Small corrections

My improvements in the pool have been following an interesting path. I've made some serious gains this year, already being faster than I ever would have expected, so I find it intriguing how I've gotten better. It's been through a series of form and fitness gains, rarely at the same time. When I first started, I needed to gain enough fitness to survive 200m, no matter how much splashing and flailing was required. Once I got some coaching, my body position improved dramatically, and I was faster. I worked harder in the pool, and added more speed. I learned the proper way to "catch", and got quicker. Another round of chasing my faster lanemates, and the times kept coming down. Now, we're back to more form correction.

The coach had noticed that I wasn't pulling all the way through, not extending my arm completely and robbing myself of potential output from my triceps. (That was last week.) So, today I put a real focus on long pulls, and subsequently found that I tended to reach longer at the same time. (This should be a good thing.) But during a pull set, the coach pointed out that I was now reaching across my body, so he had me focus on taking a much wider hand position upon entry. And like magic, there was a bit easier effort. My over-reach was causing me to wiggle my way up the pool, but the wider (and now straighter) pull had me taking the best line. I found that if I focused on that, I had a tendency to revert to short-arming the pull, so it will take some practice to get everything to fire the way it's supposed to. But this time next year, the folks at the Olympic trials won't be twice as fast as me. (Probably just 1.5-1.7 times as fast.)

Swim: w/u - 200m each free, non-free, pull
500 ez pull, 30"
2x400, 30" (1- pull w/paddles, 2- ez pull)
3x300, 30" (odd- mod-hard free, even- ez pull)
4x200, 30" (odd- ez pull, even- HIM pace free)
100 sprint (1:44)
Total: 3700m