Voiding the Excuse!

I was told I could and should, but I said I needed to think about it.  I thought about it... really, I did. But this would be so far outside of my comfort zone, so I went with the excuse reason that I want to spectate at least one first.  So, what was it?


Here, I posted about my start at swimming... in September, I joined a 10 week triathlon swim clinic which helped tremendously, then about a month ago, I started with a masters swim team to continue improving my swim, and keep me going, especially during the winter months when my motivation is tremendously low to get to the pool in the dark, cold nights of winter. The weekend I joined them, there was a swim meet, but I already had plans that weekend, so I didn't go. In the past month, I've swum with them twice a week, being fairly comfortable with freestyle and backstroke, and finally 'learning' breaststroke and butterfly. My goals for both of these have gone from not drowning not drowning as quickly pure survival to working on forward motion. It's not pretty, it's not fast, but I eventually get there, so that counts for something right?


There was another swim meet today, about 10 minutes from home. Coach told me to sign up, and didn't buy into my complaining (and plenty of other swimmers) that I couldn't do the butterfly. So, he had us do 50m butterfly, then some individual medleys. "See Mel, I told you that you can do it, just sign up."


He almost convinced me, but then I got sick last week, and missed the practice when I would have had to pay my entry fee, so he said I could watch this one, but next time I'd have to sign up. It's a nice feeling when someone has confidence in you even if you might not in yourself.


I did the same thing with triathlon, went to watch one first, had an ounce of regret not being a participant, but thankful for the experience of learning from the others before taking the dive, literally! (pun intended!)


I wasn't sure if it would happen, the possibility was there, and it did. The team standing right next to ours was that of my previous triathlon clinic's swim coach. She was coaching and competing today, so it was great to be able to see her again, and watch her swim finally! I chatted with her about my new bike too because I had discovered that she used to race for the store's triathlon team where I bought it, prior to her competing in Ironman. Isn't that crazy! Sometimes this running, swimming, cycling, triathlon community is smaller than you'd think!


Can you believe I'm even posting about this, considering this whole adventure of my last 2+ years started with the Nike+ sensor and going for a short run around the block?  I wonder how different this post would have been had I chosen to participate!  What will I use as my next excuse now that I've used this one up!?