Week One

I love swimming, and have always been pretty active - swam for my high school and college teams. So, when graduation started to sneak up on me, I invented this fuzzy plan that I'd train for a triathlon or something...
Several months after my last swim meet I had graduated, Cum Laude, Had scored my first 'real' job, supporting NASA (how cool is that for a first job!), and comfortably settled into life as an independent adult. But something was missing...

Then one day a friend told me she was training for a triathlon with a local chapter of 'Team In Training'. I checked them out http://www.teamintraining.org/tnt2008/1/ and realized this is exactly what was missing! I needed to get active again and more importantly, start hanging out with a team again - with the benefit of supporting the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. So I signed up to run the Mercedes Half Marathon this coming February - a) because there aren't any triathlons until spring, b) because I've never run a long distance event before in my life and wanted to start small and work up to a Full Marathon sometime later.

The first week is supposed to be the easiest, but has in fact proven to be the most difficult...

Finding the meeting place for the first team practice was an adventure (in the Chinese sense!) because I don't know downtown very well and managed to get Lost Lost Lost!

While I'm not in terrible shape, I've always been a swimmer, which means my muscles are NOT developed for running! Just walking in the mornings is making me sore, and I've no doubt that's going to get worse before it gets better as my muscles and joints slowly adjust to the idea of impact sports.

But the inspiration is still with me and I'm very excited to keep running! (or limping/jogging as the case may be for a week or so yet).