Monday's are technically my "off" day. I tend not to take them off though... I woke up this morning and spent the morning chatting with my friends. Both of the girls are feeling better this morning so that was good to hear. Oh and speaking of the girls... their 8 year old daughter is quite the character. Lately she's really into the Titanic. (I know odd for an 8 year old eh?, but they have been studying it in school). So an hour or so after I walked in the door I was handed a custom written test on facts about the titanic and was asked to take the test. I got about 50% correct and was told I need to do better next time. I've asked her to give me some lessons first before I have to take another test. Good silly fun.
Anyway... back to Monday. So this morning was spent drinking lots of coffee and chit chatting. Around 11am my friend Penelope and I headed off to the local pool/gym to get a swim in and get me situated. Turns out they have a special this week so I was able to buy 12 guest passes for the price of ten. So we headed off to our locker rooms, got dressed for the pool just in time to watch them pull the lane dividers out and let the old folks in for their water aerobics. doh! So we got dressed again and went for a walk around downtown for an hour. Then back into the pool.
Penelope teaches swimming lessons. So we used our time in the pool to work on my form a little bit which was great! She watched me from the side as well as from underwater and offered some great tips. For instance I wasn't reaching as far with my left arm as I was with my right which I promptly fixed. Then we mucked around with something called a swim tether. Which is basically a giant bungee cord you attach to the wall and then wrap a belt around your waist that makes it so you swim in place without moving. Sort of like a treadmill for the water. Only instead of the water moving like in one of those indoor mini pools, the water stays still and the bungee stops you from moving. I have to say I didn't care for it. The resistance of it lowers your postion in the water a bit so when you go to breath you have to rotate more. It felt odd. But it was good practice and it allowed Penelope to critique my form without having to follow me up and down the pool which was great. So we tweaked a few things and then we put in some laps.
The form tips I got from Penelope were great... my laps in the pool were not so great. I was back to that feeling of being winded every 50 meters and its all because of my kicking. I'm kicking way too much and its tiring me out. And the kicking is coming from my body position. And my poor body position is coming from too much open water time in a wetsuit last week. As much as I love the wetsuit its not fixing my form at all. So I think I may have to limit open water time to once or twice a week, or do it without the wetsuit on. Once I started to focus on form I was able to lower the entry angle of my arms and get my legs back up where they should be and restore my balance which was good. At least on the last lap or two, but it still needs work and as soon as I take the wetsuit off I start kicking too much. So I need to work on reducing my kick when I'm not wearing a wetsuit.
I also took advantage of the fact Penelope was there to use my phone to shoot some video of my form. Which you can see here:
Feel free to offer tips and advice on my form and suggestions for kicking less. I need all the help I can get!
Next up... I'll be back in the pool tomorrow morning for a 1/2 mile swim with as few breaks as possible and then not too long after that a brick bike/run workout. I haven't decided what length to do. At least 14 mile ride 5K run, but probably twice that. We'll see though.
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