After the I.M. thread and watching my daughter at her meet I got to wondering if being good at certain strokes has anything to do with heredity. If you read the I.M. thread you know that I am terrible at the breaststroke. Today my daughter had to do the 100 I.M. She was second after the fly and doing the backstroke. She had at least a 1/4 of a pool length on the two swimmers behind her. All the parents around me were commenting on how good she looked. I told them to wait and see what happens on the breaststroke. What do you know the two swimmers behind her caught her and past her on the breaststroke. She dropped down to fourth place. Is she destined to be a terrible breaststroker like me? Keep in mind that she has always done lessons at the Y and not with me.
I really hate breaststroke now. I used to have a decent 50 (31.8 good start!); 100 (1:09); and 200 (2:29) and now I can barely break 2:40. Granted, my body has changed with 3 kids in the last 5 years but COME ON! My stroke is pathetic.
Coaches offer advice, I do it, then something else comes up. I had Roque (Santos) try and teach me the wave stroke and that made everything worse. During any given race you will see any one of 10 variations of the WRONG stroke. It's so frustrating!!!
Lately, I've been working on snapping my kick (my kick WAS really strong-I would've contended for me more than 65% of my stroke) and doing a quick recovery into the next stroke. And on my pushoffs, video shows, I go down towards the bottom off the wall. That was a relatively easy fix today as Mike (Heaney) said to just lift my chin a little bit- that worked :)
I definitely took my breaststroke for granted, and now that I don't have it I really miss it :p (sniff sniff) I now have hope that one day it will come back as I get glimmers here and there. I can't wait for that day!
I really hate breaststroke now. I used to have a decent 50 (31.8 good start!); 100 (1:09); and 200 (2:29) and now I can barely break 2:40. Granted, my body has changed with 3 kids in the last 5 years but COME ON! My stroke is pathetic.
Coaches offer advice, I do it, then something else comes up. I had Roque (Santos) try and teach me the wave stroke and that made everything worse. During any given race you will see any one of 10 variations of the WRONG stroke. It's so frustrating!!!
Lately, I've been working on snapping my kick (my kick WAS really strong-I would've contended for me more than 65% of my stroke) and doing a quick recovery into the next stroke. And on my pushoffs, video shows, I go down towards the bottom off the wall. That was a relatively easy fix today as Mike (Heaney) said to just lift my chin a little bit- that worked :)
I definitely took my breaststroke for granted, and now that I don't have it I really miss it :p (sniff sniff) I now have hope that one day it will come back as I get glimmers here and there. I can't wait for that day!
