Swimming win

Black Friday.  I hate crowds, and I hate getting up early, so I sure as heck wasn't going shopping today.  I did however get to the Y, which was open thankfully.  I swam, I swam a lot.  It felt really great, and I just kept thinking, I've been in the pool awhile, I should probably get going, then thinking, nah, I think I'll just do another lap, or two.  Not only that, but I was moving today.  Most of my laps after I got warmed up were at a good speed (at least for me), I timed one and I hit 1:30 for 50 yards.  Nothing earth-shattering, but 15 seconds faster than my previous best efforts.

I've noticed a lot more when I'm swimming too, especially today.  Swimming is one of those wonderful contradictory sports.  The harder you try, the slower you go.  The more you relax and let it happen, the faster you go, and the easier it is.

I don't know if this is really true, but it felt like when I kick on a breaststroke, if I slow my leg action down a bit, so it more closely matches my swimming speed, I seem to get better results.  Kicking with a more even action, pushing all the way through the kick, pushing water back with my lower legs at the tail end of the kick seems to really help.  I've also noticed if I stop concentrating on my stroke so hard, and think more about the water around me, notice how buoyant I am when I don't struggle, I swim much more effectively, and with less effort.  The human body is something like 80% water, we mostly float if we don't struggle.  Just letting the water support my body in the middle part of the stroke, relaxing but keeping a good form, really seemed to help.  Of course, I'm still slow as molasses, but, it's an improvement.

I think I'm still struggling to find enough breath to really move more quickly.  I know when I concentrate on better movement, pull myself slightly more forward into the stroke, push forward more aggressively into the glide, I go a good bit quicker.  I just can't keep it up for more than a few strokes before my breathing can no longer keep time with the stroke, the time my head is above the water is much shorter, and I'm still not that great at clearing my mouth for an in-breath before I rise.

At some point I'm going to have to figure out how I can tackle front-crawl, though today, I was actually moving faster than the fellow in the lane next to me, who was swimming front crawl.  I liked that.