For the first time in my life, my swimming is feeling great -- I look forward to it, and it doesn't exhaust me like it used to....especially post-IM. I am feeling the water people!!! I can feel it when I swim! My back muscles are sore after I swim. YAHOO!!! Instead of the wrong muscles being sore, the right ones are.
I've been swimming with my BFF Charmaine (also known as Charmers) in the lima bean pool. Some of you may recall the year I first met her. I saw her doing I don't know how many lengths of butterfly and decided that she was the perfect person to ask about swim advice.
She immediately dove into the project (yes, pun intended) and proceeded to give me all kinds of tips. She was the one who decided that for the rest of that year I was to concentrate on kicking. Kicking fast, kicking slow, kicking fast and slow. She would swim underneath me and poke me (HARD) when she felt I wasn't kicking hard enough. LMAO -- that was the year I took 10 minutes off my IM swim time.
Well, we are back together again -- wreaking havoc in the pool. The aqua-aerobic ladies ganged up on Charmers the last time we swam, in an epic splash fight. Hahahah -- the energy is so good at that pool. :)
Anyways, Operation Make Julie Swim Faster has begun again. (Under the supervision of Coach Sara of course) -- Charmers has decided I still need to kick harder, but this time, she swims beside me and grabs the side of my bum really hard and shakes it if she thinks I am not kicking with my bum enough. OMG it HURTS! LMAO!!!!
I never know when she is going to appear either -- she is stealthy and she is fast. Hahaha!
Another thing she has suggeseted I start integrating into my training is breathing every 5 and 7 strokes. This is the second time this year, this has been suggested to me -- earlier this year, I took a series of stroke improvement classes...
Anyways, after presenting Coach Sara with the proof of how awesome my BFF is at swimming, she has integrated breathing work into my sessions. Except she went one step further and added breathing every 9 strokes as well.
9 strokes.
Well, my first attempt at this went pretty well, but I cheated a little. (Just a little. Hee-hee!)
I could do 100m of breathing every 9 strokes if I:
- didn't do any flip turns
- took a sneaky breath before I arrived at the wall
- took another breath at the wall
- took another sneaky breath on the first half-stroke after I pushed off the wall
My last big race of the year is one month away!!! I'm still eating Paleo-style and am needing to buy new pants. My old ones are literally falling off me.
7 comments:
Your Pukie is up!!! Congrats
Are you saying I missed my opportunity to grab your (rapidly shrinking) bum during our swim date last November?????
Glad you now feel the water, and know what we were talking about..
Thanks BDD! LOL!!! :)
Keith - you can grab it but there is less of it to grab. LOL!!!!!
Awesome! You are going to kill it in Florida soon!
The stuff you are doing in the pool is great. I do a lot of controlled breathing pull/swim sets with my group (i.e. breathe 3,5,3,7)- hypoxic/bilateral breathing sets are super useful! Keep it up girl!
Thanks Lisa -- I am still struggling with these breathing drills -- I still have to cheat.
Wow, 9 strokes?? I do 5s and 7s pretty regularly in training, but a 9 stroke swim never occured to me.
And I'll send some poundage to you. I seem to be finding more of it these days...
Theia -- I am jealous that you do the 5s and 7s regularly! How do you do them without peeing? Oh my God, I pee a little every time I feel like I'm going to explode for lack of air. What is this teaching me?!?!?! LOL!!
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