I can say this with absolute honesty: I am not the swiftest ship in the fleet when it comes to swimming.

While I'm not quite the brick I was in 2005, I still lack the proper hydrodynamics to actually swim worth a flip...or a flip turn, for that matter. However, the 2006 season was far kinder to me, swim-wise; I lopped off nearly five minutes from the swim of the Small Texan. I improved even more in 2007, due in large part to my volunteering with the school swim team.

For training, the greatest barrier I believe I face (apart from not having a proper swim coach) is boredom. I do my 25m laps at Gold's in Live Oak, and the monotony of following the black line for much more than thirty minutes at a time is mind numbing. Get me in a lake with something proper to site off of, and I am good to go. Knowing this is handy for when I finally set my date for my Ironman; tentatively, April 2009.

In the mean time, I am stuck in the gym's pool, fighting the old ladies practicing their water aerobics, to say nothing of the near-sauna water temperature.