Editor’s Note: Liz Claman joined FOX Business Network as an anchor in October 2007 following stints at NBC in Boston, ABC in Cleveland and, most recently, CNBC in New York. The Emmy Award winner co-anchors the Fox Business block with David Asman, Fox Business Bulls & Bears, and hosts Countdown to the Closing Bell from 3-4 PM.

"No time."

When it comes to saying no to requests, no to favors and no to events, it’s been a really easy, plausible excuse for me lately. Easy because it’s a short, no-nonsense reply. Plausible because people know I have two kids and a husband and work full-time at Fox Business Network, where I anchor three hours of live TV a day, blog for foxbusiness.com and Twitter (sure it takes three seconds a day – but three seconds is still three seconds).

But last October when a blast e-mail hit my inbox inviting me to join a triathlon team put together by Fox and our parent company, News Corp, I inexplicably checked the "I’m in!" box. Four years ago, in a moment of insanity, I ran the New York City Marathon. Afterward, I vowed I’d never do something like that again. My right hip was nearly destroyed from schlepping 26.2 miles and it was way too much of a time-eater. Now, a triathlon? I didn’t even know what it was. But in that e-mail I saw "team" and "it’ll be fun!" and in a blasé sort of way thought, "Time for a new experience." Then I promptly put it out of my head.

January arrived and boom! The next e-mail: "Let’s get our training going!" I vaguely recalled having signed up for something. I read on: "The Nautica Triathlon is an Olympic-distance triathlon: a one-mile swim in the Hudson River, followed by a 25-mile bike ride and a 10k (6.2 miles) run."

Oh.
Mah.
Gah.

There was no way I was going to find the time to train for this thing. But then I thought, "Can I really back out? Everyone’s watching." Of course, NO ONE was watching but I would know. At that point I saw the point of no return: I was in.

I immediately called one of the people who helped me train for the marathon back in 2006. Peter K of Peter K Fitness is a health coach based in New Jersey who focuses on everything from food as fuel to preventing injury during training. He’s vicious about stretching and hyper about whole grains. He said, "Let’s get going, Liz."

When Peter explained that I would have to train up to five times a week with at least one session in the pool, every muscle in my body and every cell in my brain screamed, "NO! NO TIME!" He wasn’t hearing it. I scanned my Outlook calendar: Live radio hits at 8:30 AM, hair and makeup at 9:15, reading in for the shows right after that, producer conference call, local affiliate on-air cut-ins for Los Angeles and New York bookending my Fox Business shows, which begin at two o’clock PM and end at five. Then, rush home to play the part of "Food Supervisor" to my kids, before baths, nighttime stories, sleep. The only slot open? Five o’clock AM.

And so it began. I set my alarm for 5:10 every morning, got up and headed to the gym. Spin classes, the treadmill, strength bands and the toughest part – I swam once a week. Jumping into a pool to swim laps on any day at any time is not my thing. It became my thing. I forced myself to do it.

And it was the hardest part.

The first time in the pool back in January, this California girl – who had grown up frolicking in the waves of Malibu, who swam laps regularly freshman year at Beverly Hills High School – made it about nine lengths and thought, "When did this get so hard?" Peter told me I had to work up to 75 laps or 40 minutes. I started panicking. I can’t do this. I e-mailed the head of the Nautica race, John Korff, and expressed my fears. "Don’t worry," he replied. "There’s a current in the Hudson that will push you along. A bag of Cheetos did it in 21 minutes."