Gold star

Due to travel, I won't be at swimming on Friday, so I was prepared to hit today pretty hard, and the workout was one that makes it easy to do lots of hard work: descending sets. My warm-up felt really good today, a few of the form points I've been working on really started to feel like they were clicking: hands a bit outside at entry, high elbow catch, pulling all the way through. I was ready for a couple of tough sets.

I won't bother describing every 200, but I made all the goals of the workout, which are to descend every time, and I put in good efforts. Right before my last 2 attempts, the coach gave one other pointer to really hit the efforts hard, and it worked for a little bonus speed when I was struggling. I got a little sloppy near the end, so I'll need to learn to rein it in for easier efforts, but anything to get faster is good news.

During a break in the action, I had a brief chat with the coach. He pointed out that I had probably improved the most of anyone in the club this year. It would be a little embarrassing to say I may have been beaming like a grade-schooler who got a gold star, but I may have. I said that had been my goal; I wasn't going to be the fastest, I could take Most Improved as a suitable target. By the end of next year I'll be shooting for the fast lane. If I keep showing up, keep doing the work, keep listening to advice, I'm not going to get any slower.

Swim: w/u - 200m each free, non-free, pull
5x200 free descending, 30" (4:10, 4:07, 3:57, 3:47, 3:38)
2x200 as 50 back/25 breast/25 free, 30"
5x200 pull descending, 30" (3:57, 3:54, 3:45, 3:37, 3:25)
c/d - 100 each back, pull, breast, pull
Total: 3400m