I have recently made the decision to become a triathlete. I knew what this meant: swim, bike, run. I could already ride a bike, and I was pretty confident that I could run (running without tripping over myself, now that’s a different story). But swimming? That is uncharted territory.

Oh sure, I can swim. I know the basics: the doggie paddle, kick the feet, flail the arms. I perfected these skills after being thrown into a pool as a kid, and found myself desperately thrashing in order to keep myself afloat. It took me a solid 10 seconds (which felt like an enternity) before I realized that I could stand on the bottom of the pool with my head safely out of the water. Needless to say, I obviously wasn’t a fish in a former life, and quickly formed a hatred (more like a fear) of the water.

But becoming a triathlete was about changing myself and facing my fears. So there I stood, next to a pool for the first time in many, many, many years (not including just sitting by a pool at a hotel or some luxury reason). These were some of the thoughts that were running through my head:

“Oh. My. God. I am going to drown…”

“I must look FAT in this swim suit.”

“Oh good, life guards.”

“What do I do? I’ll dip my toe in first.”

“Why is everyone staring at me?!”

“Do the goggles go under or over the swim cap?”

“How do I put this swim cap on?”

“Nope, not like that.”

“Oh. My. God. I am going to drown…”

I finally got into the pool. Achievement unlocked! Next mission: letting go of the wall. That’s right; I hung onto that sucker for a good five to ten minutes. I didn’t hold on because I was scared (okay, that’s a lie), but because I just plain didn’t know what to do. Luckily, I had a friend there to coach me through some of the basic strokes. I watched him swim a few laps before I even thought about letting go of the wall. I somehow mustered up enough courage to attempt the freestyle stroke.

Before I tell you what came next, please remember that I lacked the complete basic skills to swim any stroke that’s not the doggie paddle.

I took my first few strokes and immediately discovered that I had not yet learned to breathe while swimming. So yep, you guessed it, I took my first huge gulp of pee infested (people still pee in pools, right?) pool water. As I gasped for air and endured the burning pain of water being shot up my nose, I had sudden flashbacks of my terrifying near-drowning experience, re-instating my fear of swimming. I did a few more failed attempts of the freestyle stroke before my friend and I decided it would be best to stick with the breaststroke (which, for me, was a much easier stroke to use to learn how to actually breathe while swimming).

It’s now been five weeks since that first swim. Looking back, I must have been the most disgraceful person known to the swimming world (on top of not knowing how to swim, I couldn’t even swim the length of the pool without stopping). But I’m glad I faced my fear because now I can swim a whole mile (a big accomplishment for me). I might not have the best form, and I may be the slowest swimmer out there, but this triathlete will continue to swim. If I don’t drown first.