Slowly Coming Together

I’m writing about swimming this past Saturday. So after a night of drinking and getting less sleep, I woke up to practice. I started to warm up and everything was alright. I did a 400 free nice and slow to warm up. I didn’t care how slow I was I just wanted to warm up so I could be ready for the main set. The next step was the 3 200’s: 50 drill, 50 swim, 50 drill and 50 swim. I was working to align my head and spine as I was reaching for air but aiming my right hand was tough. Again I got to work on aiming my left and right leading hand in a way, which I’m not crossing over when I’m swimming. Jeri did talk to me and said my right hand is a little to far, she said what was important was that I extended my right shoulder so I can move forward. Again I can’t stress this enough I got to make sure I’m not crossing over, and I’m not leading my hand flat, but rather in an angle, say 4 o’clock. As for the main set, as I was trying to swim fast, the faster I tried the more I lost my technique. Holding my technique will be key. Another thing that will be important will be to focus on my kick. My kick will be key so that I can shorten my stroke count. Today is Tuesday and things are starting to come together. I started off doing 100’s of freestyle, keeping my focus on sweet spot breathing. All last month I started my morning workouts with this set, making sure that my head and spine are aligned when going for air. I’ve gotten used to it, and created a habit out of it so I’ve been able to focus on other things. Today I’ve been working on the pull of my arms. I’ve learned when pulling, you have to pull with your entire arm, not just the forearms. Another thing that I focused on, when pulling in freestyle is to keep my elbows high when pulling underwater as well as to keep them high over-water. So I worked with that and continued to practice rotating my hips. After paying attention to detail, and going it over slowly, I took a run at a 100 freestyle. After using my technique, I felt like I used less energy than usual and swam a top time of 1:18 in a meter pool. This is a REALLY good sign that things are coming together. I think the one step I can take from here is use Monday wednsday and Friday as my technique days, and having Tuesday and Thursday as my speed/endurance days. I’ll be swimming tonight, I got to make sure I focus on keeping my technique together, no matter how fast I swim.