L & M Back at School

Both Lance and Mikaely made it back to school, but not without a few bumps along the way. Lance's car broke down in OH as he and Diana were driving it to school, and Mik got banged up in a scrimmage at the end of her first week of preseason. But both appear to be doing ok. Really misss them and its a very unsettled feeling without them home.

Summer Vaca 2023

We really wern't sure if we would get in a summer vaca this year becuase kids were so busy. Even when we did plan one around moving Lance back to school, Mik didn't want to go becuase it cut into her time with AJ before she goes back to school. I missed the first part oo. But in the end, we all enjoyed it and we had a blast! I met up with everyone in Buffalo, NY after thay moved Lance in and were on their way to Toronto. We stopped at Niagra Falls, then on to the National Bank Tennis Tournament where we got to see Carlos and many of the top 10 men in tennis. So exciting to see tennis at thie level up close! Some of the funniest things revolved around silly stuff like our "Canadians is players too" version of the goofy song "Girls is players too". I laughed so hard I cried!

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!