Swim, swam, swum!

I can't believe it has taken me 41 years to realize that swimming is good exercise. Duh. I mean, I have always loved the water (pools, lakes) and swum (that is such a weird word) my whole life from taking swimming lessons as a kid with that crummy red kick-board (remember those?!) to more recently playing in the pool and serving as the "moterboat" with Zach. But just a few days ago I discovered how awesome swimming can actually be for exercise.

I am planning to do a triathlon in September. Now, before you freak out, I'm not talking about the hard core "iron-man or woman race" or whatever. This is really cool, really doable and just for women. My friend did it last year, but I wasn't quite ready then. This year I totally am. It starts with the equivalent of 20 lengths of a pool (but it is in a lake), then a 7-mile bike ride and a 2-mile run. The biking and running part are fine for me, but I wasn't sure about the swimming. So, I jumped in the pool to see how much I could do. The first day I did 10 lengths and felt pretty good and then Saturday I did 20 without stopping. It felt great! I was tired, but a different kind of tired than running or other cardio stuff. I really enjoyed it. Not to mention it was a beautiful day at a beautiful place! It took me about 20 minutes, give or take. So I'm psyched for this race now. It is in September so I have lots of time to get faster. I'm just excited to discover another way to get in activity into my daily life - there are opportunities all around us if we just look for them!