I Am a Weenie, Fine.

My sister tried to get me to go swimming again today. The plan was we would swim straight out to a buoy (a fairly short distance), repeat several times, then be done.

That was the plan.

While the last two days I managed to get in the water rather slowly, I was at least able to get in, today I was having none of it.

My sister was not impressed. In fact, I think she was quite annoyed with me.

She, however, did great. She is terrified of sharks getting her and has a rather intense fear of just going out that far (even though she is a much stronger swimmer than me). She has NEVER gone out that far (without a surfboard) and made several loops out and back from the buoy.

She tried to convince me, begging me saying she'd even go without her wetsuit.

Here's the thing: I'm not afraid of the depth of the water or sharks or other things. What I know I need to work on in the water is breathing since I can't seem to exhale through my nose in the salt water. Since it was just too cold this morning to adapt to, I didn't think it would make it easier and I felt no need to freeze myself to figure this out.

I will try tomorrow once my wetsuit comes in and my sister is going to take me to the local YMCA so I can work on breathing out through my mouth in the pool. We'll see how that goes.

Tonight I also went to a "Triathlon 101" clinic--a free clinic put on by the Long Beach Triathlon club. There were two guys there--one of them who I would not describe as athletic (nor would I imagine he could do any portion of a triathlon, let alone all three events), but who basically started and has been doing triathlons for 18 months now for the same reason(s) as me: he needed to make a lifestyle change, lose weight, and needed some kind of goal to work towards to keep him motivated and focused.

He's lost 100 pounds in 18 months by working for and doing multiple triathlons similar to this.

They had some great information that was really helpful, a ton of hints, and a lot of encouragement. There was only one other person who attended the clinic--he's at a very different place than me (he actually hopes to be competitive) and had done one triathlon. He's hoping to do one called Lava Man in Hawaii.

It was really nice to see and hear that the triathlon community is very welcoming and open to newcomers. If it wasn't so expensive, I could easily get into doing this on a regular basis. But considering the entry fees are usually over $100 and that's not even looking into equipment that I don't currently own (I'm either borrowing, renting, or doing without for this one), I'm not sure it will be a long-term sport for me. Hopefully an event or two a year.

That's assuming I even make it through the swim this time around.