I hate swimming (Part 3 of 10)

My friend Dan had this to say a few days ago:
"I was reading your blog," he said, "and are you actually serious about doing a triathlon?"
"Yes," I replied, "but I need a lot of work."

Over the weekend, I realized that I might have a problem. Setting goals and telling people can be a terrible thing if they take you seriously. Just ask any smoker who publicly quit their habit, and then had to face the music when the resolve crumbled a few days later.

So now I have the motivation (if you want to call it that) to continue #$*& swimming. If I stop, this is what I have to look forward to:
Someone: "Hey, how's the triathlon thing coming along?"
Me: "Oh, you know..."

With that in mind, I hauled myself out of bed at the ungodly hour of 6:30, and biked over to the pool. (Now, some of you may say that's not early, not even for me, and you'd be right. I'd wake up at 6 when I had to work at 8:15. But now I start work at 9:30, so 6:30 has become ungodly.)

It wasn't too bad. Aside from being nowhere close to graduating from the slow lane, and aside from gasping like a beached whale every time I finish a length, I don't think I embarrassed myself too bad in front of the Chinese national swim team alumni. How do I know this? One of the older men told me to have a nice day, and gave me a smile as I was leaving. And even though he was naked, it didn't seem at all creepy, or (even worse) fake. I'm in!