After a discussion with local pro/coach Jamie Cleavland I am closing off my inaguaral tri season with an olympic tri in two weeks and forgoing the 1/2 Ironman in October to focus on collegiate cross country instead. (Being my senior year this will be my last opportunity to be on a college team and have a true XC experience, since I only ran the last race last year)

In tri's swimming is my weakest sport by far so I've been trying to improve a bit.

Last weekend I worked with a local pro/elite racer Brandon Marsh at an open water swim clinic and he showed me a couple things to work on, mainly...SIGHTING. Previously I had done pretty much no sighting and would get in open water and basically stop and look around whenever I felt it was time. This past week I've been working on getting sighting into my usual 123breathleft/123breathright stroke so that its more like 123breathleft/123breakrightSIGHT

Yesterday I raced a 1.2 Mile open water swim to test out my new stroke in a race situation. The race was totally not wetsuit legal so luckily I was able to 1. show off my "go vegan!" tri bottoms 2. not be disadvantaged because I totally DON'T have a wetsuit.

It was a deep water start and the field wasn't that big so it wasn't nearly as hectic as usual so the group was able to space out after a few minutes. I def. could of pushed myself harder but I was more concerned about practicing my sighting and ended up finishing in the top half of the field, which is alot farther back than I would normally like, but for a last minute "C" race.. I had a good time and learned some technique so overall pretty satisfied, come two week for the Austin tri though...age group placing or BUST!