Master's Swim

Reason number 709 that I love the YMCA: Master's Swim.  It's free.  It's 90 minutes but the coach will let you do what you want since it's free.  It's offered three times a week and, while two of them do take place in the wee hours of the morning when swimmers seem to come to life, Saturday morning practice is at the much happier hour of 7:30.  It's free.  They hold at least 4 lanes for master's swim workouts.  Did I mention it's free?  I finally tried it out this morning and it was so SO awesome.  It'll probably not happen too much because I also love the cycling class on Saturday mornings, but hopefully I'll get myself there from time to time.

Anyway, the coach had no problem with me cutting each set in half because while I do try to cap my exercise at 90 minutes I prefer to have a variety of exercise in those precious minutes.  For part of one of the sets I threw in some butterfly to mix it up more (the rest of the workout was all freestyle).  Butterfly is something I do because I know that a lot of people swim it and don't die, so I keep persisting at it hoping that perhaps I can figure out how to be one of those people.  On the first 25 I often feel like this:

Hey, it's optimistic, yes.  But it only lasts that first 25.  I only ever do sets of 50's in butterfly because by the second 25 I wish I had some of these:

That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed, but that our ability to do has increased.  Right?  I still think I'm missing something with the butterfly, though, because it's still not easy.  Maybe I'm not doing it right because I don't look like this: 

My other thread of thought from my morning at master's is this: I've been a swimmer for almost as long as I can remember.  While I had a short stint as a backstroker in my early years, I quickly moved to freestyle and only freestyle.  And only freestyle sprints, with the exclusive exception of the swim leg of a triathlon because those don't come any short than a 300.  Let's just say in my very amateur swim life I've done a lot of freestyle.  After seeing my stroke for a single 50, the coach suggested I tighten up the angle of my left elbow ever so slightly. I did so on the next 50 and the difference was AMAZING.  Night and day.  Immediately I felt so much more efficient and fast and smooth...and it was easy to maintain for the rest of the workout, giving me great hopes of making it a habit.

Once again I'm reminded that often having some outside perspective and making minor corrections can result in some big improvements.  I should get out of my tunnel vision more often.  And practice butterfly more.