My story
Tenille Hoogland's mission is to transform how female athletes experience sport and reach life-long health and athletic excellence. Her athletic journey began as an Olympic hopeful in synchronized swimming. In her late 20s she became a professional triathlete. On the surface, her athletic career looks stellar. She represented Canada at International Triathlon Union (ITU) Pan-American Championships, long course events and at IRONMAN World Championships several times, winning numerous titles along the way. However, the method to achieve success had a tremendous cost. She trained relentlessly, unknowingly developed disordered eating and lost her period for 5 years. This led to several injuries and significant hormone challenges. Mentally, she lost joy in sport and retired from triathlon in 2013. Her struggle to find health and her athletic self spanned several years; first, she overcame 2 years of fertility challenges, learnt how to move again without pain and then to move consistently with joy. It came through deep curiosity, education, and trial and error.
This journey led her to create the Mindset, Nutrition, Training and Recovery Integrated Training System (MNTR-ITS). This accessible, step-by-step evidence-based system empowers female athletes to establish a foundation of health for which excellence, performance and resilience can be achieved. It works through the physiological life stages of the female athlete, from adolescents to post-menopause.
Professionally, Tenille was a Senior Planner at the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Federal Secretariat, managed numerous IRONMAN events, held a Management position at Triathlon Canada and was recognized by her federation and Canadian Olympic Committee as a Future Sport Leader. Now through her company Tenille Hoogland Applied Athletics, Tenille coaches female athletes in perimenopause and beyond. She owns the Element Race Team, an amateur women’s cycling team whose mission is to get more women on the start lines at cycling events. Tenille is keeping fit and strong by teaching spin sessions online with her athletes, joining the Element Race Team on the start line at every chance and by chasing her two young sons on bikes and foot!
Her motto: Health is the foundation of performance.
Her favorite quote: “Between the stimulus and response, there is a space. And in that space lies our freedom and power to choose our responses. In our response lies our growth and our freedom” Viktor Frankl 1964
My story
My story of being an endurance athlete may be like yours. It was going so well until it wasn’t; Injury, performance plateau, hormone imbalance and questioning whether my body just couldn’t hack it anymore. They said I was getting old - and it was to be expected... I was 35. (OMG)
I was in a fight with my body. My fight led me to gain weight (6 size increase), fertility issues and a mental breakdown. I mentally and physically was done with any start lines. I feared the scale.
Then I read Roar by Dr. Stacy Sims. I had never learnt to fuel my body or train aligned with it. Everything changed. This book was the beginning of my exploration of how female athletes can train and thrive midlife.
