Thursday, April 21, 2011

Challenging Myself

Most of my friends are simply amazing, they are smart, fun, and do really cool things. On top of working, and being great moms, many of them are also athletic. They run, enter races, half-marathons, and even triathlons! What do I do to challenge myself physically? I run after a two year old... and sometimes make it to my weekly Zumba class.
It's not that I feel bad about myself, I think I do a good job at what I do. But seeing pictures of my friends' accomplishments on Facebook, or reading on their blog about the satisfaction that finishing their race brings them (like my awesome friend Katy at www.katywidrick.com), makes me want to challenge myself too.
One thing I know for sure, is that I don't want to run. I have a pretty low tolerance for pain, so running is not for me. Swimming, however, is something I like to do.
A few weeks ago, as I was signing A up for a mini-basketball class at the Y, a flyer caught my eye. It was a registration sheet for an Open Water Swim in June.

(source)
I took the paper with me and started thinking about it. They have two races, 800 meter and 1,500 meter, in Oneida Lake, a little north of us. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to sign up. I know I can swim 800 m without a problem, but don't really know how I'll compare with everybody else.
I asked two of my good friends who do triathlons what they thought, and they both encouraged me to do it. I guess even if I'm the last one to finish, I'll have at least done it.
 So it's a done deal, I signed up this morning. Now I have to figure out how and when I am going to "train". The race is June 4th and I hope having that as a goal will motivate me and prevent me from coming up with other things I "have" to do. Wish me luck!

2 comments:

  1. That's amazing! Open water scares me ... but maybe that's because of the gators and snakes in our Florida lakes. Nah, I was scared of lakes in Pa and NY, too.

    I can't wait to read all about it. Good luck with your training!

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  2. thanks for your support Jackie! I'm pretty nervous about the whole thing, but I love to swim in any form of water, so I should focus on that and not worry about the others. (and I NEED to believe there are no snakes in Oneida Lake, otherwise I will forfeit -- totally scared of snakes, even the fake toy ones make me shudder)
    Marie

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