Swim Frustrations

Sunday was a frustrating swim - one of the goals of the workout was to increase our distance per stroke (DPS in swim speak), which you measure by how many strokes you take per length. We did various drills to work on sculling and the pull and my shoulders definitely got a good workout. My stroke count, however, went from the usual 22-24 down to an exciting 18 for one length then back to 24, cranked past that to 27 then steadied out again at 24.

Grrrr!

I got so tense trying to get the stroke count down and annoyed at being unsuccessful that I completely exhausted myself. I finally decided to stop counting and instead work on form and relaxing.

The next day at the Masters swim at the Y the coach was half an hour late. Normally this would seriously annoy me but the thought of doing an hour of easy, continuous swimming instead of a structured workout made me very happy. No offense to Paul, but I was a little disappointed when he finally did show up.

This confirms for me that at the end of this Masters session I should swim on my own on weekdays. I'd been up in the air about this for a while. It's a big expense and, more importantly, I think I need the opportunity to just swim, to be relaxed in the water and not have a major workout plan. I might actually be looking forward to the long time trials in the pool - don't tell Alan!