Swimming for Kristina.

Last fall, Kristina Pinto (aka The Marathon Mama) decided to run the 2007 Boston Marathon for the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge, which raises money for basic cancer research. When I heard about Kristina's committment, it reminded me of the many cancer victims and survivors in my own family, and my failure to have committed anything at all to the cause.

So I joined Kristina's cause as a sponsor (which I encourage everyone to do as well), but I wanted to join in in a physical sense, too. I promised to swim 26.2 miles by the date of the Boston Marathon (April 16, 2007), as a way of training alongside Kristina in spirit.

That was last October. While Kristina has been training faithfully, until today, I had yet to swim a single lap. Perfect time to make a New Year's resolution, right? I decided to gain some momentum by starting a day early, and swam my first 1/4 mile today. It was mostly an exercise in locating my gym bag, swimsuit, and so on, and getting to the pool on time before it closed for the holiday evening. But I did it.

To complete my goal in time for the marathon, I'll have to average 1/4 mile a day, 7 days a week.

I've started a Google spreadsheet to track my progress. I'll post snapshots of the chart from time to time, but for now, here's a link to the live online spreadsheet: Swimming for Kristina.

(By the way, Google Spreadsheet is ridiculously easy to use.)