I finally had a swimming breakthrough. Troy and Annie coached my swim workout today and they were great. Annie played at the edge of the pool while Troy dictated my workout and gave tips and encouragement. I started with a 300 M warmup, which I did pretty hard. He then had me do some laps of kick-board drills, adjusting my kicking form each lap. He would give me a tip to work on each time, until my kick started looking good. Then we practiced the good kick for awhile. He then had me do some fingertip drills with a floaty between my legs, it took quite awhile to get used to the floaty. After that he had me put on flippers and this is when it all started to sink in. My arms and hips finally started to do the right thing when I had the flippers on. So after a 200 of flippers we switched back to the floaty and I finally got it. We did 200 with that, and then went back to the flippers, it was really sinking in now! I could feel the correct form. All during this time Annie and Troy were playing in the water together, and Annie even drank an entire bottle while floating around in the pool with Troy!

Then Troy had me do a pyramid of 100, 200, 300, 200, 100, with specific rests in-between. I was able to really keep my form and extend my arms to get maximum pull. My catch is coming together, my breathing is pretty good, and I am keeping my fingertips close to the ear and down in the water. It really felt great!

After the pyramid we experimented around with my “ear issues”. I never seem to be able to pop them appropriately. We finally realized I have to manually plug my nose, I can’t do it any other way. So I’m not sure how I’m going to plug my nose when I do flip turns, but I’ll work something out. It’s the least of my worries right now!

All in all today I got in 2250 Meters! That’s a record for me!

AND IT FINALLY FELT GOOD.

I’m actually excited about my next swim and hope that Troy and Annie will come!