Decade Dance #4

#4. Open Water Swimming + Triathalons. When I started teaching for real, I put on about 2o lbs. It was a combo of eating like I was still working out 1.5 hours a day & doing very little working out. After a year of being much heavier than I would like, I decided that it was time for a change (you can see my weight gain to the left). In order to motivate myself, I entered my first open water race in Clemson, SC. Franke guilted me into swimming the 5k; I was originally planning on easing my way in by swimming the 3k. After that race, I got hooked on open water swimming. It is so different from pool swimming. Since then I have swam about 5 other open water races, including the Wilmington Pier-2-Pier. I swam the Clemson 5k at 155 lbs in June, 2007. In September of 2007 I swam the Wilmington Pier-2-Pier at 133 lbs. My next goal was to do a triathlon. I have avoided doing such a race because I HATE to run. However, I finally entered myself in the Ramblin' Rose in September 2010. This was a great experience for me (see more photos here). I can finally run with some confidence. I also really began to enjoy biking. I still have a lot of work to do to really compete with seasoned triathletes, but I feel such a sense of accomplishment and so good about myself when I am able to reach these physical goals. It is motivation to keep working hard! And to top it all off, I have actually begun to enjoy running, so much so that I got a ton of new running apparel for Christmas so that I can stay motivated to run during the cold winter months!