Farewell to a Shot

The Shot recently took a new job, and is in DC this week. Then she'll be somewhere else (I wasn't really listening), and then off to Philly for a long time. Two things I expect from this:

1. Even less blog entries than before.
2. Understandable frustration with the crappy hotel gyms that she'll encounter.

Last Thursday's drills went well - the pool cleared out some and people let me do my thing in my own lane. Same with Monday - I think the drills I'm working on actually look more like drills, and not just "why's this dude floating on his back?" Monday I was working on Lesson 3 out of about 5, dealing with the Under Skate and the Skate switch (relearning stroke timing) and tonight I should be working on Zipper Skate (yeah...) and Zipper Switch, which is even more stroke-like.

I'm still enjoying the book, and the drills, and everything. It's made swimming into something that's difficult mentally more than physically. Whether I'll be a faster or more efficient swimmer at the end remains to be seen, but I'm pretty confident.

Hang ups and hang overs

The beer lives! Went out last night to Red Line Tap up north to see "Sex Fist." As the name suggests they are a bluegrass band, and a pretty damn good bluegrass band at that. Granted, I don't have a huge amount of experience with bluegrass, but they were in tune and stuff, and their (seemingly original) songs were very entertaining. Plus, $2 Berghoff's are a good deal!

All of this is to say I'm NOT swimming today, preferring instead to hunt down, kill, and devour the greasiest burger in a 4 block radius. As far as Monday's swim, it was pretty brutal. This is the time of year when all the freaking New Year's resolution people show up for about 2 months, never to be seen again. I was working on Lesson 3, which is more floating, rolling, kicking, etc. From the side of the pool, I think I look like I'm just messing around because EVERYONE wanted to jump into my lane. First, a coworker who's also training for the triathlon showed up in my lane. He hopped over to another lane, and somebody else jumped in. He then decided to share a lane with somebody who was actually swimming, at which point my 3rd swimming budy showed up. And the whole time I'm trying to do my drills smushed to the side of the lane, trying not to get kicked by the girl in the next lane who only knows breast-stroke...

Yeah, swimming can wait until tomorrow.

Push the Float!

I'm back! Limitted swimming oportunities in the wilds of Virginia, so I was back in the pool again after a pretty long break.

Over my vacation, I started reading my Total Immersion book. In short the book is written by a swimming coach who figured out that the perfect form and ease that the really great swimmers have can be taught to any swimmer, no matter what level. Paradoxically, people who've done any swimming at all have to unlearn just about everything they were taught, and for that he has a series of drills that are supposed to retrain your muscles to swim correctly.

Today, I floated on my back and kicked. I couldn't really believe it when I was reading it on the bus this morning, and the author goes out of his way to warn not to skip the first lesson. Turns out, it's hella harder than you would think. The goal is to get perfectly balanced in the water on your back, making as small a "hole" in the water as possible. Once the balance was down, I moved on to rolling from side to side, still staying balanced, not kicking too hard, not struggling. Also, after every lap I'm allowed to stand up, take some breaths, drink some water. If I feel like I'm loosing concentration, I can stand up and take a break.

And it's still freaking hard. It takes a lot of concentration, and you can feel your core trying to stabilize everything at once. I'm totally hooked! I started reading up on the next lesson, for Friday. Instead of feeling beat up, I feel energized, and I feel like I've learned a new skill - good balance in the water.