I have enrolled in an advanced swim class through my university’s continuing education program for two reasons, 1. It’s free as part of an employee benefit when you work for the university, 2. I needed some motivation to get myself to the pool! Last night’s drills made me inhale so much water through my nose that it made my tummy hurt!! I had never done so much backstroke in my life!!! It gave me a whole new appreciation for freestyle. It is obviously a weak stroke for me. Here was our swim:
400 free warm-up
2x100 backstroke
2x100 Right only backstroke
2x100 Breast
2x100 Left only back
2x100 breast kick
2x100 back kick
2x100 catch up backstroke
150 free cool down = 1950 total
This workout took me almost the full hour! The hardest one was the catch up back stroke! Here’s the thing with the lag time between one arm “catching” up to the other arm you are supposed to kick harder to stay afloat well my arms have always been stronger than my legs in the pool so that meant I sucked in a lot of water through my nose and it BURNED!!! All I could keep thinking was there are a lot of kids in the pool today and that only means one thing, and I don’t want to be inhaling that! ;-)
I loved this workout because it pushed me beyond my comfort zone and made me work muscles that I don’t normally work! This is why I like to take classes you always can learn something new. I had never in all my years of swimming done a back-stroke catch up drill, funny huh!
But one thing I don’t think I’ll ever learn is how to dive or do a flip turn, which is exactly why it’s a good thing I’m a triathlete you don’t have to know how to do either one of those. I remember joining the swim team as a teen and the coach spent entire weeks working with me on the flip turn. As the first swim meet approached and I became more desperate I foolishly ran my forehead into the wall while trying to flip. See I have horrible equilibrium and I get disoriented easily I thought I was already fully around but I wasn’t so when I went to swim forward I was stopped by the wall. So not only could I not do the swim meet I had to stand there cheering my team on with a massive swollen red bump on my head! With all the “traumatizing” stories about sports I seem to have from my past it’s amazing I’m still an athlete. It has taught me persistence, patience, determination and above all humiliation (I mean humility)! I don’t embarrass easily thanks to sports and my mom and love them both dearly!
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| In my head before I get in the pool this is what I picture myself looking like! |
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| Once I'm in the pool this is what it feels like! ;-) |
5 comments:
I use to knwo how to do flip turns, I forgot how to and I havent bothered to relearn them
How do you tell a triathlete is at a pool, they try to do another stroke and its horribly wrong.
I love that your doing other strokes, I am a believer in practicing what I call "in case of emergency" strokes, sometimes in a race we fall apart in the swim and abandon the free style, what I see people do is panic and either doggy paddle or sidestoke, by knowing you can do the breast or back stroke, you can switch styles with losing as little time as possible.
I tried to teach myself to flip turn once and almost smacked my face into the bottom of the pool.
I've done lots of drills but always stick with the only stroke I know. This year I've worked a bit on back stroke, but I'm more like that last picture with anything but freestyle :D
oh boy! i learned to do flip turns about 7 years ago and then something happened......i flipped and completely missed the wall and ended up hyperextending behind the knee. This was about 3 weeks prior to the Disney marathon and I thought for sure I was done. My last long run prior to the marathon was so painful that I only made it about 7 miles and had to walk back (crying) to my car. Never did another flip turn again and like you said, we're triathletes and we don't need to do flip turns. I do have my own funny way of turning at the wall so I don't "cheat."
I did a boat load of drills yesterday and felt like a spaz. I feel ya!
hahaha, I love the "before" you get in the pool pics :)
These comments have confirmed my commitment to not learning how to flip turn!!
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