Swim kicking my butt.

Could swimming be any more draining?  Today was my third swim workout, and my first with my uber-energetic friend who ran two Ironman races this year, including Ironman Kona in Hawaii, wow!  This Ironwoman was super helpfull on pool technique and explaining all the swimming jargon, like recovery (the part of the stroke with the arm is out of the water), and pull bouy (funny float you put between your legs for swim drills).

We did a little diagnosis on my stroke today, verdict: (1) I rotate well, I can twist my body without going sideways, (2) I cross over, meaning my (hand) entry is across my midline which is easy to fix when you are thinking about it, and (3) it isn't that I sink like a rock, my tail does, which can be fixed with lower back, abs, and a little more kicking so I skim the surface.  Ironwoman was great to point out that a lot of things don't have a right way to do them like how often you breath, recovery, and number of kicks, so you can do what feels best.  Breathing every three strokes feels more natural for me and keeps me more balanced side to side and seems likely to go straighter (key for open water?), but is harder to sustain than every two strokes, so we will see. 

My verdict, getting technique right from the beginning is great to avoid practicing bad habits.  At this point though, it is also about getting meters in the pool over the next couple months it is going to take to grow some new muscle.  Together with some water sense and I hope to have a breakthrough where I don't need to stop every 100m.  We will see, today I did maybe 600m, but lets call it a 50x12 workout, which sounds better.  I love swimming in the airy big Wilson Aquatic center for free as a DC resident!

It's good I'm hitting the pool, because when I run 3+ miles, the muscle around the achillies still hurts in an overuse rather than just sore kind of way, which also keeps me off my fixie.  Being tired after swimming is really different, nothing is sore, you just feel like everything above the waist is made from rubber and your lungs have a wierd expansive feeling to them like they were trying to grow.