ELITE PROFILE / PRO KIT
Jennifer Lenzke
What do a ballerina, a registered dietician and a professional triathlete have in common? It’s more than being born in Toronto in 1986. Actually, they’re all one person: Jennifer Lentzke. She’s already covered a lot of ground professionally and will go even farther in her 2020 redemption tour.
Lentzke’s family left Canada before she was a year old to live in Mexico City and then in the U.S. She loves coming back to Canada to visit relatives and for Ironman Canada and Ironman Mont-Tremblant, two of her favourite races.
Although her first love – ballet – and her love of triathlon seem really different, are there any similarities?
“While the most logical answer would be that ballet has set me up physically to excel at endurance sports, I believe more than anything ballet has prepared me mentally,” she says. “Ballerinas are determined, disciplined and have an immensely high pain threshold.”
Lentzke danced for many years but stepped away from a professional ballet company while completing her undergraduate degree at Baylor University in Texas. That’s when she took up crosscountry running and marathons.
During graduate school at the University of Florida in 2008, Lentzke completed her first triathlon. Two years later came her first half-distance race in Texas and two months after that, Lentzke did her first Ironman in Cozumel and finished in 11 hours and nine minutes. At that point, she says, “I was hooked.”
Lentzke become a professional triathlete in 2013 and juggled that with her work as a board-certified specialist in sports dietetics and a registered dietitian. Over the next few years, things got really busy, challenging and difficult. Her triathlon performance declined despite putting in lots of work. Then, on a training trip to Park City, Utah, in 2018, Lentzke had an epiphany that it was time to change things up.
Lentzke wrote about that moment on her website: “No need for detail, just understand that my spirit, my mind, my body had been exposed to what it absorbed as ‘trauma and stress.’ When I arrived in Park City I was in a massive state of adrenal insufficiency. The non-medical term would be “burnout.” Everything was fried. I was completely emptied out.”
Soon after, Lentzke moved to Park City to start a recovery that came with the assistance of Wendy Wise, a wellness advocate and consultant who is now Lentzke’s business partner at Salt Lake City Wellness. Lentzke also reconnected with Mary Beth Ellis, who had coached her in 2017.
“Jennifer, like many professional triathletes, must push herself very hard to succeed,” says Ellis. “But when you are pushing hard, it is difficult to stay healthy. It is a delicate balance to go past your limits then rest and pull back so you don’t accumulate overwhelming stress and fatigue. Jennifer struggled to find that balance in 2019, especially when training and living at very high altitude.”
Lentzke’s altitude was even higher during her first-ever extreme triathlon at Chile’s Patagonman at the end of 2019. She intended to push her limits, but underestimated the race’s difficulty. “These athletes all signed up knowing it was going to be an extremely hard and slow day, and they were just in it to test their body and minds over treacherous terrain,” explains Lentzke. “This race and the participants truly embody the spirt of the Iron-distance triathlon: be tough as nails, and then be tougher than that.” Despite the extreme challenges that day, Lentzke succeeded in pushing herself to a new level. “I found another part of me as an athlete in this race, a part of me that I never knew existed. What I took from the Patagonman from a mental tenacity, growth and development standpoint is priceless.”
During those difficult years that led to Lentzke’s Utah epiphany, she felt denied of opportunities to excel athletically. And she wants to make up for that.
“So, in 2020, I’m embarking on my 2020 redemption tour, hitting up all the races I want to tackle not only physically, but also mentally,” she explains. “I’m setting things right again in my world, one race at a time!”
Her tour stops include the Asia Pacific Championships, New Zealand Ironman, North American Championships in Utah, Ironman World Championships in Kona, Half Ironman World Championships in New Zealand and Israman.
The tour roster also brings Lentzke back to her roots for Ironman Canada and Ironman Mont-Tremblant.
“My most memorable race is most definitely the Ironman Canada Penticton,” says Lentzke. “It was where I qualified for Kona as an agegrouper and got my professional card for Triathlon Canada. I just loved the course, the community and that part of Canada. It was overall an amazing experience for me. I’m excited to head back this year and race.”