Keeping Pace: Carey Kepler

“The Open is one of my favorite times of year—it’s like Christmas waiting for the workouts each week to be released and pushing each other through the workouts with others in my box."

Since the inaugural CrossFit Games in 2007, the athleticism, strength and skills of elite CrossFit athletes has increased exponentially.

In spite of all the growth, Carey Kepler has managed to keep pace. The 38-year-old started competing in CrossFit in 2008, and while she may be inching closer to the masters division, you wouldn’t believe it.

In 2009, she finished the Games season on the podium in third place. Five years later, after three Open workouts, she currently sits in ninth place in the South Central Region.

After logging 164 reps on 14.3, she had a top-10 score on the workout in the region.

“All I was thinking was ‘kill it!’ Breathe on the box, power through the deadlifts and don’t redline it early,” Kepler said.  

Although she initially had not been training with an eye on regionals or the Games, she says picking up a barbell, doing pull-ups and whipping out double-unders are like riding a bike—movements she knows well and has been doing for the past eight years.

“I am lucky to get in the gym for an hour five days per week,” she said. “In and out with a busy schedule of running a business, meetings with clients, and being a wife and mom to two amazing kids—but give me a barbell or workout on the whiteboard, and I am ready to make things happen.”

Kepler was lifting heavy loads before she discovered CrossFit in 2005. Raised on a squash farm in Lubbock, Texas, along with four siblings—two sisters and two brothers—she learned the value of working hard, providing a quality product and impacting people’s lives through service.

She also played every sport she could, including collegiate basketball at Angelo State University. After graduation, she moved to Austin, Texas and took to personal training at a small local gym until her brother, Jeremy Thiel, was introduced to CrossFit in 2005. He told her she had to try it.

That same year, Kepler and Thiel started running boot camps in parks all around Austin. They became Level I CrossFit trainers and by 2006 opened the doors to CrossFit Central—one of the first 50 affiliates in the world.

“I was living off tuna packets, barely scraping by working as a trainer, but I kept my sights set on our mission,” she recounted. “Our mission and our calling was and is to build a fit community right here in Austin. That’s how we started and that has not changed.”

Today, CrossFit Central’s two locations play host to more than 1,000 members.

“I love the CrossFit community and everything it is about—seeing lives changed and watching people go on to do great things,” Kepler said.

The same may as well be said about Kepler herself. She entered the season out of affection for the community, making it known she had no intention to compete beyond the Open. However, as the weeks progressed and as she stayed in the top 10 in the region, she’s had a change of heart.

“I was talking to my husband, Kris, the other day, and he said, ‘You know what? Why don’t you do it? Why don’t you just compete—go for it?’” Kepler said. “So I thought about it, and thought about it. And I said, ‘Why not?’ The next day I emailed Central’s competition coach, Michael Winchester, and I told him, ‘If I am going to do this, I need to get stronger.’ So we are beginning to think about what that will look like over the next 10 weeks—granted I continue to do well in the last two weeks of the Open.”

Regardless of whether she would accept an invitation to the South Central Regional, Kepler said this year’s Open has reminded her of the rush and butterflies she gets every time she hears, “3-2-1 … go!”

“The Open is one of my favorite times of year—it’s like Christmas waiting for the workouts each week to be released and pushing each other through the workouts with others in my box,” Kepler said.

“I have been doing the Open since it started in (2011),” she continued. “The workouts are always those workouts that take you to that dark place and just get me fired up. 14.1, for instance, was a great example. Back in 2011, I think I scored 393 reps and I was ranked within the top 10 in the world during the Open on that workout. This year, I still proved to myself that I can hang with myself when I was at my fittest with 374 reps. Regardless of who was ahead of me or behind me, it felt like an accomplishment, a personal success for me. That is empowerment.”

While she has devoted many years to training and competing, Kepler said her real passion lies in empowering others through CrossFit, the fitness program.

“What I love most about CrossFit is the platform it has given me to share with other people to just believe,” she said. “Believe in yourself.”

Gilly Smith was one of those people. Originally from California, she moved to Austin and started working at CrossFit Central.

“I was just so inspired by her passion for inspiring others to not settle in life. To do what they love and to believe anything is possible,” Smith said of Kepler.

Kepler continues to guide her clients. She leads monthly goal-setting and nutrition seminars at CrossFit Central. She also hosts her annual “Champion Mindset,” an eight-week seminar program for women to learn what it takes to become a champion—inside and out.

“I encourage people to constantly set and re-evaluate goals. Make things happen,” she explained. “If you write it down and start taking steps, nine times out of 10, you will accomplish those goals before you even thought you would. I continue to set personal goals for myself, and re-evaluate them on a monthly basis at the very least.”

Kepler’s current goals?

“So many! To continue to build into the lives of women and kids, speak more in 2014 and get involved in the community outside my bubble,” she said. “I am going to volunteer with a local non-profit for young girls’ self-esteem, speak at women’s events and conferences, reach out to the parents and teachers at my daughter’s school to lead in boot camp-style workouts, work more with kids, and lead my daughter’s Girl Scout troop in earning a CrossFit Kids badge—just to name a few.”

Editor's Note: At the time of publication, Kepler had not submitted a score for Open Workout 14.4.