Challenge Accepted

My first Ironman was Coeur d'Alene. Didn't really know what I was doing, but things seemed to work out OK.

Next was Wisconsin. I was a little smarter with my training that time: I knew it was a hilly race, so I spent a lot of time focusing the bike (much to the delight of Jon, who thinks triathlons are swim-bike-bike-bike-bike-run). The training paid off - I knocked 20 minutes off my bike time, on a more difficult course.

Then was Kona. I was never happy with my marathons, so I decided to focus on my running. It worked, and I beat my Wisconsin marathon time by 30 minutes. (Bike was 15 minutes slower, but with the Kona winds and some race strategy on my part, I'm not complaining.)

Now I have to do Cozumel. I feel like it's time I did some extra swim training. I know, I know... it's the least important leg to worry about. But I really never was a great swimmer, and I think I should try to improve my swim time (all 3 Ironman swims are within 5 minutes of each other.)

To this end, I made the goal to do 100 swim workouts before Ironman Cozumel in December. I mentioned this to Wisconsin Steve (former tri team swim coach) who didn't think it was very realistic for me. In fact, I have a $10 bet with him that I'll be able to do it. To track my progress, I have a 100ml graduated cylinder:

Here are the rules (made up by me, not necessarily agreed upon):

• For every swim workout I do, I'll add 1 ml of water.

• I can replace workouts lost due to evaporation.

• A workout must be at least 30 minutes of laps. Splashing around in the pool doesn't count.

• One hour or more of laps still only counts as one workout.

• Our 1/2 mile Malibu ocean swims count as a full workout regardless of time. (They're cold and choppy and I want full credit.)

I made the bet with Steve 2 weeks ago, and you may notice the cylinder is still empty. Yes, that's a bit of a problem but I think I'll be getting into the pool again at some point this month.