Today I spoke to Kendra Wenzel, co-founder of Wenzel Coaching. A born athlete, Kendra knew from the time she started college that she wanted to race professionally. After elite racing for more than a decade, she is now dedicated to training racers, helping them achieve balance in their lives, and organizing races. Her passion has brought her to all corners of the world, Japan, Cuba, and Europe. Here, Kendra tells us about the field of racing from woman’s perspective, and what moved her to make it her full-time occupation.
Tell me how you started racing, Kendra.
I started racing, the same way many women start racing, through a boyfriend. I was going into college and my graduation present from all my friends and family was a racing bike. I had been riding longer and long distances and I knew that when I went to college that I wanted to start racing.
How is a racing bike different from a regular bike?
In general, it’s a lot lighter, it’s more expensive, (she laughs), that’s the main difference! It’s set up for speed, more so than comfort, not that they can’t be comfortable, but it’s set up to corner well, to be aerodynamic and again, to be light.
I understand that you’re not really racing anymore, that you’re primarily coaching now?
That’s correct. I have about a one-race goal per year, so that I get fit enough into the summer that I can eat and drink what I want and then coast into the winter.
How would compare your very first race with your last one?
My very first race… my very first race was at a we call a Twilight Series, which is a weekday evening race out on a raceway, at the Portland International Raceway, here in Oregon. It was all men, me and
30 men and I think I crashed, or somebody crashed me or I got stuck behind a crash, I can’t remember! And my very last race, as a professional, was an international race and I won. Fourteen years experience between the first race and the last one is pretty much what it comes down to.
What kind of physical changes has your body undergone in those 14 years?
I had always been an athlete so my body didn’t make huge changes, but in general, most people who climb on a bike tend to lean out in their upper body and gain muscle mass in their legs. And in my case that was even more exaggerated. I was a sprinter, so I had very muscular legs by the time I was done and not much upper body. Having weight on your upper body doesn’t help you in cycling.
You mentioned that your first race was primarily all men, how do you think women are doing now compared to ten years ago?
I think women’s racing has come a long way, in contrast to that race that I did in 1985 or 86, they didn’t even have a race for women. Now they have a whole Monday night devoted to women and master men’s racing. They get 30-40 women beginners out there on a Monday night, compared to maybe me and one other woman twenty years ago.
I think it still has a long way to go. For some reason women aren’t as attracted to this sport as men are. You’ll find five different categories for men at a particular race and most of those categories will be full, and at the same time there will be one women’s race and it won’t even be full.
What do you think inhibits women from pursuing this sport?
That’s hard to say. In this sport, you have to be aggressive and you have to train hard to do well, it’s a major time commitment. The prime racing time for women is between twenty and forty, which are prime childbirth and career years. I think women have to make more of a choice than men do, especially when they start to have kids. I see that as a big hold back for women in racing, because of that time commitment. You can go and do 10K runs on the weekend and get away with a half hour to hour run each day without much preparation. You put on your running shoes, your shorts, and you go, whereas with a bike you have to make sure your equipment is running, and to be able to hang in a bike race, you really need to be committing over an hour a day of training, so it’s just a bigger time commitment. I really think that’s one of the biggest factors.
