Swimming my butt off

I swan my butt off today - well started the "butt off" process. To be honest, it kicked my butt. I am totally not in shape. Years ago I was a swimmer; not a very fast one, but in good shape and pretty good. I was on a swim team and could swim a mile. Then I got tired of swimming, of the obligation to go swimming, of the competition, of the coaches, of all of it. Eventually I stopped swimming and that was over 10 years ago. Needless to say, I gained a lot of weight since then and clearly have fallen out of shape.
So today I got up "early", talked myself out of swiming, talked myself back into it, got my suit on, and went to the pool. I am just impressed that I talked myself back into swimming. I was alone in the pool and I won't be able to swim on weekends due to the campus summer shut down, but I don't have a lot of time on weekends at the moment. Anyway, after 15 minutes of rejoining the gym I got into the water and realized that I have a lot of work to do. Now this is a Jr. Olympic size pool which means that each lap is 25 yards. To do a mile I must swim 72 laps or go back and forth 36 times. To swim 100 meters I must swim the length of the pool 4 times. So I swan 50 meters (2 laps) and was ready to die. TWO LAPS! I managed to do 18 laps in a half hour. That is 450 meters of swimming and every 4 laps required that I stop for 2 minutes and just inhale deeply for 2 minutes - no exhaling. That is how labored my breathing was.
I have to admit that it felt so good to be in the water, to be swimming. I took my time, but now I know what I need to work on and what goals I need to set for myself. So setting the goals will be the activity of the next week. I am also going to feel this for a few days. When I am walking - even when I am working out at the gym- I never feel the burn after the work out. I feel it while I work out, but that "new muscle" burn never happens. Today I felt it, I still feel it, especially in my arms. I am actually very excited about this! Tonight before I go to bed I have to remember to do my sit ups - I was at 50 on Friday.