Issue link: http://www.wacmagazine.com/i/842361
32 WAC Magazine | wac.net THE EX-EXPAT Brooke Lindsley steps off the WAC elevator wearing cy- cling cleats and carrying her bike helmet. She rode from Madrona this morning and will soon roll to the Universi- ty of Washington. is summer, Brooke is training for her third triath- lon and first half Ironman. Her training and her physical therapy doctoral studies merge nicely. "It's actually been really awesome," she says. "ere are so many as- pects I can analyze and kind of geek out about in class." Her studies have benefit- ted everything from her swim stroke to her bike fit. "Being a beginner … I wanted to start in a good place," she says. "When you're training, you're doing very specific movements over and over again. Doing them in a way that is mechanically disadvanta- geous can really hurt the tissue." Brooke joined the WAC in February 2016 and swims regu- larly with the Tri/Cycle Club on Tuesday and ursday morn- ings. "What I really liked from the first day was the coach," she says of the WAC's Wade Praeger. "He's very knowledgeable, he's very welcoming, and he gears his instructions to whatever level you're at. e people who are on the team are also awesome and really supportive." Brooke and husband Rob were looking for a communi- ty—and "a very nice gym"—aer years of living abroad. For Brooke, expatriate life started not long aer her first triathlon, which she undertook in 2006 while earning a master's in teaching English as a second language at San Francisco State University. Running from wolves Degree in hand, Brooke spent a summer in Chile with the United Nations training beekeepers, followed by a full-time gig at Al Akhawayn University in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. "e Atlas Mountains were a perfect place for training," she says. "Tons of great running and biking … except for the wolves." To be clear, the menacing beasts that came down from the mountains to chase cyclists through the city were actually feral dogs. "People had all these different methods for guarding them off," Brooke recalls. Despite the canine aggres- sors, Brooke trained for and completed the Marrakesh Marathon. She le Morocco aer two years and started teaching adult refugees with World Education on the ailand-Myanmar border. While there, she met her fu- ture husband, Rob Lindsley, a doctoral student working on his Harvard dissertation. Brooke spent four years on the ailand-Myanmar border, and the couple moved to Jakarta, Indone- sia, for another year before fleeing the megalopolis for Seattle. "You wouldn't even go for a jog outside," Brooke says of Jakarta. Instead, she and Rob joined an upscale gym. "at's actually what brought us to the WAC," she says. "We enjoy having a nice place to go and work out and have a good meal." Brooke completed her second triathlon in 2013 and is now focused on jumping up to the half-Ironman dis- tance at Chelan Man on July 15. "I like to point out that the bike is actually two more miles than a half Ironman," Brooke smiles. Officially, a half Ironman—also called an Ironman 70.3—includes a 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike, and 13.1-mile run. "I don't doubt that this race is going to be really chal- lenging," she says of Chelan Man. A week later, she'll take on the Seafair sprint-distance triathlon. So far, the risk of feral dogs seems low. LINDSLEY brooke Mae Sot 10K "Marathon," Thailand.