So this video was taken during the last set of the day. I'd already run 4 miles in the morning and swam nearly an hour so I was getting tired. The first length is catch-up drill, which looks ok. The second is 3/4 catch-up, and I'm putting my hands in way too early. The next 2 laps are just 100 freestyle. The first length looks ok, then it goes downhill from there. For one thing, my stroke count is way too high. When I bother to count, I'm usually around 18-19 strokes/length and if I really focus I've gone as low as 14. By the end of this 100, I'm up to 24. Higher cadence is NOT good in swimming, it means your stroke is weak and short. Ok, so here's the video.
This morning I went to the big kids' 6:30am master's class, taught by my Tuesday coach. I was the lone swimmer in the guppy lane. If there were more people and I was forced to swim with the girls in the next lane up, I probably could have held on (it did help that the sets weren't longer than 200 yards, it usually take a couple hundred more for me to get lapped). This class is 90 minutes, though since I'm used to swimming an hour I only did 75 minutes. And I should be very proud, I swam the whole class bilateral breathing, except for a couple odd strokes here and there. This is HUGE, usually when I try to swim faster I give up after a couple hundred and revert back to breathing on the left to keep up better. When I breath on one side, it's as comfortable as walking. When I bilateral breath, it's like a very fast jog. Doable, but much more work.
So, while eye-opening, I don't know how much this will change my swimming plans right now. I may switch from Thursday morning to Friday morning class to get more yardage in the rest of this year. And then sometime around February I'll start swimming 3 days a week, and some/most of those classes will be 75-90 minutes. Then I'll be swimming about 9,000 yards a week, about double what I'm doing now. So if I can just get my stroke back to being completely comfortable, in 2010 I can work on getting faster again.
(And if you have a waterproof camera at the pool, it's fun to play around with it)
3 comments:
I'm impressed with the bilateral breathing, however bad you feel about your form!!! As you know, I'm a sucky, sucky swimmer -- but one thing I noticed is your kick... it seems like you're pulling yourself forward largely with your arms, and that it could be "easier" with a more powerful, more straight-legged kick? But that might just be because you had run earlier in the day and your legs had had their workout already. Either way, that breathing was awesome. Bilateral breathing when you're a one-side breather is HARD!!!
Thanks Christina, about the point about kicking. I think I kick less when I bilateral breath because I get out of breath so much quicker. I found a video of me swimming 15 months ago breathing on one side and it's smoother.
My biggest issue with swimming (apart from breathing LOL) is that there's so damn much to think about at the same time. With running, I can adjust one thing without everything else falling apart. With swimming, if I focus on breathing, everything else goes down the drain. So it makes perfect sense to me. :)
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