Take a dip in March!

[GLC1968]

Susan - the difference could be the way the jets in your particular pool are situated. I've heard that people purposely choose certain lanes in certain pools to minimized the impact from the jets.

Personally, I prefer swimming in the deep end. It feels more peaceful to me.


REALLY interesting swim class/coaching session last night. We did a lot of body alignment drills and as such, we were doing a ton of kicking. Our coach had us start (after a warm up) with just lying on our backs, arms at our sides, kicking the length of the pool and keeping our position as streamlined as possible. He said that we should NOT be trying hard and that if we were breathing heavy at the other end, we were kicking entirely too hard. I did as I was instructed, focused on the ceiling to keep in a straight line, and tried to maintain a constant relaxed pace (as much as I could tell). I get to the other end, lift my head, and find out that everyone else was still only half way across the pool!?! WTH? I checked, and I was not breathing hard at all! After everyone else go there, he explained to everyone how to kick and my odd speed started to make sense. I was already doing all that intuitively (I also have essentially flippers for feet, too). After the explanation, we did the same thing the other way and again I was the first one there with little or no effort. This time a few other people were there with me likely due to his instruction. This contined to be the case the rest of the class even as we added new features to our drills. I started to see how 'effortless' felt and how it worked into my form. This whole class REALLY helped me. I could REALLY feel how my body position should be in each of the drills and I cannot wait to get a chance to swim again to do them all again so that I can internalize the feelings.

Its like all of a sudden a huge flood light has been turned on! I can see how this class is going to help me tremendously in the coming weeks. Yay!

Funny point of note - there is a guy who was in the lane next to me who got dusted by me in the first couple of kicking drills. This guy looks very fit and is probably in his late 40's or early 50's. I think it bothered him that the fatest girl in the class (me) kept doing the drills faster than him. I noticed that he started working harder and harder and harder as the class progressed. We'd get to the end of the length for whatever drill and he'd be flat out panting! Poor guy - it must be hard to swim with his ego dragging him down all the time.

[tribogota]

hahaha, love the notion of people's ego dragging them down...as I swim with a bunch of extremely egotistical people who I mostly cannot stand. I think we are lucky that we get to jump in a pool with a bunch of potable water...and half the world doesn't have enough water for basic needs, so no matter how "horrendous" the situation is in the pool, I always tell myself that and immediately I stop being annoyed.

[Susan Otcenas]

GLC - I'm SO glad you're enjoying the class. I think Nathan is awesome. It doesn't matter what level of swimmer you are in that class. His teaching style and the core basic drills that he does will benefit you regardless. It's why I SO wish taking his class again would have fit into my schedule. I just couldn't get down there on a weeknight though.

[Susan Otcenas]

2250 for me today. Was supposed to be 2200, but after one of my 500s, I checked my watch timer and realized that I'd clearly gone over by a lap. Huh. I rarely lose count, but I obviously did today!

But it was a sucky 2250 overall. I felt like I was swimming through butter. You know you're having a bad day when the octogenarian water jogger's progress down the lane matches your own.

Susan

[Susan Otcenas]

Hope everyone is having good swims this week!

As for me - I found my kick! I'm usually not much of a kicker at all, but this morning, I worked on it and saw a definite improvement in my speed, while feeling less breathless on hard efforts. Wonder if I"ll be able to replicate it on Thursday....

[roadie gal]

Back in the pool yesterday after an almost 3 week hiatus (for the new tat to heal). It was sunny outside, so even though it was in the mid 30s I decided to go to the outdoor pool. Turns out it was a fine choice. The water was warm and the sun was nice.

I did 1800 yds total: 300yds, then rest, 200 yds, rest, 100 yds, 400 yds of drills and then 8X75yd with 25 seconds rest, and a 200 yd cooldown. I wasn't pushing myself because it had been a while and this was the longest workout that my coach had put together. I was very pleased when I figured out that in each of the intervals I'd done 1:45/100yds. For me that's a huge improvement.

Tomorrow I meet with my coach again.

[Susan Otcenas]

2300 yards this morning. Despite only getting 5 hours of sleep, I had a pretty good swim. Some days I feel like I'm just out there hacking through the water, but today I felt like I had a pretty good glide going on.

Jeff decided to amuse himself by swimming laps right at my heels. It motivated me to swim a little faster.

Susan

[GLC1968]

Had another class last night (I also swam last Monday - 1000 m - but forgot to report it. It was a sucky swim so I didn't want to remember it again!).

Our normal coach was traveling with his swim team, so we had a sub. She was HARD! She worked with him in the Tuesday class, and then taught us on Thursday, so I don't know if he made them swim as much on Tuesday or not. Anyway, we did a LOT of drills and when I tried to count them all after the fact, I could tell that we did well over 1000 yards in the class which is highly unusual. I got a ton out of the drills though. She had us start with using swim fins and to be honest, that was really difficult for me. I go too fast with those things on that it makes it really hard to focus on anything else. It's great for finding flaws in my streamline position, but it's just too confusing for much else. I suppose I could get used to it, but I'd rather not. After we took them off, she had us just do 50 freestyle to get used to not having them on and it was so much easier for me! Weird, huh? Everyone else wanted their fins back!

Anyway, by the end of the class, I felt like I'd made some really great progress. I meant to count my strokes for the last 50, but I forgot. I have a feeling my count has gone down significantly after that class.

My next swim will be tomorrow morning, so I'm looking forward to repeating a lot of those drills and really solidifying what I learned.

[sgf726]

Our pools seemed busier than usually this week as well, not sure what's up.

1800yds for me last night - 200wu, then 5 sets of 200 pull/4*25 swim on the :30, 100cd.

My next meeting with my coach is Tuesday, looking forward to it. I feel like my stroke has improved allot, still need to work on keeping my head down when I breathe and kicking is still a challenge.

Sharon

[Selkie]

I've noticed that it's gotten busier at our pool since the beginning of March but hopefully, will slack off again since the weather is getting more conducive to outdoor activities (fingers crossed).

Got in a solid week---Monday, 2,200 yds and 2,500 yds for Tues, Wed, Thurs, and Frid. I'm going to be leaving for my long Saturday swim in about an hour or so....

Yesterday, a lady was telling me how she started TI classes and so far, she likes it (but she said it's "messed up" her swimming). To be honest, I thought she was a good swimmer before --- I've split a lane/circle swam w/her before---but she said that she's learning TI to get faster. Now I'm thinking again about taking TI lessons. I'm not really interested in getting faster but I would like to be more efficient. She said she'd let me know how it goes.