Day 25: Masters' Swimming

I survived getting up at 4:45, swimming from 6 to 7:15, then working from 8:30 to 4. I'm really tired now.

Today's swimming wasn't quite as difficult today as it was on Monday from a keeping up standpoint, but it was challenging from a doing things to improve my freestyle stroke perspective. Apparently, I learned to breathe wrong. I have this tendency to look forward for the wall, instead of down at the bottom of the pool. This creates drag, because my head isn't in line with my body, so I'm not streamlined. Now, part of it is because I instinctively (and apparently this is incredibly common) try to pick my head up to clear it from the water in order to breathe. Part of it is because I'm irrationally afraid the wall isn't going to be where I think it's going to be (it's a depth perception thing. My body's pretty good at telling how far away from the wall I am, but my brain doesn't believe it, because I can't see it). So, today, I worked on keeping my chin ducked down so my head was even with my body. The not seeing the wall thing, that I'm mostly okay with. But figuring out how to breathe without lifting my head? Well, that's another story. According to Mich, my coach,  half my face is supposed to be in the water when I turn my head to breathe. Meaning that half my mouth should be in the water. Now, I'm not entirely sure how one breathes without swallowing or choking if one's mouth is still partly in the water. I forgot to ask, but I'm wondering if people who do this are also breathing through their nose (which would be out of the water, pretty much). That's not an option for me- when I'm swimming, I have nose clips, because I have a sinus defect and chronic sinusitis and I'm not supposed to get water up my nose, because my sinuses don't drain properly and they don't really need the encouragement to get infected. They do that just fine on their own. So, figuring out the breathing thing went mostly all right. I only choked once (and still finished the 100 I was in the middle of). I don't think I got it, really, but I think I got a little better at keeping my head down.

The other thing I need to work on is my kick. I bend my knees too much and they separate too much (i.e., I kick too deep). That, I don't think I was as successful in working on today, mostly because I was a little preoccupied with not drowning when I tried to breathe. So, I'll have to keep trying.

And yes, yesterday I was supposed do some walking. And that didn't so much happen. Mostly because I was a little spacey yesterday morning and while I remembered to pack my workout clothes, I, um, didn't remember to take the bag with me. Yeah. ADD brain in action! The original plan had been to go to work, go see if I could find new shoes at one of the sporting goods stores around where the gym is, then go try out my new shoes. Well, the finding new shoes part of the plan worked- I bought these shoes, on sale at Dick's Sporting Goods. The walking part, not so much. So, I will go do that walk sometime this weekend (probably Saturday, before I settle in for college football watching). Tomorrow, I will endeavor to not forget my bag!