Not happy with your swim? Your beach ball is.

SWIM: Monday morning Masters: 45 mins about 1300??

Completely lost count on this swim. I missed the warmup, and placed myself in the last lane with the 2 older women. They are still learning to swim and do shorter sets, but the next lane up had 5-6 people. Too crowded! Swimming in those conditions makes me forget all technique and form and I just swim as if my life depends on it. I get sick swimming in those cramped and faster lanes. Better for me to slow down and focus on form.

BUT! This is MMM, I'm not supposed to be drilling for an hour I'm supposed to be swimming! Granted, this was my first swim since Feb 4th and so I was a bit rusty. And tired from all the running over the weekend. But stop with the damned excuses! AAAHHHH!

The first set was 6x150 kicking (of all things on my poor legs) as 50 dolphin, 50 on sides, and 50 of kick underwater as far as you can then swim. And I didn't bring fins, so I was the slowest in the lane. I have this EXCUSE about not using fins--that my mangled ankle can't handle them. More excuses. I got no where near the 6x150, I did more of a 4x100.

Then we were supposed to do 4x400's. But since I was in the last lane the assignment was 4x200. I was having a bad form day: unfocused, bad technique, just not good. I corrected myself at one point to say I was having a bad swim, not a bad day. But I kept going and didn't quit. I had to rest more than I liked but I didn't quit. CHG hasn't given up on me yet, so I'm not giving up yet.

His advice today: i'm holding my lead arm out too low in the water. And my arms are so busy holding me up to breath that I'm not getting a strong pull. He had me swim a length breathing on the left side to demonstrate. He said I'm swimming without relying on the buoyancy of my lungs. That if I was thrown overboard with just a beach ball, I'd hold the beach ball over my head, instead of putting my shoulders over it. I'd save the beach ball but not me. Funny. I need to put my weight on my lungs and under my arm, NOT on my hand at the end of a bent arm.

I need to focus on swimming, I've given up on the TripleT race for 2011 for a few reasons. One of them is my weak swim. If I pick such an early tri, I'll focus too much on endurance instead of form, and I need to work on the form first. So I decided against an aggressive training plan. I'll start that in April or so. Now is the time to learn to swim! (I say that every single year!).

There are so many opportunities to swim:
Mon: MMM
Weds: YMCA

Fri: SD's swim

Sat: B-wood swim

Sun: another CHG option

What am I waiting for?