By Nicole Kidder-Perry

Stevens County Times

Teanna Gentry laughs like somebody whose lungs have trained to make room for more than one thing at a time. With an effortless smile, she easily moves between motherhood and a demanding corporate career to leading yoga retreats and chasing new personal records.
 

For Gentry, movement is life. The Nine Mile Falls mama is always on the go, sprinting, jumping and yoga flowing her way through each day. Beneath it all is a calling to help people move toward their best lives. So, when she set her mind on becoming a USA Track and Field (USATF) Masters National Champion at the age of 40, she simply went to work.
 

In mid-February, Gentry arrived at the 2026 USATF Indoor Masters meet ready to compete in the popular Women’s 40-44 age division. The elite Albuquerque event drew nearly 1,000 athletes, up to 92 years old, who treat age more like a label than a limitation. Facing sponsored athletes and even former Olympians, Gentry beamed as she repeatedly climbed the podium after all her contests.
 

Gentry was crowned National Champion in long jump, high jump, triple jump and the 60-meter hurdles. With an easy confidence and contagious joy, she even recruited fellow champions on the fly for a 200-meter relay, earning her a fifth gold. As a USATF Master, she now holds Top 10 World Masters rankings in her individual events, including fifth place in long jump.
 

The numbers don’t tell the whole story, though. They can’t capture the rush of air in her hair as she jets down the runway, the pressed palms to her face after sticking a record landing or the Facebook post that reads, “Hey, look Ma, I made it!” 

Not a Comeback but a Homecoming

Representing Team USA as an All-American for exceeding standards in her age group, the meet’s results felt like an exclamation mark on a story Gentry has been writing for decades. Standing on the podium, ribbons draped around her neck, she felt both the 16-year-old version of herself beaming with disbelief and the determined 40-year-old version nodding quietly, as if to say, “Of course, I did this!”

Becoming the person she was meant to be has been pounded out on the track and field. Gentry’s training started over two decades ago at Colville High School, where she still holds multiple records as an All-Conference athlete. She went on to compete at Eastern Washington University, earning a full-ride scholarship as a champion triple jumper before hanging up her cleats to pursue a career in marketing and a masters degree in sports management.
 

In the years since, she has built a career as a medical sales rep at Medline, managing Northwest territories while raising two young boys and filling evenings and weekends with barre classes, yoga retreats and coaching local athletes. Amid those demands, she returned to competitive track two years ago, a decision rooted in grief and healing. Gentry’s father, who inspired her to love the sport, passed away in 2020 from COVID-19, leaving a huge hole in the family’s spirit.
 

“Dad was a huge fan of mine. Watching me run was something he loved, so I feel closer to him when I’m out there,” she recalls fondly. “Running is my first love. It puts my mindset back in motion. As a child, I thought I was a horse, always running everywhere, and I’m a ‘fire-starter,’ so it’s fitting that I’m channeling the Year of the Fire Horse in 2026!”
 

At each meet, a family cheerleader proudly sits in the stands. Her mom traveled to Gainesville, Fla., to witness bronze medal finishes during her debut in both the high and triple jumps during the 2025 World Masters Athletics Championships last March. This year, Gentry says, “my sister’s presence, and her comment about how much our dad would love to be here, was very special. It made me happy, that memory of him being happy doing something he loved.” 

With a full schedule, Gentry explains her training is stitched together. She attends Spokane College Sasquatch practices, logs late-night lifting sessions at 509 Wellness and spent weeks at Phase 1 Physical Therapy rehabilitating an annular tear in L5-S1 that threatened to derail the season. Instead, it sharpened her focus, giving her a reason to be smarter about recovery.

 She tucks faith into the margins of her days, folding prayer into form work and plyometrics, letting it propel rather than preach. Utilizing theology as a performance enhancer, she believes chasing dreams sometimes means recalibrating how you chase them, saying “God made me for a purpose, but He also made me fast!” 

Her mother’s words, written in a prayer card just before winning that first gold, continue to echo: “May all the memories of competing, and God empowering your body, come back to you and spur you on to greatness. When you run, Teanna, feel His pleasure!” 

The Ripple Effects of Yoga Retreats and Turkey Trots

Despite the accolades, being the fastest woman in Nine Mile isn’t important if that speed doesn’t do something for other people. Gentry sees her purpose as seeding the courage in a local mother to pursue her passion, inspiring the confidence in a teenager to try triple jump and motivating a local business to sponsor a dream.

Her social media reads like a dream journal: celebrating her 40th birthday in a Tuscany villa, teaching beachside bootcamps in Cancun, hosting yoga retreats in France. Each invitation urges women to pause, breathe deeper and open the door to playful exploration and deep self-care. Her studio, Awaken & Move, is a laboratory for the kind of community she dreams of building. Each June, she hosts a Summer Solstice retreat on Lake Spokane where women come to unplug, reboot and rejuvenate.

Since moving to Nine Mile from the west side of the state in 2020, she has carved out her place in the tight-knit community. Alongside her husband, Kaleb, a hospital chaplain at Sacred Heart, she balances logistics and faith with equal steadiness. Sunny spring afternoons are spent at the Lakeside High School jumper’s pit. As she gracefully moves among the milling athletes with a mother’s patience and tough love, she channels Coach Carp, the other Colville coach who pushed her to want to go harder, faster, further. Her goal is to pay that mentality forward.

“It’s so fun bringing our Lakeside kids to compete in Colville,” she says with a laugh. “Every year, I size up this new class of athletes and wonder who is finally going to beat those records from two decades ago that are still hanging in the gym!”
 

Once the high school season wraps, she takes the younger kids under her wing as the director of the summer USATF Youth Lakeside Track Club. Focusing on developing foundational skills while building a sense of belonging, top performers have the opportunity to advance to regional meets and National Junior Olympic Championships. Last season, three local youth placed in the Top 8 at the Association Championship meet. Feeling the need to scale back this season, their training will now be guided by Spokane Athletics. 

Gentry believes the best way to build momentum is to simply show up and invite others to do the same. Her fundraising work is as practical as it is aspirational, because when she asks the community to invest, she offers something in return whether it’s a clinic, a cooking class or a speed camp. Partnering with the Chamber of Commerce, she co-hosts the Fourth of July Freedom Run and Thanksgiving Turkey Trot, rallying sponsors to fund shirts, hot cocoa and swag bags while participants donate toys for local families. 

Her latest passion project is a partnership with the Suncrest Community Health and Wellness Foundation. When the newly formed nonprofit needed seed money, Gentry stepped in as an ambassador, leveraging her USATF platform to raise awareness and funds. Along with launching a Fall Prevention clinic for senior citizens this winter, the Foundation sponsored its first athletic scholarship, helping Gentry offset costs for the Nationals meet. 

“My goal, every time, is to give back,” she explains. “It’s just little-ole-me from a tiny town in Eastern Washington who doesn’t have a major sponsor. I began thinking, how can I do something like that but also invest in my community? We were blown away by the financial support and the people willing to stand behind this vision.” 

Overcoming Life’s Hurdles to Meet Greatness

Serving as a strong role model for her two elementary-aged boys, Asher and Aksel, is another honor she holds dear to her heart. It’s clear she lives by the mantra that a mother’s ambitions can be a generational inheritance not a childhood theft. 

“I want them to see a strong mama,” she says, explaining that her packed schedule is built around family dinners. “I want them to know you can keep dreaming at any age, even when you turn 40.” 

The Monday after competing, Gentry jumped right back into daily life. “There is no recovery day,” she chuckles. “This is my busy season, so it’s straight back to the grind. Yeah, I just won a national championship, but I still come home and have work to do and family to love, so it’s on to the next thing. It’s hard to say no when you have opportunities.”
 

When Gentry dreams about what comes next, the list is long and ambitious: the high school track season starting in March; a possible trip this summer to the Outdoor Masters meet in Ohio; another Worlds Champion podium next spring; and more Solstice Awakening retreats. The goals, she says, “just keep getting bigger.” 

She talks like the marathoner she isn’t — steady with an eye for milestones — and you hear in her voice both the athlete who wants one more medal and the small-business leader who wants one more sold-out event. There is a stubborn refusal to let age or loss or timing define the limits of what can be achieved.

“If I can inspire someone to go after what they love, that’s everything,” says Gentry, explaining that’s why she posts often and proudly. “The happiest women I know refuse to settle. They purposefully put themselves in situations that light them up, and that’s how they reach their fullest potential.”

Years from now, her boys might stumble across a photo of her leaping through the air with sand in her hair or unearth a souvenir bib from the first Turkey Trot. In these mementos, they’ll see a woman who taught them, not by lecturing but by example, that a life worth living is a life that moves.