hooray for seconds

not the kind you get on thanksgiving or the one on the podium, though both are quite good. i'm talking the ones on the clock, and today it was all about 3 seconds. in the pool.

allow me to give some insight into my previous swimming experience. ********chirp*** chirp**** that would be NONE. (though i was a swim instructor for one summer in HS at the Y. no, they didnt require us to know ANYTHING! so perhaps think twice about sending your kids to camp there. people like ME might be teaching them! or just letting them float around and play for 30 minutes.)

so when i took to the pool last year, it most closely resembled your best friend's cat being thrown into the bathtub. utter chaos, unbridled anger and a mad dash for the edge. no joke, it was ugly. ask bobby. he will chuckle as he remembers..

so needless to say the pool and i have not been the best of friends over the past 18 months. i have had bad days and worse days. some ok days and even a good day here and there. (note this is all as measured on the drowned feline scale, not necessarily a real swimmer scale).

so today when i was in the middle of my workout, having a tough time making the stoke counts i needed to, i was really frustrated. ready to declare my self a full time duathlete. but i'm not a quitter --- and i went on to finish my workout.

the last segment was 3 x 100m descending times. the first one was 1.29 . huh? now for all of you regular triathletes that is no big deal but for this pile of cement it was huge. it was my PR. but today it was my starting point.. the next two were TOUGH but i managed to end the day with 1.27 and 1.26 - a huge huge breakthrough for me.
so its a reminder that chiseling away does get you places and even in the worst of times, you never know -- it might just turn around..