I have a dream.  That dream is to one day compete in triathlons.  Of course, I at first just want to take part in triathlons, but the ultimate goal would be to actually be competitive.

I should maybe learn to run, huh?  I would also like to have some of the children compete in triathlons.  That’s just one reason I signed my 8 year old daughter up for Girls on the Run (GOTR).  We meet twice a week to train for a 5k in May.  This daughter is not much for running–unlike her other 3 sisters!  So she needs quite a bit of encouragement, namely in the form of my running alongside her cajoling her every step of the way.

But I’m 42, with a history of knee injury and sciatic nerve problems, so this is just big happy fun for me.  Did I mention that I’m quite a bit overweight?  Yeah.

What this means for swimming is that my left knee has been perpetually sore since starting GOTR approximately a month ago.  For those of you following at home, I basically replaced my neck pain (from the 200 sit-up challenge and tae bo) with the knee pain from running.

And swimming again serves as rehab for me.  So, while I, to my great disappointment didn’t swim the elusive  mile, I did feel much better when I got out of the pool.

I ended up swimming 900 yards, or half a mile, my knee hurting at first.

Today I also took my oldest and youngest daughters with me.  Youngest daughter, at 12 months, just won’t sleep peacefully at home while I jump up to go swimming at the crack of dawn.  So, I took her to the pool along with a babysitter.  I had an ulterior motive.  My oldest daughter has great swim technique.  So she gave me much wanted feedback on my strokes.

She says I bend my arms too much on the freestyle, and my back and breast strokes look good.  My butterfly?  Looks weak and sorry.  My abs haven’t yet recovered from the last baby.  Hence, the 200 situp challenge. . .

My times on my IMs were also slow:  3:03.02 for the first one, and 3:05.24 on the second one.  Then I decided that the butterfly was too rough on my knee and stuck with flutter kick strokes.

As always, the whirlpool hit the spot after the workout.  I hope to return to the pool with my girls on Thursday.