Breathing breakthrough!

I decided to focus primarily on relaxing and breathing, expecially breathing out continually under water, and alternating sides breathing every 3 strokes.  I did 600m (12X50m) alternating sides almost the whole way each time, and felt pretty relaxed about it.  At times my lungs got to where they were screeming for air, but I was also able to calm down and find the pocket of air behind my wake pretty often as well.  The pocket stays open for a while, so you can just hang out there and get a nice slow long breath in if you do it right.  Keeping the top of the head in the water when you breath is critical to coasting along the surface having a pocket.  With that and good body roll you can actually get away with just a little flutter kick to keep the back side up.  I am getting closer to the calmer/slower crawl that is critical to going beyond 100m at a time.