbers (650 total participants this year), it makes up for field talent and athlete accommodation. In it’s current incarnation, the World’s Toughest Half has lured in the likes of two-time Ironman Hawaii world champion Tim Deboom, his equally talented wife Nicole, Swedish powerhouse Clas Bjorling, 2000 Olympic gold medalist Simon Whitfield, Xterra star Josiah Middaugh, 2002 Ultraman champion Gordo Byrn, and Frenchman Cyrille Neveu who lives on top of the famed Tour de France mountain Alpe D’Huez.

Owner of Bradventures.com and the World’s Toughest Half, former top-level pro triathlete Brad Kearns knows how to deliver an epic grassroots event. Kearns brings to race organization the same precision he applied to his own training in the 90’s, when he would often challenge and beat the world’s best multisport athletes like Mark Allen and Kenny Souza. While he no longer competes himself, Kearns now devotes his time to his own multisport business, along with directing a kids running program at local elementary schools (see www.runningschool.org), writing books like How Lance Does It, a look on how you can apply the seven-time Tour de France winners attitude to set and accomplish your own goals (see www.bradventures.com), and working on improving his high jumping skills. That’s right, Kearns has cleared 5′3 ½ and is ranked 17^th nationally in his master’s category.

Kearns likes the grassroots feel of his event and is committed to keeping athletes’ needs as his foremost concern.

“When I was racing, I was self-absorbed, but now I take tremendous pride in accommodating racers of all abilities, incomes, and walks of life,” admits Kearns.

This can be noted on Kearns’ website where he awards discounts to athletes who have competed in past World’s Toughest events, collegiate competitors and full time students, and any athlete who might have beaten him during his own professional racing career. And while this offer might seem generous, remember Kearns’ track record as one of the premier racers of his era.

For complete results from the Auburn International Triathlon, World’s Toughest Half, and World’s Toughest Duathlon, visit www.auburntriathlon.com.

USA Triathlon has announced that Celeste Callahan and Gina Kehr have been appointed to its Board of Directors.

Callahan replaces Dan Empfield as the Western Region representative. Kehr replaces Susie Gallucci as the elite athlete representative. Both Empfield and Gallucci resigned from the Board in November. Callahan and Kehr’s terms will expire on July 1, 2005, but they can run for re-election.

Under USA Triathlon’s bylaws, the Board must appoint replacements when members resign. Replacements for elite athlete Board members are appointed by the Athlete Advisory Council.

“The USA Triathlon Board of Directors is excited to have these two dynamic women join our ranks,” said Board President Brad Davison. “We look forward to working with them.”

Callahan, of Denver, Colo., has been involved in triathlon for 20 years. She has been a perennial member of Team USA since 1991. In 2002, she won gold at the International Triathlon Union Triathlon World Championships in Cancun, Mexico. The same year, she won a bronze medal at the duathlon world championships in Alpharetta, Ga. She is the current duathlon national champion in her age group. Callahan and three teammates hold the inaugural record for Team Race Across America for women over 50.

A three-time Hawaii Ironman finisher, Callahan did a fourth Ironman distance race in Israel in 1999 to celebrate five years free from cancer.

Away from the races, Callahan is a charter member and co-chairman of Judy Flannery Memorial Fund, which was established following the tragic death of Flannery, the first Women’s Commission chair, in 1997. Callahan is also one of the founding members of the USAT Women’s Commission.

Gina Kehr, of Redwood City, Calif., did her first triathlon in 1994 and became and elite/professional triathlete in 1998. Since then, she has found success at triathlon distances from Olympic to Ironman.

Some of Kehr’s athletic accomplishments include top-five finishes at the 2001, 2002 U.S. elite/pro national championships, and eighth at the 2000 U.S. Olympic Trials. She has finished second at Ironman France, Ironman USA (Lake Placid, N.Y.) and Ironman Germany. She has competed at the Ironman World Championships six times, with her top finish being seventh in 2003.

Away from competition, Kehr is very involved with the Silicon Valley Triathlon Club, where she serves as a track coach. She also speaks to various Bay Area triathlon clubs. She has also served USA Triathlon as president of the Athlete Advisory Council, which supports elite multi-sport athletes.

In other Board news, Eastern Region representative Rob Kasper has taken over as Board vice president.