Last Tri of 2023

This season was a blast! Really enjoyed giving nationals a try and felt very satisfied that I gave it my best. Way back in February I started training with Liz Waterstratt and was able to make some progress in my swimming. To be honest, it didn't make much of an impact on my swim time (maybe 30-60 seconds?), but it did make an impact on how I felt about the swim! In the earlier races (Steelhead inparticular), I was very psyched out about the swim, but then by the time Nationals rolled around, I felt more confident. I barely broke 30 minutes for the 1.5K swim in Miluwalkee and, while that's not very competivive, that's actually a little better than my 1.5 K swim times at other races in the last 5 years. Importantly, I was able to get out of the water at Nationals without feeling breathless and tired. Liz did an amazing job keeping me focused on what was important and pushed just enough that I never crossed over that line into over-training. I felt we had a good coach-athlete realtionship and got the most out the season becuase of it! Another fun thing this season was winning "Grand Master Duathlete of the Year". I got to go to the USA Tri awards ceremony two days before Nationals to receive the award! It was a Whos-Who of tri celebs! I was able to get a photo with Michellie Jones and she recalled me asking her to hold Mikaely Evans (see bottomm photo, named after Jones, but we spelled it phonetically). That was 20 years ago! So cool!