Finding Her Rhythm Again: Kellie Hogan’s Return to Endurance Sports

In the clear waters of Seneca Lake in upstate New York, a young Kellie Hogan discovered her love of swimming. Little did she know that decades later, after an 8-year hiatus from endurance sports, she would find herself writing a story of comeback that included a 70.3 Ironman triathlon. Kellie is proving that the starting line is open to everyone willing to take that first step back.

“When it came to swimming, I was a little fish,” Kellie recalls with a smile. “My parents, when I was six years old, put up one of those above-ground pools that they had in the 90s. The day they were filling it with hose water, I jumped in and swam around. My parents will tell you that my lips were blue, and they had to drag me out of that pool.” Yes, swimming was her first love.

The Early Years: Building a Foundation

Kellie’s journey into endurance sports began formally around 1997 when she was just 12 years old. While swimming came naturally to her from an early age, running entered her life through a meaningful connection.

“I had a really great family friend. She was also a biology teacher at the school, and she ran a lot,” Kellie explains. “One day she was at the track, which was only maybe half a mile from the house. She asked if I wanted to run a mile with her. I thought, ‘sure.’ So I ran a full mile with her without stopping. That run got me hooked.”

For many years, swimming and running were constants in Kellie’s life – outlets for energy, stress relief, and personal achievement. But in 2013, something changed that would force her away from the sports she loved.

The Unexpected Pause: When Running Was No Longer Possible

What started as a frustrating sensation in her foot would eventually lead to an 8-year break from endurance sports. “I would run about two miles, and my foot and the middle of my calf would go numb,” Kellie says. “I went to six or seven doctors, and the answer was always, ‘stop running.'”

For someone who found mental peace through running, this advice was crushing. “I don’t know if doctors realize how soul-crushing that is,” she admits. “That’s your outlet. It’s where you meditate or get away. It’s your mental health.”

During this hiatus, Kellie’s life continued forward in other ways. She moved to Georgia, completed her graduate degree, and focused on her career. But that feeling of freedom and accomplishment that came with endurance sports was missing.

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Finding a Way Back: The Pandemic Catalyst

Like many aspects of life, the COVID-19 pandemic changed Kellie’s relationship with fitness. After losing two beloved dogs in 2019-2020 and facing the isolation of lockdown, she needed an outlet more than ever. Could the pandemic and loss of her dogs be the catalyst for an endurance sports comeback story?

“I found a trainer that was doing a lot of weightlifting and cardio,” she shares. “She got me back into all of these things. And then as I started running more and more, I thought, ‘I really love this and my foot is not bothering me.'”

Kellie approached her return to running with patience, starting with short intervals – walking for five minutes, then alternating between running and walking for one minute each. “The 35-year-old Kellie running is a lot different than 20-year-old Kellie running,” she acknowledges. “I needed to start slow; otherwise, I was going to hate myself and hurt myself.”

Setting a Milestone Goal: Triathlon at 40

As Kellie’s running strength returned, she set her sights on a meaningful goal. “I was turning 40 last year and I said, ‘I did a triathlon the year I turned 30, in spite of a numb foot and I wanted to do the same thing when I turn 40.'” Kellie is quick to point out that doing the race on that numb foot was not the best decision she has ever made.

Though the specific race from a decade earlier was no longer offered, Kellie found another sprint triathlon and began preparing. However, one aspect of triathlon training remained particularly challenging for her – cycling.

“I had a nice bike, and I had the clip-in shoes and all the gear,” she recalls of her first triathlon experience ten years prior. “The problem was, no one taught me how to ride. No one taught me how to use it. They basically sent me on my way with clip-in shoes and said, ‘go have fun.’ So I ended up having four or five pretty nasty falls trying to get in and out of those clips.”

The experience had left Kellie with a genuine fear of cycling, and when she pulled out her bike for the 2023 sprint triathlon, it still had the race number from 2014 attached to it. Not that she needed it but this was proof that she hadn’t touched it once in the prior 10 years.

Overcoming Cycling Fears

Rather than giving up on triathlon because of her cycling fears, Kellie found a workaround. tInstead of clip-ins for her sprint triathlon she used flat pedals. “Biking is really challenging for me,” she admits. “Swimming is my first love, and I can get in and swim a thousand yards no problem. When I do a triathlon, I’m usually one of the first ones out of the water. And then I get on the bike and people pass me like it’s personal.“

When asked how she overcomes her fear on the bike, especially now that she’s training for a much longer distance, Kellie’s answer reveals much about her character: “I’m someone that doesn’t like to be bad at things. I’m a perfectionist, but it starts with learning new things.”

With that mindset, she continues to get in the saddle and work at getting better at cycling. Progress isn’t linear but no comeback story involving endurance sports is.

The Sign She Couldn’t Ignore

After completing her sprint triathlon in September 2024, Kellie began considering a half Ironman distance but hadn’t committed to it. Then, a seemingly supernatural coincidence pushed her forward.

“I got a targeted ad on Instagram,” she explains, still sounding amazed. “I had not talked to anybody about this. I had not voiced it. I had not looked it up. But they showed me an ad for Ironman Musseleman 70.3 in Geneva, New York – which is about 45 minutes from where I grew up. I learned how to swim in Seneca Lake, and that’s where the swim is, on my dad’s birthday.”

The coincidence was too perfect to ignore. “I was just like, is this real or is this AI? I started looking for it, and I actually started posting on Reddit because I thought, ‘this can’t be real.'” But it was real, and within less than a week, Kellie had registered for the event.

Training with Structure and Data

Understanding the magnitude of a 70.3 race, Kellie sought out professional guidance. “I went hunting for coaches,” she says. “I’m very good with structure and I’m very good with a plan.”

Working with a coach and using software to track her progress has been transformative for Kellie. “The structure has given me a lot of confidence,” she explains. “We work through Training Peaks, which I really love. I’m a data analyst and I’m just eating up this data coming out of Garmin and into Training Peaks.”

The training has been both harder and better than she expected. “It’s been more challenging from the perspective of, I’ll do a 100 set, and my average is near 1:28 per 100 yards. And I can remember when I did 100x100s and the interval was 1:30. That part mentally is really hard. It’s hard to recognize that I’m not at that same level that I was.”

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Avoiding the Comparison Trap

In a social media era where everyone seems to be sharing their perfect training sessions and race results, Kellie maintains a healthy perspective about comparison.

“When it comes to social media, as far as this 70.3 is concerned, my primary goal is to finish. And to me, that’s me against me. That doesn’t have anything to do with anybody else,” she says firmly. “That me-against-me focus has gotten a lot easier as I’ve gotten older.”

Even during races, Kellie stays focused on her own metrics. “When I run a 5K, I don’t really focus on who’s in front of me. I’m looking at my watch and thinking, ‘What pace am I at? How do I feel? What’s my heart rate?'”

Looking Beyond the Finish Line

With the 70.3 race approaching in July, Kellie remains open-minded about her future in endurance sports. When asked if she sees herself attempting a full Ironman distance, she responds thoughtfully:

“I’m gonna see how I feel after the race. How was the time commitment? Was it reasonable for me and where I’m at in my life? I’m not sure that I see myself going to do a full Ironman. I say that now, but when I trained for full marathons, I was like, ‘man, I don’t ever want to do this again.’ I enjoyed the half marathon length much more than the full marathon when I was running.”

This ability to recognize what truly brings her joy, rather than chasing ever-increasing distances, shows Kellie’s mature approach to the sport.

Life Lessons from Endurance Sports

The impact of sports on Kellie’s life extends far beyond finish lines and race bibs. When asked if the confidence gained from endurance sports has affected other areas of her life, she doesn’t hesitate.

“Oh yes, definitely. Growing up, I was a super nerd. I was the salutatorian of my class. I did my PhD at Cornell,” she shares. “When I do any kind of sport, it’s always like, ‘Well, I kind of want to do that. I want to break 54 in a 100-yard swim.’ I don’t really know how I’m going to get there, but I’m going to try to take tiny steps to get there, mini goals. And that’s effectively what I did with school.”

The same mindset has helped her in her professional life. “I own a business now that’s tangentially related to what I went to school for. It really was this ‘Well, I think I could do that. I just got to find those little goals, figure out how to get there.'”

Kellie strongly believes in the transformative power of sports, especially for young girls. “I think sports in general give kids, especially girls,  a lot of confidence to take on the world. Sports shows them that they can be great, they can look at something really hard and break it down into something tolerable and something they can achieve.”

Advice for Beginners

For those just starting their endurance journey, Kellie emphasizes patience, particularly with swimming.

“Give yourself a lot of time, especially if you don’t know how to swim,” she advises. “Swimming is really hard. On top of needing good cardio just to keep going, you’ve got to time your breathing, time your stroke, have perfect technique. There’s all of these things that have to come together in this nice dance of the swim. And it takes a really long time for that to come together.”

What does Kellie wish she had known earlier about taking on a challenge like a 70.3 Ironman? “That it’s not as big and scary as I thought it would be,” she says. “As you grow up in the endurance community, you hear ‘Ironman,’ and it’s this big thing. It’s this nebulous concept of people that are superhuman.”

Her perspective has changed with experience. “Once you actually see that these are just ordinary people that are working towards a goal like any other, your mindset changes. It’s not Mount Everest and you realize that anybody can do this with the right tools, the right support, the right mindset.”

As Kellie continues preparing for her 70.3 challenge at Musselman this July, her story reminds us that the path in endurance sports isn’t always linear. Sometimes there are detours, pauses, and fresh starts. Being patient and willing to face our fears the journey becomes enjoyable as well as feasible.

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