In modest fashion, the comeback began. No headlines, no fireworks.
The starting point? A bath mat.
It had been there — by the tub, in front of the mirror, in her home — that Tracey Kerr embarked on her journey back to an active lifestyle, by running gently, oh so gently, on the spot.
There was reason for caution. A decade earlier, Kerr had been involved in a devastating car crash.
The collision caused a traumatic brain injury … ravaged her motor skills, necessitating the use of a walker … created pituitary gland issues, leading to central diabetes insipidus (which nearly killed her, twice) … robbed her of the power of speech … threw her finely conditioned body into state of never-ending repair, requiring more than a dozen operations (neck, eye, jaw, hip, abdomen) … and stopped her from applying the finishing touches to a PhD degree in kinesiology at Simon Fraser University.
Experts, scratching their heads, assessed the extensive damage and the mystifying symptoms, then advised her to make funeral arrangements.
Stubbornly, Kerr connected the medical dots herself and, over the years, mapped a path to recovery.
“I was in and out of the hospital — probably a thousand times at least,” Kerr, from her home in Vancouver, says of the years following the 2005 accident. “But I was going to do everything humanly possible to be able to run again, then hopefully get back to triathlon. It was always on my mind.”
She had raced at every distance, including Ironman events in Penticton, B.C., and Hawaii, and even coached triathletes. She was co-founder of the Pacific Spirit Triathlon Club, serving as the group’s first president.
“Triathlon was my whole world, besides my family, prior to that accident,” she says. “I was determined to get back to triathlon. I never gave up.”
Shortly after the accident, lacking the balance to stand upright, she would clamber from her mattress to the saddle of her bed-side bike, which was locked onto a wind-trainer. Then, with no worry of toppling, she would get in a little spinning.
But it was those baby steps on a quiet day in her bathroom that represented a turning point. She soon progressed to walking outside to walk-running to hiking and trail-running. She completed the Mount Marathon in Alaska. Then she ran across the Grand Canyon.
Hard surfaces, however, remained jarring. Neck surgery in 2021 — three titanium discs were inserted — provided relief, allowing her to comfortably increase her running mileage on pavement, plus expand her cycling and swimming blocks.
“That’s when I knew I could do triathlon again.”
She was not wrong.
Earlier this summer, only a few weeks after racing in the North Shore Triathlon in Vancouver, Kerr surprised herself — and, no doubt, others — by placing second in the women’s 55-59 sprint category at the Oliver (B.C.) Triathlon. The result puts her in the picture to represent Canada at the Age-Group World Championships in Australia next year. “I would love that. That would be a dream come true.”
For this sensational revival, she offers shout-outs to her daughter Katelyn — “I wanted to show her that you can accomplish anything if you set your mind to it” — and to the welcoming space of the multi-sport universe.
“Triathlon is like home to me,” says Kerr. “All my friends still train together. So, really, it was about my love of the triathlon community. You have five-year-olds and you have 85-year-olds, it doesn’t matter what size or shape you are — everybody is equal in triathlon.
“Everyone is cheering each other on. That love and support is a large part of what allowed me to get better.”
Lessons from the sport itself helped to buoy her during tough times — the countless hours of rehabilitation and speech therapy and worry, the frustratingly high number of diagnosis do-overs, the debilitating pain.
“There’s a lot of resiliency and perseverance to even do a triathlon,” says Kerr. “You have to have discipline. You really have to work on the mental part — like not giving up. Doing Ironmans, you learn how to suffer for a long time. I knew I could endure.”
Obstacles overcome, results banked, Kerr is asked about serving as a role model these days. Is she comfortable wearing that kind of crown? In characteristic fashion, she is not going to shy away.
“I would love to inspire as many people as possible,” says Kerr, a sport dietician who contributes articles about nutrition to Triathlon BC. “You can overcome horrifically challenging things — or just challenging things — by having the right mindset, by staying positive, staying focused. I was willing to do whatever it took to get back to sport, because sport gives me far more than I give it.
“A lot of people will get an injury and get depressed because they can’t train. It’s about learning that you can practice by running on a bath mat, by doing whatever you can to keep your body strong.”
Kerr’s tale, of course, is far from over. She’s preparing for a trail-run in September. She is also determined to shave seconds from her triathlon splits against all odds.
“The goal is to share my story more — to inspire other people to overcome difficult things and to do that through sport.”