Swim lesson

This morning I had my first private swim lesson. It was really, really awesome. There were long mirrors over the bottom of my lane in the pool so I could watch myself swim. Here are some big things I will be working on:

wide tracks: make sure my arms make "wide tracks," not narrow ones or weird, curvy ones. I think I was making weird curvy ones.

reaching with each stroke: I try to do this already, but today I felt like my stroke and hips were aligned just right.

engaged core: this I have not done in the past. Coach told me to make my core stiff like a soldier so I could get more power out of my body rotation. This seemed to make a huge difference. Note: MUST work on core strength. No more excuses!!!

High elbows: I've always heard about this but didn't actually understand what it meant. Now I do and it's fantastic. I could literally feel my arms pulling water out of the way. This will make a huge difference in my swimming! And, there may actually be a bit of glide in my stroke now.

We worked on some drills and my flip-turns, too. Stroke count is a big deal with swimmers. It's just how many strokes you take per length. You count on both sides, so every time an arm enters the water. I went from 28 at the beginning of the lesson to 21 at the end! Huge, huge improvement. 28 kinda, okay, really sucks. I am a little short person, though, so 21 is pretty damn good! Coach had the best female swimmer show us her stroke and she does 15 or so in a length. She was amazing! Michael Phelps probably has 3 strokes per length. J/K...but just a little.

The conclusion: Coach said I'm actually pretty decent and he thinks I can become a very good swimmer...and he wasn't just being nice ;-) I think he's right and I look forward to practicing what I've learned and improving. I feel very positive about all of this.

Also going to start open water swimming (OWS) every week or two so I can get used to it and, hopefully, not panic like normal. I'm going to make this happen. This has been a really great week for my training. It doesn't feel overwhelming and I'm being incredibly consistent, which is key. Starting to feel a bit fatigued, like I need a nap every day (I wish!) in addition to a full night's sleep. Probably just my body adjusting. I'm also obsessed with eating and plan activities around when and what to eat. I have eating on my calendar. I've been reduced to my most primitive self :)

Goals for next week (other than training and getting serious science nerd work done):

hydrate

core work!

HTFU