Meet Katie! Katie jumped headfirst into the sport of triathlon in 2017, since then she has completed several triathlons, including Atlantic City Triathlon, Escape the Cape and Tri the Wildwoods! However, her endurance sport journey began much earlier. Since 2007, she has completed numerous running events, including the Captain Bill Gallagher 10 Mile Island Run, Philadelphia Half & Full Marathon and Broad Street 10 Miler. Katie’s goals for this season are to improve her power, strength, endurance and speed to earn some PR’s in her calendar of events this year. Since joining the AME Team in April, she has made progress in each of these areas and experienced excellent growth!

The fear of open water swimming is extremely common. In fact, I believe everyone has some level of discomfort or anxiety with open water even if they don't like to admit it. For advanced and regular open water swimmers, this fear has evolved into a healthy respect for open water. Open water swimming introduces a vast amount of unknowns. From the different swimming environments (ocean, bay, lake) to allowing the mind to focus on hypothetical situations with what may be in the water around us. On top of that, racing dynamics (buoy placement, course design, swimmers around you) tend to increase anxiety. So how do we work to overcome these fears?

Kait started triathlons in 2015! Since then, she has completed numerous multi-sport events ranging in distance from sprint through IRONMAN 70.3. Her triathlon journey began with her first and favorite event, Escape the Cape which led her to complete another two tri’s that very same summer. Kait has done many of the local short course classics like Tri the Wildwoods and Atlantic City Triathlon while also competing in longer course events like IRONMAN 70.3 Atlantic City, IRONMAN 70.3 Lake Placid and IRONMAN 70.3 Eagleman. Next, she has her sights set on a full IRON distance event.