The balancing act of Kendall Gretsch

by Chelsea White on 20 Nov, 2015 05:39 • Español

Enter into the life of a triathlete: wake up, train, eat, train, compete and then train some more. Life is hectic and busy and essentially revolves around the constant desire to improve three motions—swimming, biking and running.

With a season that lasts all year round and events to prepare for that create goals and inspire dreams, there is not much time left in a day to think, let alone work or study.

But focus in on paratriathlete Kendall Gretsch and she manages to do just that. Having just graduated from college last spring, where she was enrolled as a full-time student studying biomedical engineering, Gretsch now works full-time for Epic Systems in Madison, Wisconsin, USA all while still finding the time to compete full-time in paratriathlon, where she holds the back-to-back World Championship title for the women’s PT1 sport class.

Gretsch grew up as a very active and athletic child. While she was born with spina bifida, a birth defect that affects the spinal cord, she spent much of her time involved in sports. An involvement that would eventually lead her into paratriathlon.

“I grew up swimming as my main sport, but when I was really little I played softball and basketball also. In high school I swam for my school team, but I wasn’t super competitive about it. I stopped competing when I went to college and that is kind of how I first got involved in triathlon,” said Gretsch about her start in the sport.  “The summer after my sophomore year, I decided I wanted to get back into sports, but I thought I would do swimming. I went to a swim practice and it just so happens that it was the very last practice of an adaptive sports group where I met an individual who helped found Dare2Tri. They invited me to a triathlon practice and a camp, so I started going to those practices after that camp and did my first triathlon and got hooked after that.”

And getting hooked was just the beginning. After competing in that first triathlon, she went on to compete in some local races. When she noticed that her times were nothing short of impressive, she realized that she may have a chance to take it further. 

“Looking at my times, I knew I was pretty competitive and having that connection through Dare2Tri was huge because a lot of them were already competing, so they would support me and help me with knowledge that allowed me to make my job that much easier. I decided in 2014 that I could not stay in local races forever so decided to make the jump into the ITU circuit.”

It was a jump that has paid off as Gretsch has achieved accolade after accolade in the short time that she has been involved in the sport. Her first official year in 2014, she won the World Champion title and then proceeded to follow it up with winning it again this year in Chicago.

She also has yet to lose a race that she has contested, a feat that not only impressed the triathlon community, but the whole sports community. She was nominated for a 2015 ESPY awards for Best Female Athlete with a Disability. And while she did not win the award (that went to Paralympic swimmer Becca Meyers) the honour of being nominated was a surreal moment.

“That was totally amazing and unexpected, that never even crossed my mind that that would happen. It was such an amazing experience to be among all of the other athletes, definitely really fun for sure.”

In such a short amount of time, Gretsch is becoming the face of the PT1 sport class for women. And while her triathlon achievements are outstanding, what makes her even more impressive is her achievements outside of the sport.

All while working to win her two consecutive World Championship titles, Gretsch was a full-time student at Washington University. Enrolled in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, Grestch became involved in a project that inspired and changed the life of a 13-year-old girl named Sydney.

Started for the sake of completing a senior design project, Gretsch, along with two other students, successfully built a prosthetic arm from a 3-D printer.

“The bioengineering department had just received a bunch of 3-D printers and they needed someone to test them out. So I played with them all summer and learned how they worked,” said Gretsch on how the idea came about. “We were looking for an idea and I had heard about someone who was printing prosthetic hands and I thought that was pretty awesome. I had always been pretty interested in prosthetics and orthotics, because of my background wearing braces myself. So printing the arms was building off of that original idea with the hand.”

“We worked with an orthopedic doctor who worked at the hospital that was associated with the university and was connected with Sydney because she was one of his patients. They knew that she and her mom would be very willing to work with us and knew it wasn’t going to be perfect.”

Printing the arm meant that it would be made out of plastic, causing the arm to not be as durable as a regular prosthetic. But because of the single use, the cost could be significantly cheaper (about $200 USD, compared to regular prosthetics that reach in the thousands.) But perfection was never a factor for Sydney, as she just wanted one thing: for the arm to be pink.

“The first thing we asked her was what colour she wanted. She was really excited just to try it out, working with her and her mom, they both recognized that it wasn’t going to be like the final answer in terms of what she would wear forever, but they understood that it was a starting point and from there you can only build off of that. It got them really excited because they saw the potential.”

After Gretsch graduated, they passed on the printer to the next class, who has continued to work with Sydney to improve the arm. And as for Gretsch, she now continues balancing the crazy lifestyle of working full-time and pursuing her dreams of racing.

“Working full-time now, that definitely takes up a lot of my time. So just finding the time where I can really get that focused training in is definitely more difficult. I have really had to adjust my strategy for training because since I have started working I have just had to understand that my time is just not as flexible,” she said of finding the time to train. “In terms of staying motivated, I feel like I am so new to it so there is still so much that I can learn. It is exciting to go to these races and I enjoy it and really love being there. It is a lot of hard work but it is something that I love so I am willing to dedicate the time to it to get the training in so that I can perform well.”

And while the women’s PT1 sport class will not be debuting next summer in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympic Games, the potential for growth in the sport is overwhelming, so for now, Gretsch looks forward to competing and possibly earning a three-peat in the World Championships.

“It’s weird to think that I am a World Champion, it has only been a couple years and my life has completely shifted. It has definitely been a whirlwind couple of years and an amazing time.”

Tracker Pixel for Entry