Soooo the good news is that I'm pretty sure I did really well on my PE exam. God-willing, in three months or so, I will be a licensed engineer with all kinds of new liability insurance needs. The bad news is that I may have forgotten to bubble my name in. Oh well, some things you just can't study for.

So now that Part I is complete, here comes Part II. On thursday, I leave for California to go compete in the AVIA Wildflower Triathlon. After a night in San Diego, Tyler, Liz and I will drive to Paso Robles in central california and pick up our registration kits for Sunday's race. Apparently this is a pretty big event, with something like 7,500 athletes competing on Saturday and Sunday. I even read somewhere that two of the couples from the reality show Biggest Loser will be competing in the long course.

When I started this whole adventure, the swim seemed kind of ridiculous. I mean, I didn't really know how to swim in October. I've jumped in a pool as a kid, but actually knowing the technique is something that requires real coaching. The first couple of trips to the pool were pretty discouraging. How are you supposed to swim a mile when your heart is pounding and you are coughing water after 25 meters? There just seemed to be a huge reality gap between where I was and where I wanted to be. People tell you that hard work and determination will get you there, but i think a pair of floaties and flippers would have been my first choice. But then I remembered something I learned from building racecars with blocks of metal and an engineering textbook: you take on a huge goal by breaking it down into smaller ones. AND you trust that with enough time and patience, you will get there. I stopped thinking about the mile. All I needed to do was to swim 25 meters. That was my finish line, nothing more and nothing less. Confession: it took me about 2 months before I could do it consistently. It took me another month before I could do 50 meter laps consistently. And the sad part is that I was training 3 or 4 times a week! But 50 became 100, and 100 became 200, and 200 became 500. This past weekend was the first time I've swam the full 1500 meters. And when I was done, I wasn't coughing water. (I also couldn't feel my shoulders.)

A lot of people think these kind of events are for crazy type-A personalities, but it's because they are only looking at the end result. For me most of the adventure and reward has been in the journey to this point. The race will be a ton of fun I'm sure, but it was the winter nights I spent swallowing pool water where I learned the most valuable lessons. More to come this week .... ;-)