Swimming pool victory

Last night was my final coached swim of the year.  I'm already signed up for the January session though!  This program has done so much for my swimming that I'll be sticking with it for the foreseeable future.

We did a timed 1000m swim.  The first time I've ever done one.  I've done plenty of timed 500s though, some on my own and a couple in the coached program.  I've never done a 500 faster then 11:35.

That is until last night.  I did 2 timed 500s faster then 11:35, and I did them back to back, for a 1000m time of 22:57.  I'm pretty thrilled about that right now.

The really cool thing about my swimming is that I can actually feel the water now.  One stroke tip I've received at multiple times is to enter the water a bit wider.  I have a tendency to enter too close to the middle, which causes me to cross over, which leads to a less efficient stroke.

The first time I remember being given this stroke tip was back in the spring.  Now, I intellectually understood all of these things.  Intellectually, I knew that this was a better way to do it.  When I actually swam wider though, I was doing it because I knew I should.  It felt awkward.

I was given this tip again a couple weeks ago.  This time, when I made a point of implementing it, I could feel the difference.  I could actually feel that I had more leverage in the water.  I was able to grab more water and move further on a single stroke.  It still feels a bit awkward, as does any stroke adjustment initially.  But, rather then just intellectually knowing why I'm doing it, I can feel it.

Pretty cool stuff.