Getting in Line

I don't make New Year's resolutions as a general rule, mostly because I don't really feel the need to make arbitrary rules for myself. If I really want to do something then chances are I'll do it, and if I don't do it then I probably didn't want it that bad to begin with. And some things, like trying to stop biting my nails, are just unrealistic so I don't even bother - if I could stop biting my nails I would have done it a long time ago. But I digress.

However, I have vowed to get back in the pool and spend more time with the black line. And I mean actually get back in the pool and swim - not just swim once a week and give myself a pat on the back for getting wet. I plan on making chlorine my everyday scent. I plan on turning my hair green. I plan on embracing my goggle marks. I plan on swimming so much even Missy Franklin would be put to shame - alright, that last part's a lie, but I do plan on making swimming my new priority.

I spent so much time last summer focused on running because of the marathon that I let both my biking and swimming take a serious backseat. Now that I'm back on the triathlon bandwagon and have left my marathon days in the past - at least until Boston training comes around next year - it's back in the water to get some serious gills. I've made it a point to swim at least twice over the past few weeks, and I hope to slowly increase both the daily and weekly yardage as I start to get my form back. The last thing I need to do is go in a bang out 6,000 yards and destroy my shoulders - so this is me, easing back into it.

Pool. Chlorine. Black line. Wall. Flip turn. Oh, hair ball! Repeat.

I'm not a huge fan of swimming, per se. I always feel so much better after I've done it, but I don't particularly enjoy the actual activity of swimming. It is far and away my least favorite of the three, but it's also something that I've done the longest. Every since I can remember remembering thing, I could remember swimming. It's a love/hate relationship. Swimming is a finesse sport, and finesse isn't something I do particularly well. I don't think anyone has every looked at me and said, "Oh yeah, she's got finesse". It's more along the lines of, "Hello, bull-in-a-china-shop alert!". I am not smooth. I am not graceful. I am not elegant. You want to see smooth? This is smooth:

I do not look like this. I don't look like an active drowning victim, but I definitely don't look like that.

So making this a priority is not something that I am necessarily looking forward to. However, in the long run (ha! pun NOT intended but so good!), I also know that being in the front of the swim pack puts you in a much greater advantage over the rest of the field than trying to play catch-up, so if my obsession with the black line pays off with front-of-the-pack views in the bike and run, then I guess I'll have to just dive in (that pun was intended).