It was time for another session with my swim coach Matt. I had made a lot of progress practicing on my own for the last month, but I could tell my progress was starting to wane. I had read good advice that to maximize your training sessions, you should practice a lot to make progress but you also don't want to allow any bad habits to become "muscle memory".
I at least showed up better prepared. If nothing else, I looked more like a swimmer with my Speedo bathing cap to keep my long hair out of my eyes and my recently purchased TYR swimming suit. Furthermore, this time water in my ears wouldn't be an issue with my silicone ear plugs.
Shopping for my swim suit had proven to be just about as much effort and challenge as swimming my first 25 yards had been. I arrived to the store and found racks of European sizes 28 to 42. As a size 6, I eyed them and figured about a size 32 should do. I took one of each brand - about 10 in total - into the dressing room. As I couldn't get the first one up over my hips, I thought perhaps I had picked up a girls size by accident. Some 32s went on but nothing fit. Time for round II.
Not wanting to get fully clothed, I put back on the least wedge prone suit and quickly left the dressing room to grab another 10 suits in a range of sizes. I returned to find out I was locked out!! And, there was no sales clerk in sight!!! After 5 minutes, I saw a sales clerk in an adjacent department so I bellowed, "yoohoo!". She summoned the sales clerk with the keys, who showed up after another 5 minutes, took one look at me, and laughed hysterically. About 5 of the 10 fit comfortably. The thought crossed my mind that perhaps I should purchase 2 given the amount of effort swim suit shopping entails, but then I settled on the reversable TYR so I got 2 in 1.
So, back with Matt, he observes me swim a length, and he says my stroke is looking pretty good. I'm keeping my head down and clearly my breathing has improved since I can now swim a full length. It's my kick, he tells me, that we need to work on. He demonstrates with his hands that my legs are too far apart and not close enough to the surface of the water. He has me do a few lengths with a kick board - with my head out, no stroke and just getting down the pool with leg power. Wow, who knew that could be so hard! But, through various drills, I see what he means.
He says now that I'm getting technique down, we need to work on my aerobic endurance. After all, there's no side to hang on in open water! He has me do 4 x 50 yards. I do some but not all without stopping. The final part of the set before the cool down is a few 25 yards as fast I can. This is actually fun with my new found kicking power as I do feel like I'm gliding faster.
I'm happy that this time the hour lesson went faster and I wasn't looking at the clock like the first lesson. I get out of the pool, and this time "grandpa" asks me if I'm trying for the Olympics or something. Well, far from it, but I'll be happy if by the end of February I can swim freestyle 200 yards non-stop.
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