please bear with me while I brag!
Let me remind you .... 2 months ago, in a LCM meet (and my first meet ever) I was doing 1:58 in 100 free!!!! I just started swimming, just over 3 months ago, first time ever, at the age of 34.
This afternoon at the workout the coach had us doing 4x100, on 4 minutes, no holding back race sets. (SCM pool)
I did 1:27, 1:30, 1:33 and 1:31 :)
The coach was very very pleasantly surprised... I was so surprised I thought he was reading off someone else's time!
Earlier in the workout he commented how my stroke is looking really good. Couple other teammates commented on my stroke looking good in last couple of weeks as well...
I'm vevy vevy excited... I think I feel a touchdown dance coming on... ;)
Parents
Former Member
One of my favorite non-swimming activities is kayaking. I sometimes can't help but think about the correlation between stroking the paddle on the kayak and my swimming. When I want to get in the zone and build up some speed, the strokes are loooong and the the pull is hard. There's no such thing as short choppy stokes to effectively gather speed when your dealing with the element of water. Too much splashing means that there's too much resistance.
The thought of kayaking always crosses my mind now in the pool especially when I'm getting tired. The best way to hang tough on a repeat of two hundreds is to keep nice clean form. Swimming smoothly will win every time over effort when the going gets tough. I happen to be a backstroker which in my mind is very much like paddling a boat. Ride high in the water with your hips just at the surface, and paddle a straight course.
Keeping the emphasis on stretching out rather than pulling water will ultimately lead to faster swimming. It's at that point that the strength factor will play an important role.
One of my favorite non-swimming activities is kayaking. I sometimes can't help but think about the correlation between stroking the paddle on the kayak and my swimming. When I want to get in the zone and build up some speed, the strokes are loooong and the the pull is hard. There's no such thing as short choppy stokes to effectively gather speed when your dealing with the element of water. Too much splashing means that there's too much resistance.
The thought of kayaking always crosses my mind now in the pool especially when I'm getting tired. The best way to hang tough on a repeat of two hundreds is to keep nice clean form. Swimming smoothly will win every time over effort when the going gets tough. I happen to be a backstroker which in my mind is very much like paddling a boat. Ride high in the water with your hips just at the surface, and paddle a straight course.
Keeping the emphasis on stretching out rather than pulling water will ultimately lead to faster swimming. It's at that point that the strength factor will play an important role.
