Now the Hard Work Begins

During the first several times I went swimming, I saw a rapid improvement, but that has since slowed. About 3 weeks ago I swam a set of 550 yards at a pace 2:25/100meters. Today in my tri-swimming group, our last set was to time 300 yards and I finished at a pace of 2:25/100 meters. Granted this was after swimming 1500 yards, but we did have a brief rest. Bottom line is that there was no miraculous improvement.  As in previous sets of longer than 100 yards, my first 100 yards is about 2:05 and my second set of 100 yards drops to 2:20. 

I've got both form and endurance work to do.  On endurance, I was the fastest in the slow lane, while we were doing sets of 100 or less. When it came to the set of 300 yards and after 100 yards, I had a marathon runner on my heels.  

As for form, Swim Smooth outlined 6 swim types. The video on overgliders really nailed me. Some key takeaways:

• Often tall male swimmers
• Struggles to breathe bilaterally. Typically breathes every two strokes to one preferred side (unilateral breathing) with distinctly more rotation to the breathing side.
  Overgliders have a slow stroke rate, ideal is about 76 spm. (Mine is about 50 spm.)
• Distinct dead spot in stroke
• Have idea that they should be heavily rotating, (but causes legs to scissor kick apart, slows them down)
• Overgliders tend to have an engineering or analytical background
• Focus too much on every stroke, trying to make every stroke perfect
• Takeaway: Swtch off and focus on rhythm of stroke.

Today, I tried working on faster turnover, but then I end up pulling early with my left hand as I breathe from my right side. I also often feel that when I turn to breathe, my legs start to sink. I did find a small glimmer of hope. I found that if when I rotate to breathe, if I snap the movement it seems to work better. Of course, I'd get into the rhythm and then need to turn around and I'd lose the rhythm. I'll need to time it next time to see how it works.