I must be doing something right

Last night I went to the pool for my 45min swim workout and to my surprise, almost nobody was there. I was even happier to see that I had a line just for myself and that Super Kick Girl didn't come to empty the pool with her violent leg beating that could knock out a tuna if it was passing by. Imagine what happens when I cross paths with her! Great training for choppy water, but man, I want to stop her and say something, it is almost impossible to concentrate on form or drills when you swallow half of the pool while swimming through a tsunami. Thankfully, she also takes lots of breaks (she stops for at least a minute every 25m of effort), so usually I get one length to catch my breath before the next wave comes in.

But last night, none of this mattered, I had the most peaceful workout ever and concentrated on adding more length to uninterrupted swims without the pull buoy. So I did the following workout:

• 5x100m freestyle
• 500m freestyle pull
• 5x100m freestyle
• 250m freestyle pull

I am trying really hard to slow down my own kick and eventually, coerce my brain into doing a 2-beat kick because anything faster leaves me breathless. I would really like to swim at least 500m uninterrupted, without the pull buoy which serves me as a crutch right now and I don't like it. Yes, it does feel 50% easier when I swim with it, but I don't want to depend on external factors such as the buyoncy of the wetsuit or the pull buoy forever. What if a triathlon does not allow wetsuits at the last minute? I would be screwed, not because I could not swim, I am sure I could cross the Atlantic doing breast stroke, but because I always want to do my best and breast stroke would be really meh.

Anyhow, back to my swim workout, those 100m intervals didn't seem so horrible after all. I must have been doing something right, trying to rotate my body and reach as far I could and exhale as much air as possible through my nose (when I remembered to breathe). Proof is that for the FIRST TIME since I got my Garmin FR 910XT, it counted all my laps without a glitch! C'est fantastique! Just look at this, isn't it a beauty? Ok, don't look at the numbers, I am still slow as a turtle.

I am always lost when I look at those graphs, especially the bottom one. But what I noticed right away, because I know how to count at least to 10, is that my strokes count is going down! I had a few lengths with 13 strokes (26 actually, this thing counts only one hand), significantly lower than 16 strokes (32 in total) - not sure I believe it. I still have work to do, but I am happy to see that something "clicked" at at least my Garmin approves.

Party cocktails all around! Wooo hooo!