1 Week To Go - Emmett Triathlon

So I only have a week before I participate in the Emmett (sprint) Triathlon. I am excited, but I have to admit that I got a dose of reality yesterday as I did an open water swim for the first time. I went to a state park near our house called Eagle Island. It's basically a pond with a small beach. When I first went out, my plan was to go around the large island in the middle of the pond. However, after swimming for a couple of minutes I became disoriented (or so I thought) and ended up going around a smaller island and returned back to the shore having only swum for about 5 minutes. I was amazed, though, how tired I was after only doing perhaps half the distance that I will be doing in the triathlon. Because I could not see anything under the water, it was very difficult to pace myself, not to mention that it was hard to see where I was going. Anyways, I was determined to do it again, but this time go around the larger island and hopefully get closer to 500 yards. This time I decided to go around the opposite side of the island, and thus avoid accidently going around the smaller one. The second time out started much better. I was able to pace myself and keep better track of where I was going. As I made my way around the back of the island, I kept expecting to soon be far enough around to see the shore again. However, as I continued to swim, something else came into view that was not the shore. It was a dead end! This was no island I was swimming around. It was a peninsula. Words cannot describe the feeling that came over me at this point. I thought I was on the home stretch. But now I realized I was only half way through, for I would have to turn back around and swim the entire distance back. To make a long story short, I was able to make it back around the pensinsula and return to shore. As I got out of the water, I told Jenny, in-between my gasping breaths, "That is not an island!" She of course laughed and laughed. I could not help but do the same. Cheers!

P.S. Do not hit CTRL-P while typing your blog, or it will post the blog before you are done typing :(