Progress and Lessons Learned

Today's workout was tough. I was scheduled to swim 2600 at race pace in a series of drills. I decided I would use flipturns as much as I could from now on so I had to work real hard. Making things more difficult, I was going to do so without a warmup. A warmup is a great luxury to have because it allows you to get accustomed to the water and start off on the right track.

I started off with 4 200s with flipturns. It was okay but I felt real sluggish and even muffed a turn. To execute a flipturn you have measure a certain distance from the wall, flip over, push off the wall, twist your body and begin your stroke. As the set goes, on and you get more tired, it becomes harder and harder to execute the turns properly, plus you lose your technique and all sorts of other things happen. It feels really awful to mess up, lose your stroke, have water go up your nose etc. etc.

My next set was 500 yds with flipturns. I screwed up a turn early in the set and lost my stroke. I wanted to stop the whole workout but I pressed on, gather myself and vowed to finish the set. It stunk though, I had snot all over me, water in my nose and it took me about 45 strokes to get to each wall.

My final set consisted of 6 200s. After doing one of them without flipturns I was able to complete six of them. I went from wanting to quit and almost walking out of the pool, to finishing the set strongly and even doing an extra 200. I kept thinking to myself 'is this ever going to be easy'. I guess the simple answer is, 'as long as I keep working on them'. It doesn't really feel like I have made progress but the flipturns are going much better. I can easily complete them on 100s, 200s are getting better and as seen today, I can survive on doing them over 500. Plus I am pretty much doing them throughout the workout, so I am not far away from doing them as a rule.

Song in my head "PDA" John Legend http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4R_oswROic