Drum roll…. next up is Katie Walker 

Katie began her lifetime in athletics back in the pre-Simone Biles era of gymnastics. Katie’s older sister was a gymnast, so naturally Katie followed in her sister’s footsteps, and was a competitive gymnast from childhood until she was 14 (see below for a picture of 5 year old Katie chalking up for bars ). After falling out of love with the competitive aspects of gymnastics, Katie decided to take up horseback riding, and rode recreationally from middle school and into freshman year of college. During middle school and high school, Katie also joined her school’s track and cross country teams and, ironically, didn’t love running long distances. She often protested when her team would have to run the mile distance between the high school and track as the warmup before track practice. She has to think that younger-Katie would be totally blown away by how far present day-Katie runs for fun

After high school, Katie took a short hiatus from sport/athletics, until she started running 5ks and 10ks during her sophomore year of undergrad. During her junior year of undergrad in 2015, Katie decided to test her legs in longer races, and ran her first half marathon (Rock ‘n Roll Chicago). Then in 2016, she finished her first marathon (Flying Pig in Cincinnati ), which kicked off her love of long distance running and racing. Katie has continued running marathons and road races since then, and also finished her first (and only…so far) 50k at Gate 2 Gate in 2019!

A near-drowning experience as a child put her off from triathlons initially, however with much encouragement from friends and family, Katie signed up for her first triathlon, the Trigators Sprint Triathlon, in 2022. And, like many of us know, you can’t just do one triathlon! Since her first race at Trigators in 2022, Katie has continued to race in sprint, olympic, and 70.3 races, and also completed her first Ironman at Chattanooga in 2023! Katie loves the thrill of racing, and the daily grind of training, but most importantly, she loves all of the amazing friendships she’s made during her triathlon journey Katie also loves to race and train with her family, and often races short-distance tris and half marathons with her dad, does 5ks with her mom, and even talked her sister into doing a sprint tri once!

Aside from triathlon, and in her “free time”, Katie also enjoys hiking, spending time with her dog, and snowboarding!