Monday: Swim, Shelia Taormina and Gilad

This morning, we realized that the car seat was in the wrong car, and that Sloan the Younger had dropped two eggs (raw!!) on the floor.  This immediately became cause for much running about like we were in a Charlie Chaplin or  Three Stooges film, a genre I have never enjoyed by the way.  Such films have always made me nervous.  My blood pressure creeps up when one of the Stooges knocks over a wedding cake or that house falls on The Little Tramp.  It stresses me out, and I have to say that the realization that I was living one of those films was not much comfort this morning.  It was certainly not humorous.

Anyway, we were late to swim, and I have to say that on any morning when anyone drops anything raw and messy on the floor, I say "so be it".  I actually swam 2900 meters despite my glaring lateness.  I swam in my new Splish suit, and it was so tight that it gouged my shoulders, and I was afraid that I was never going to get it off in the locker room.  It seemed that my new gingerbread man suit might be a tatoo that I was going to have to live with permanently, which would be a minor inconvenience in light of the fact that there was now no swimsuit gapping as I streamlined off the wall.

Workout as follows:

• 600 warmup
• 8 x 25 half fast/ half easy
• 4 x 50 swim/ drill
• 4 x 75 kick/ drill/ swim
• 800 pull
• 4 x 100 kick 
• 400 swim

Yesterday, I mentioned that I would explain more about our out of the pool techniques.  Shelia Taormina came and spoke to our swim class earlier this year.  I was absent from this informative talk, but it colored the way our triathlete swim class has been taught ever since, so I wish I had been there in retrospect.  Luckily, Marshall Albritton (The Great!!!) let me borrow Shelia's book (which is autographed!!!), and I have been slowly making my way through her tutlidge. It is always VERY hard for me to wrap my head around changing my swim stroke, but the crux of Shelia's message is that we need to get our elbows up higher and pull sooner and faster so that we have pressure on our forearms, wrists and palms sooner and longer for a more powerful stroke.  She also kind of thinks that I need to stop worrying about my glide (which I have worked hard on since I started swimming, so that is a bummer).  Finally, she mentions a little bit about kicking, and I have no idea whether I have a two-beat or six-beat kick or how to find out that information.  For this reason, I would like to look for some sort of kick clinic.

SO, Shelia recommends out of the pool work that involves these long rubber bands that a partner holds.  You lean over with a band handle in each hand and pull like you would through Shelia's perfect swim stroke.  I am typically a disaster at this, because I cannot really get my head around it as I said earlier.  HOWEVER, yesterday, Richard Baker (Triswami), who is incredibly gifted at explaining things, was my partner.  He said that I needed to think of my high elbow as a pivot and my arm as a fulcrum.  This meant keeping my elbow at the same spot and pulling my arm through from the shoulder with my thumb brushing my thigh on the way back.  It really helped, and it seemed like that explanation assisted me in getting what Shelia meant.

The crux of the matter is this: Do I want to change my swim stroke?  I do not know that I do.  I am comfortable swimming the way I swim, and it always slows me up a bit to change my stroke.  I would like to improve my kick and maybe work on my body position in the water, but I just do not know how I feel about changing my stroke.

At home, after swim today, I got in a Gilad workout and began the great childcare scramble for my work week.  Our regular sitter is benched with a family illness.  It all worked out!!