Catch a wave...Or the swimming thread

[alpinerabbit]

Alright... I think I am ready for the Oly this Sunday. I think I'll survive.

Monday I did a final pool swim, felt pretty good already but the final test was today's last OW swim, about 2.4 K and I still felt strong at the end. 8 or 9 wks ago my arms were getting really tired on the way home.

Yoda, I'm stealing your 3+2 breathing rythm and I love it...

And I can run 10K these days. Haven't done a fast 10K but what matters is whether my legs hurt - and they don't.

[Wahine]

Nice!!!! Good luck this weekend.

[kelownagirl]

I always do bilateral breathing when I swim but when I did my tri, I found myself breathing on every 2nd stroke so I could get more air and go faster. Is that normal?

[Wahine]

It's normal if your pushing the pace for a sprint tri. That's part of the reason I sometimes do a 3 - 2 - 3, then I'm still bilateral but getting a slightly higher breathing rate. On a short sprint when I'm pushing hard I might breath every 2.

[colby]

I tried breathing every 2 this time and I find it almost harder to get a rhythm than breathing every 3-4. I feel more smooth when I breathe less often, but it does make sighting harder (for a while when doing OWS training, I was doing 4-2-4-2 and sight on the 2, sometimes 4-2-2-4-2-2). I watched some of the women in the olympic OWS and they were doing weird breathing patterns... looked like sometimes 3-2 and sometimes 2 and then 2 breaths in a row on each side.

My swim time this year came out to the same as last year, but I think I actually swam faster... I just sighted more and had foggier goggles. Still working on the perfect balance of swimming and sighting. (I think I also ran faster this year, but walked slower on my walk breaks... bad Colby.)

Loving everyone's pictures...

[Kimmyt]

Colby, I breathe every 3 strokes all the time, and when I do OW I tend to sight every 2 cycles of breathing. It works because I pull stronger with one arm so when I breathe off that side, it is easier and less tiring to get a good sight. I think if I sighted every breath I would be even more knackered than usual coming off the swim!!

[firenze11]

I was so nervous to go to my first stroke improvement class, my stomach was in knots and I was so worried I would be the "worst" swimmer there.

Of course, when I got in the pool I wasn't the worst swimmer there and everyone else felt they were going to be the worst, too. Actually, in my little group, they kept making me go first "because you're faster than everyone else" It really boost my confidence.

The class was pretty huge, 20 people, but I'm hoping they break us into groups based on our skills and then teach that way.

Today we did mostly freestyle drills, which I found really hard. My body just wanted to swim, not to do drills. By the end of the hour class I felt more energized then ever about swimming and I can't wait to go back next week. I didn't want to get out of the pool! I'm thinking about asking some people in class if they want to do a second day of just swimming to keep our new skills fresh.

I feel like I'm really starting a path toward a tri now (thank goodness, I was feeling pretty disheartened after missing my try-a-tri this summer)