Just keep swimming, just keep swimming ...

My swimming has definitely gotten better! Yesterday morning's workout:

8 x 75yd: kick/drill/swim for 25 in each set, rest interval (RI) 10".

Drill for the first 4 sets was the "finger tip drag" in which you try to lightly drag your finger tips along the water next to your ear as your arm comes out of the water on the recovery stroke. This is supposed to help get your elbow high out of the water to reduce drag and prepare for the next stroke. It also teaches you to make an efficient, fast recovery and not waste energy by hauling your arm way out of the water. The 2nd drill was the "catch up" drill where you don't start to pull with one arm until the other arm is also straight out in front of you. For a brief moment you have both arms straight ahead. It supposed to teach you to put power into your arm stroke or else you'll be kicking the whole way. I hate the catch up drill.

The rest of the workout was straight swimming with intervals:

2 x 200, RI = 30" : 75 moderate pace / 50 fast / 75 moderate
3 x 150, RI = 20" : 50 / 50 / 50
4 x 100, RI = 15" : 25 / 50 / 25

For cool down the coach had us swim laps together to start getting used to the madhouse that is triathlon in the water. We swam down and back in pairs, then in 3s, then all 4 of us together in the same lane. Lots of flailing arms and legs! I can see why the swim start can be terrifying, getting kicked in the face and literally having people swim over you.

Total without warm up and cool down was 1850 yards. That's about 200 more than we will be swimming, so my confidence is fairly high that I'll be able to handle it come April. Slowly, but at least I'll be able to do it. It seems like a long time ago that I could barely do one lap of freestyle without getting winded, but that was only November. Now if only the running were improving a the same clip ...

The swim was followed by a 30' run. It didn't feel great, but I got through it. It maybe wasn't the wisest choice to start out by going up the biggest hill I could find.