I can't swim, but I want to Tri

I am not a swimmer.  Before this Summer, I think the last time I swam a lap was in the 6th grade during a swim class.  At that time in my life I really loved to swim.  I remember asking my mom if I could join swim team.  She said swim team was only for the good swimmers. ** Ouch! Alas, I swapped training suits for cute tankinis and goggles for tanning oil and spent the next twenty years poolside.  Much like me in this photo.  

This is the life!

In May, Ironman Texas took place just minutes from my house.  I ran down and watched the swimmers and was bitten by a bug.  I can't do that! I thought. Swim two miles!  That's crazy!  But those kinds of thoughts get me thinking and I thought and thought and realized that I want to do that!

But I can't swim.  My mom told me so when I was in the 6th grade.  I'm probably going to drown.  All these thoughts passed through my brain as I slipped on my goggles for the first time a few weeks later
.

My heart raced and panic ensued.  I'm gunna die! I'm gunna die!  Then I realized I could still reach...and the side was two feet away if I got in trouble.  I swam 400 m, stopping every 25 m to catch my breath.

I got home and watched about a zillion youtube videos on swim technique and breathing.  Just four lap sessions later, I swam 700 m and only had stop every 50 m.  Improvement.  The most major being that I don't think I'm going to drown anymore.

I've got a long way to go.  But don't say "Can't" in my hearing. I might just respond with one of my favorite childhood poems.

Feeling pretty cool after swimming 700m.   Don't worry. My ego
was tempered by the babies that passed me in the fast lane!

"Listen to the mustn't, child.  Listen to the dont's.  Listen to the shouldn't, the impossibles, the won'ts.  Listen to the never haves then listen close to me...Anything can happen, child.  Anything can be."--Shel Silverstein

**As a sidenote, I must add that my mother is amazing.  She is not a mean person, just human.