They call her Boss Lady. ADVERTISING They call her Boss Lady. It is a fond nickname that Agnes Prehn has embraced for years, and even now, it still brings a warm smile to her face when family, friends and co-workers
They call her Boss Lady.
It is a fond nickname that Agnes Prehn has embraced for years, and even now, it still brings a warm smile to her face when family, friends and co-workers address her as such, as she knows that it comes with the territory of being the one in charge.
While everyone knows that she is far from being “bossy” per se, Prehn’s hard work ethic, sharp business mind, and down-to-earth personality has kept her in charge as the sales director for Nutrex-Hawaii, the makers of BioAstin and Spirulina, for the past twenty years.
Prehn was also the spark that ignited BioAstin’s name onto Big Island’s athletic platform, as the sponsor to numerous local community events along with their “I Take BioAstin” Ambassador program that began in 2011. The program promotes and offers sponsorship and products of BioAstin and Spirulina to individual athletes who in return, share their passion to promote a healthy and more active lifestyle in the community.
But two years ago, Prehn said she weighed an unhealthy 215-pounds on her 5’7” frame, had poor eating habits that included drinking alcohol, and led a very sedentary lifestyle.
As the BioAstin Ambassador program began to gain popularity and the BioAstin brand a presence at virtually every athletic event on the island, Prehn found herself surrounded by healthy-looking athletes – like six-time Hawaii Ironman World Champion, Dave Scott – who were all in top shape and leading active lives.
Prehn had an epiphany that she’ll never forget.
“I told myself that if I’m not in shape by the time I’m fifty, it’s just going to go downhill from there, and in a bad way,” Prehn said. “So I decided to do something about it, get myself together, make a complete lifestyle change and be in shape by the time I’m 50. I didn’t have any other goal in mind other than to just lose the weight. I wanted to be fit and in shape.”
And like with everything else in her life, Prehn wanted to be in charge of her own transformation toward a healthier life.
“I stopped my drinking of alcohol and then I started working out with Alika Hoomana at Cross Fit Kona,” the 52-year old said. “I met him through Johnny (Prehn’s daughter) and there was just something about him that clicked for me.”
Within seven months after cleaning up her diet and following a regular exercise program that had her working out 4-5 days per week, Prehn dropped sixty-pounds and felt more energized than ever.
Now weighing a healthy 155-pounds, a newly motivated and confident Prehn said she began to entertain the idea of doing a triathlon.
On a whim, she entered the 2016 Lavaman Waikoloa Olympic Distance triathlon race and even wagered a friendly fundraising social media war with popular radio personality, Eddie-O, on who could finish the race first.
Upon completion of her first Lavaman race and feeling on a roll, Prehn then registered for the 2016 Ironman 70.3 Hawaii, but not without considering dropping her name in the Big Island Hawaii Ironman World Championship drawing.
The Hawaii Ironman World Championships in Kailua-Kona, has held the reputation of being the toughest one-day sporting event for nearly four decades. It is triathlon’s most iconic race that brings athletes together on a world stage featuring a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, followed by a 26.2-mile run.
“I remember thinking how cool it would be to do three races in one year,” Prehn said. “So I called Alika and told him. He laughed and said; ‘You know that’s a pretty big race don’t you?’
“I remember signing up for the drawing and the minute that I hit the send button I almost (expletive) my pants and thought, oh man, what did I just do? But for me, I really wanted to see how far I could push my age.”
On the morning of the drawing, Prehn received a congratulatory text at 4 a.m. that she was one of 24 Big Islanders who would get the opportunity to compete at the 140.6-mile World Championship race. Prehn said she was shocked and her first thought was “Oops!”
One of the requirements for athletes who received a slot from the Big Island drawing was completing a 70.3 distance triathlon race prior to the October’s world championships. This prompted Prehn to begin training for the 2016 Ironman 70.3 Hawaii triathlon held in June by entering May’s Cinco de Mayo 1-Mile open water swim race at Anaehoomalu Bay.
“I woke up that morning not feeling quite right,” the Kailua-Kona resident recalled. “During that swim, I actually had to stop two or three times because I couldn’t breathe and that never happened to me before. After the race, a few people said that I might have had a panic attack, but I never get panic attacks.”
What Prehn didn’t realize at the time, was that she was beginning to experience symptoms of a major health condition.
“From there, everything started going downhill,” she said. “While I still worked out 3-4 times per week, I noticed that I was having trouble doing the things that I normally do. I was very fatigued, and the breathing issues always came during my workouts, yet it didn’t affect me during the day and I could function normally. I thought maybe I had a really bad cold. Then I started to get these pains running down my side of my ribs, and then the coughing started.”
After a month, Prehn finally went to the doctor and said she was prescribed antibiotics as they thought it might be pneumonia and even threw out the possibility that she may be entering menopause. Because her symptoms varied, Prehn said it was hard to diagnose.
Despite feeling sick, Prehn continued to train and completed last year’s Ironman 70.3 Hawaii in a time of 7 hours, 34 minutes and 57 seconds.
Prehn’s work also required her to travel often and was soon on a plane to China. While there, Prehn recalled enduring really intense pains on the left side of her body, bad night sweats and again, trouble breathing. Upon returning to Kona, everything worsened which prompted a CAT scan and blood tests.
“I finally got a phone call from a nurse from Oahu on a weekday night who said; ‘We figured out what’s wrong with you. You have Pulmonary Embolism.’ I was like, what’s that?”
Pulmonary embolism is a blockage in one of the pulmonary arteries in your lungs. In most cases, pulmonary embolism is caused by blood clots that travel to the lungs from the legs or, rarely, other parts of the body. Because the clots block blood flow to the lungs, pulmonary embolism can be life threatening.
Prehn was immediately placed on blood thinning medications and about two weeks later, she began to feel improvements as she was finally able to breathe.
“Now that I think about it, I realize how lucky I was as it could’ve killed me in China,” she said. “And even after they figured it out, it was still hard for me to do these long distance training sessions. I had my final appointment six weeks before Ironman and I asked my doctor straight out; ‘Do you think I can do this?’
“He flat out replied; ‘No, you absolutely can’t do it.’ He explained that because it took so long to figure out what was wrong with me, there were some permanent damage done to my lungs and there were still some blood clots in there. Till today, there are still blood clots in there. So he strongly advised me against it.”
Prehn was devastated.
“I cried, it was such a hard decision (to pull out of Ironman) because I knew there weren’t many people that get the chance to do it,” Prehn said. “Ironman would’ve completed my journey for me to look back and think, wow, in one year I did all that. But it wasn’t meant to be.”
That same day, as soon as Prehn returned to her office she received a phone call from the Kona Ironman office. The timing was impeccable. While crying, Prehn explained why she would not be able to do Ironman – her “road to Kona” had come to an end.
Or so she thought.
“A couple of days later I get an email from Diana (Bertsch, Vice President of Ironman World Championship Events) saying she wanted to talk to me,” Prehn said. “So I went to her office and she sympathized on my efforts to do Ironman while trying to deal with everything physically and offered me an invitation to compete in the 2017 race. I was like; ‘What? Fo reals?’ I was completely shocked with her kind offer.”
Now nearly a year later, with the ‘Boss Lady’ completely in charge of her own healthy and active life, Prehn has been training harder than ever while maintaining her weight through the help of a Ketogenic diet. A Keto diet is a high fat, adequate protein and low carbohydrate diet that forces the body to burn fat for fuel instead of carbohydrates.
“So basically my diet consists of 5-percent carbs, 20-percent protein, and 75-percent fat,” Prehn said. “I can’t believe how good I feel and I don’t feel hungry all the time. It worked really well for me for Honu.”
While she plans to swim a few sessions to the 2.4-mile Ironman buoy in Kailua Bay, go on long training rides to Hawi and back, and practice her nutrition during long, hot and steady runs in the Natural Energy Lab, Prehn has already begun to embrace Ironman’s motto, “anything is possible,” well before the Oct. 14 start line.
“It’s exciting as I feel like I’m so much more motivated and determined,” Prehn said. “I just feel really lucky to live here in Kona – the support has been amazing. And if I can do this, then anyone can do it. Here I was, huge and not wanting to do anything, and now I’m going to attempt to do an Ironman. I think it’s all just a mindset. If you tell yourself you can do it, then you can.”
