Day 3: Swim Lessons

I switched sports today and did some swimming. I had $100 in credit at the gym, and I thought, hey, it's been awhile since I've done any competitive swimming (not that this is exactly competitive swimming, but still) and since I can use the credit for group swimming lessons, why not? Might be good to get some advice and training. So, I have lessons every Wednesday evening until the end of September.

Tonight was my first lesson. I was in a group with another woman who was making up a lesson, so she won't be there next week, so I may be alone in the group, which would be kind of nice for me. I felt bad for this woman, though- the aquatics director thought she was an intermediate swimmer who had been through the basic lessons and it turned out that she was really a beginner. Like, scared of the water, not comfortable floating beginner. I'm a pretty proficient swimmer, so it was a little bit of a skills mismatch. So, after about five minutes, the aquatics director (who knew I'm a good swimmer because I'd told her when I signed up for lessons so she could put me in the right level) came over and worked with me so that Colin, the instructor, could concentrate on the beginner lady. That was probably better for us both- I was game to do the beginner stuff, especially since it would only be one week, but I think the fact that I was clearly at a higher skill level was frustrating for her and making her feel embarrassed, even though I was trying to be encouraging.

So, it turns out that I still have really good mechanics for someone who hasn't done serious training in nearly 15 years. There's some adjustments I could make on backstroke (which was never my best stroke to begin with), but my freestyle and breaststroke were both pretty darn good. We're going to ignore the existence of butterfly, because, well, I have no real need to torture myself. I can do the components of fly- the arms and the kick- but when I try to put them together, I get about three strokes in and then I lose the rhythm and it falls apart. Colin the instructor says he never even actually learned to do it, so he's just as happy I don't want to mess with it. And there's no way I'd use it for the tri- it's too energy intensive. I figure I'll do most of it freestyle (which is my best stroke anyway, as well as being the most efficient) with some breast stroke thrown in if I get tired. Next week, we'll start looking at endurance and how I do swimming over distance (we were in the leisure pool, so I was swimming less than 25 meters at a time).