Training day Number 24?

I'm the kind of person that has a million ideas and wants to try them all but only ever follows through on a handful of them. So when my mother-in-law mentioned that a few of my siblings-in-law and she were doing a triathlon, I laughed out loud at the thought of me competing in any sort of physical activity. Even though I was skinny in elementary school, I was always one of the last across the finish line during PE--I was trying to keep up with the fat kid who always seemed to be one stride ahead of me. In college I started to think there was something wrong with me when I would get winded going up the hill to class. An old doctor from the student health center told me I was simply out of shape (thanks a lot, fatty). Then I started to do some research. I talked to a friend of mine who said he had similar tightness and shortness of breath (although sometimes I thought mine were just an allergic reaction to exercise) and he said he was diagnosed with sports-related asthma and had an inhaler. Janene prescribed me an inhaler and from that day my life changed.

So anyway, Im training for a the Lake Lanier Sprint Triathlon. I get my butt out of bed every morning at 4:45 and stumble in to the spin room at the Y. My butt gets kicked for an hour and then squeeze that same butt into a swimsuit and collapse into the swimming pool for laps. By 7 am I have burned almost 1,000 calories and I prepare myself to do it again the next day. I have started running (gasp!!) and Im up to about two miles without wanting to crawl into a ball and die--for some people that may be a bit pathetic, but remember the skinny kid story above: I didnt run much as a kid. The race is a 1/2 mile (=10 laps) swim in Lake Lanier (if it has water...), 13 mile bike race, and 3.1 mile run. So far I can swim 5 laps, bike 7 miles (on a mountain bike, probably could go all 13 on a road bike but a mountain bike on asphalt uphill is like biking on flypaper), and 2 miles running. The race is in June and I have about six months to get ready. I am so excited that I am finally participating in something like this. Even if I am the last person crawling across the finish line, it will be one of the few things I have ever finished.

As a side note, a huge plus of all this training is that I am going to have a killer body for our Puerto Rico trip in May. Bikini (or lack thereof) and a private pool in our suite...Oh yeah.....