Hello. First post. I'm Canadian (British Columbia), and I haven't found a forum like this for Canada. This looks like a wonderful place - friendly, intelligent people - a great resource.
So.....I was a runner for 40+ years. Then it became a struggle in my mid 50s. (I'll be 57 next month.) Osteoarthritis in both knees put an end to it. When I got this diagnosis, I moped for a while, and then, on February 21st, 2019, it suddenly occurred to me that Swimming is my new sport.
I bought a few books, and went to the pool most days since SRD. (Swimming Realization Day.) I absolutely love the feeling of swimming. It's my new drug. I hope I can have 40+ years of it. :)
But in these early days I cannot claim to be very good at it. I'm improving rapidly, and that in itself is thrilling. The books are very helpful, and I'm making adjustments/improvements in form. I care only about Freestyle.
At the time of this post, my very modest PRs in a 25m pool (without diving in) are:
25m-19sec
50m-42sec
100m-1min32sec
200m-3min26sec
400m-7min19sec
800m-14min53sec
1600m-31min19sec
I think by the time mid-April rolls around, I can be under 7min 400m. 400m seems to be my favourite event at this early stage. It just so happens that our Provincial Masters Meet is in mid-April. In running, I lived for meets. Those events organized my running. I'd love to do the same in swimming.....but I am so new at this.
I'm terrified about signing up for this meet in mid-Apr. Do I belong there with a 7min 400m? I've looked at old results, and I'm in awe of the times recorded. I understand that as a 7min 400m person, I would be in a heat with other people around my time, no matter the age/sex. That's a wonderful thing. But I'm still mortified.
It's a new sport. I'm very new at it. I'm not even sure what I'm asking in this post.
Perhaps some of you will describe similar situations in your journey? Maybe you can talk me into signing up and losing my inhibitions? I'd hate to wimp out of this, then read results afterwards and cringe, while shouting "I would have loved this".
Ugh.
I spent half the morning watching flipturn how-to videos. I got to the pool and promptly commenced the somersault with noodle drill. Then I did a series of turns at the wall, including one where I dragged my back along the shallow end bottom. Just when I thought that I was getting somewhere, it occurred to me that all of these turns had given me motion sickness. I felt like puking for the remainder of the flipturnless session. (400/200/100/50/50 warmup + 200 bung + 400 cooldown.) I was very disappointed that the 200m was only 3:18. I was hoping for 3:14-3:16 today. I'm not sure where I go from here regarding those damn turns. This was not an issue that I anticipated. I still feel like I've been on Space Mountain as I type this. Sheesh.
If you're super dizzy doing flip turns, my first guess would be that you're trying to literally "flip." That's kind of a misnomer. For me, it's helpful to think of a flip turn as more of a pike movement than, say, a barrel roll. That also helps with the precision of the movement - you don't want to tuck your torso up too much because you want your body streamlined in the direction you're going to jump off of the wall as quickly as possible.
TBH I don't really like open water flipping drills for people first learning flip turns because it encourages just throwing your body over like that and deemphasizes the needed precision of the movement.
Anyway, there's soooo much complexity to turns, as there tends to be with movements that require a lot of precision in a very short window of time... I could wax poetic for awhile, but that's not going to help you learn them in the first place :P
Ugh.
I spent half the morning watching flipturn how-to videos. I got to the pool and promptly commenced the somersault with noodle drill. Then I did a series of turns at the wall, including one where I dragged my back along the shallow end bottom. Just when I thought that I was getting somewhere, it occurred to me that all of these turns had given me motion sickness. I felt like puking for the remainder of the flipturnless session. (400/200/100/50/50 warmup + 200 bung + 400 cooldown.) I was very disappointed that the 200m was only 3:18. I was hoping for 3:14-3:16 today. I'm not sure where I go from here regarding those damn turns. This was not an issue that I anticipated. I still feel like I've been on Space Mountain as I type this. Sheesh.
If you're super dizzy doing flip turns, my first guess would be that you're trying to literally "flip." That's kind of a misnomer. For me, it's helpful to think of a flip turn as more of a pike movement than, say, a barrel roll. That also helps with the precision of the movement - you don't want to tuck your torso up too much because you want your body streamlined in the direction you're going to jump off of the wall as quickly as possible.
TBH I don't really like open water flipping drills for people first learning flip turns because it encourages just throwing your body over like that and deemphasizes the needed precision of the movement.
Anyway, there's soooo much complexity to turns, as there tends to be with movements that require a lot of precision in a very short window of time... I could wax poetic for awhile, but that's not going to help you learn them in the first place :P
