MSO, 500 Free

I look at this video with a mixture of pride and horror. I take pride in the fact that I won, lapping the other competitors not once but twice. I am horrified, however, at some of the things I see in my swimming. This is one reason that swimming with a group and having a good coach is important. I miss the DSU Masters' team, but at 100 miles per round trip versus 1.8 per trip is a no brainer.  Over the past couple of years, I have been training mostly alone. I did make a trip to DSU a couple of weeks back, and Cagri spotted one of the things I noticed in this clip. What I see wrong when I watch this video is:

1. No streamline coming off the walls. This goes back to my right shoulder injury when I physically could not get into the streamline position. Now it has become a bad habit. I still can't streamline like I used to. I'm working on range of motion, and it is improving some. But I can do better than this; I must do better than this.

2. Slow turnover. I am SLOW in turning those arms over. If I could get my tempo up, I would automatically swim much faster. However, to do that, I need to do a couple of other things. One, I need to find some fast twitch muscle fibers in my arms, chest, and back. And two, I need to develop a bigger engine. To swim at a faster turnover will require a larger amount of oxygen. Without my running, I will have to devise other ways to build that necessary aerobic capacity.

3. My legs are too wide too often. I remember Petya, a former coach, telling me that many years ago. If I kicked more, my leg position would be better, more streamlined. The bad legs are not too big of a deal when swimming something like the Chicot Challenge, a slow multi-hour affair. However, when trying to swim a fast pool time, it is a big deal. Every now and then, I make a commitment to improve my kicking only to abandon that commitment after a few weeks of labor. I have done that over and over and over. Maybe now the need is real enough and strong enough and important enough to see it out. I hope.

So I have some a lot of work to do. The good news is I have the time and the desire to do it. I have room to make some real improvements. If I make the changes, I can qualify for Nationals next spring, and maybe get good enough to actually go. The 2021 National meet is going to be held in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. You have to qualify for the Nationals at State meets on even years, but he Nationals are on odd years. So it will be a little over two years before I could compete on that level. Now I have  a new goal.