Interview with Kristen Nicolini Lehmkuhle

By Brooke Edwards

Though she has spent half a decade battling injuries, Kristen Nicolini Lehmkuhle, 30, made a strong showing at last weekend’s Aramco Houston Half-Marathon (which served as the USA Half-Marathon Championships), finishing fifth with a time of 1:12:58 for her debut at the distance.

Nicolini Lehmkuhle won nine state titles during high school in Annapolis, MD. She was the indoor national champion in the mile two years in a row and posted the Maryland state high school mile record of 4:46.

After high school, Nicolini Lehmkuhle ran at Auburn University and then at Villanova University, where she was a member of the 1998 National Cross Country Championship team and was a two-time All American. She graduated in 2000 with a major in liberal arts and a minor in education.

Running for Team USA Minnesota, Nicolini Lehmkuhle continued to win titles during her first years on the professional track, moving up in distance to run the 5K and the 10K. At the 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials in Sacramento, she was 12th overall and set what was then a personal best of 15:53.47 in the 5000.

Soon after the Trials, she developed an injury and spent a year and half off the track. She returned for several strong races in 2006, and then spent another year recovering from more related injuries.

Nicolini Lehmkuhle rejoined the racing circuit in the summer of 2007, after marrying her teammate Jason Lehmkuhle. The new couple captured the men’s and women’s titles at the Cow Harbor 10K in September. She followed that with a victory at the Medtronic Twin Cities 10 Mile last October.

Her finish last weekend proved that an injury — or even multiple injuries — does not mean the end of a career.

New York Road Runners: Congratulations on your fifth-place finish this weekend! And how did you like your first half-marathon? Does the distance suit you?
Kristen Nicolini Lehmkuhle: I did like the distance. I think I’ll get better with experience. It was a tough race and I had a game plan going in. But somehow the gun went off and I didn’t do anything I set out to do. But it taught me a lot and it was good because even though the race went a lot different than I expected, I still feel like I raced well and my time was okay for my first one. I think anytime you place in the top five in the national championships you have to walk away feeling okay with that.

NYRR: So what went differently than you expected?
KNL: Well my training’s gone really well and fitness-wise, I thought if I could hold around a 5:30 [pace per mile] that would be pretty good and I would probably set myself up to finish well against the other girls. I thought that maybe Kate [O’Neill] and Elva [Dryer] would take it out a little harder in the beginning. One of my teammates, Michelle Lilienthal, ran that race last year and she said from the gun those two took it out. So I thought that they would go a little faster. But we were all together at the beginning. We went through the mile in 5:45, which was much slower than I had thought. And then after that first mile, the pace dropped. We probably ran 5:22 in the next mile and then stayed in the low 5:20s for a couple miles.

I think looking back, I would rather have maybe let them go and drop the pace down slowly as I went. Because instead, come 10K, I worried a little bit because I had such a long way to go and I wasn’t exactly feeling strong. But I think it’s good mentally when you don’t feel strong and you can still hold on for seven more miles. So that was a positive thing about the race.

NYRR: You hadn’t raced since the beginning of October leading up to this race. Did that make you feel more rested or more nervous about Houston?
KNL: I’m usually okay going a long time without racing. We decided not to do the indoor season. I love indoor track, but with all my injuries, we thought, let’s try not to do a lot of intense stuff. We’re looking more toward outdoor track. So we’ve just been doing a lot of threshold and strength work.

I’ve always been curious about the longer distances, but with all my injuries ... I’ve been set up before to run the 20K in New Haven, but then gotten injured. Same thing for the 15K in the spring. So this time I just wanted something to focus on and I was healthy. So we just had a long training period and it fit in well and allowed me to stay off of the indoor track.

NYRR: I know it’s a long story, but now that you have a good understanding of what happened, can you talk a bit about your injuries?
KNL: Well ’03 and ’04 is kind of when I started having all these problems. But the main thing was this last injury. Last year I missed about 10 months. I have a leg-length discrepancy, which is pretty common. But it was hard to figure out with me because nobody factored in the rotation of my pelvis. In high school I was told I had a shorter right leg, so I was given some orthotics with a lift. And I ran in those for a long time, but that’s actually my long leg. So I had been running for years with a lift in the wrong leg, because if you put my pelvis neutral, it’s very apparent that it’s actually my left leg that’s short. So I don’t know if that was a cause with my sports hernias. I had both sides done, but then in one of them the mesh ripped. So I had to have that redone. I’ve had three repairs in the last year and a half. But I got a leg-length discrepancy test done with a CT scan because there was no way I was putting anything in my shoes unless I knew for sure that it was necessary. And so I got that done and I did have some orthotics made. And I haven’t had any problems since. So that really tells me that it was a definite issue. I just couldn’t keep myself aligned properly because of the leg lengths.

NYRR: Going through all that, was there ever a point when you thought you might have to give up racing for good, or did you always stay optimistic?
KNL: I always wondered why I got so injured. I mean I’ve always been a low-mileage person. When things bothered me, I learned to stop right away. But it didn’t matter. I mean I wouldn’t miss a couple weeks here and there. I’d miss months and months. I missed a year and a half straight at one point. I just couldn’t figure it out.

But I always wanted to keep going because I’ve felt like it’s the injuries that have held me back and I really want to see what I can do. So I guess that was kind of the drive to continue crosstraining a lot when I would get injured to keep my fitness. I was always really proud when I was able to come back fast and only train for a couple of weeks and then race and almost start where I left off. So I’m really hoping to make some big steps now that I actually have some training under me.

NYRR: So do you feel like you have finally recovered completely?
KNL: Yes, I do. It was definitely a long road. But to know exactly what happened and what I need to do to stay healthy now, things have gone great. I haven’t done five months of straight training since high school. So this is a huge accomplishment, and I’m hoping each month with training and racing I’ll get stronger and run faster. So it’s very encouraging.

NYRR: Reading your journal entries on our website, it seems that you have a very unique approach to training. No set weekly mileage, a bike ride in place of a run… How did that evolve?
KNL: I feel like [my coach] Dennis [Barker] trusts me when I substitute a run with getting in the pool or biking. He wants me to stay healthy just as bad as I do. I mean, it’s so hard not to be able to put your shoes on or run for a year at a time. And as long as I’m getting the workouts in and they’re going so well right now, I just assume this is working for me. Eventually, hopefully I can run more and not have to be so wary of being injured. But I think until I’ve put in a solid year, I might always in the back of my mind hold back or be a little more hesitant with the training because I just want to make sure I get to the starting line.

NYRR: And how do you train through Minnesota winters?
KNL: You learn how to be flexible when you train in Minnesota in the winter. You’d be amazed at everyone else out there along with you. You can pretty much run outside all year round. But for the most part we can get our hard workouts in either on the treadmill or we use the indoor track at the University of Minnesota. But there aren’t too many days when it’s too cold to go outside and run. It can be below zero, but as long as you’re dressed properly, you can get out there.

NYRR: Moving on to some of your future plans, are the USA Cross Country Championships next month going to be your next race?
KNL: Yes.

NYRR: And have you settled yet on some of your other races? Do you know when and where you’ll do your next 5K or 10K?
KNL: I know that I need to run the earlier spring meets. I haven’t decided exactly which one I’ll start with. I think there’s a meet the first weekend in April out in California. And then there’s Mt. SAC and [Stanford’s] Cardinal [Invitational]. I’ll do either all three of those or two out of three. It just depends on when we start. But because I missed last spring, I don’t have any qualifying times. So I’ll probably start with a 5K and run the 10K at Cardinal.

NYRR: You’ve been trying so many new races this past year. What is your favorite event to race right now, or are you still figuring that out?
KNL: [laughs] I am trying to still find my distance. In high school I was a miler. In college I ran the mile and the 3K. And then in ’04 I ran the 5K at the Trials. But I really am starting to like the longer distances. And the training we’ve been doing is primarily for the 10K this year. You know, it’s nice to already have one of the best 10K runners in the country, which is Katie McGregor. So I have a great training partner. And I would like to try a marathon someday, but for now the spring is focused on the 10K.

NYRR: So watching your husband hasn’t been torturous enough for you? You think you might give it a try someday yourself?
KNL: Yep, definitely. I just don’t know when. I want to see if I can put a year in of training and stay healthy. But I’m definitely intrigued by the distance.

NYRR: How did it feel watching Jason run the marathon trials in November?
KNL: I was really excited and happy for him. [Jason Lehmkuhle finished fifth in the Trials race, setting a 4-minute PR.] I know he’s put in so much training and always had great races leading up to the marathon, but on actual race day it didn’t seem to go like he had hoped. So it was really great to see him put it all together on that day. He couldn’t have picked a better day to pop a good one.

Interview conducted January 16, 2008, and posted on January 18, 2008.