Preparing to Launch Project "Gator Bait"

Well for those of you who don't know, We recently packed up the entire clan, rented a mini van and moved to the Orlando Florida area.

We have finally settled in and one thing that came with the move and lifestyle change was an effort to gradually eliminate the 40 pounds or so that I had accumulated over the last 10 years. I have been training pretty consistently with my good friend John and I am making pretty good progress. Although I still consider myself fat and sassy, I have dropped about 20 pounds and will be entering my first sprint triathlon on Saturday.

A few things that I have learned while training for a Triathlon in Florida...

• The terrain is very flat here, so running and cycling are pretty enjoyable,
  
• The open water swimming portions of the race are often held in local lakes or on the gulf or Atlantic coasts in the ocean
  
• I never formally learned to swim with anything close to good technique
  

Oh yeah... and a couple of other things:

• An area about an hour east of here called New Smyrna Beach, where many folks like to train is the shark attack capital of the world
  
• Just about all of those local lakes mentioned above are home to Alligators of all shapes and sizes.
  

From what the locals tell me, we will "probably" be ok this week as we swim about 1/2 mile to kick off the sprint... "the water is still pretty chilly, so the gators are very lethargic this time of year. That incident this time last year was a freak event... and they caught and killed that gator, so there is nothing to worry about"

Well, signing off for now. I will let you know if we survived and provide more information about the next scheduled event in May as it approaches.