8/7/06 Workout – Swim

The pool’s open again, so I went for a swim this morning. Again, 3 quarter-miles at a time. The first quarter mile took me 9:38 to finish – heartrate was at 164 after that. I let it settle down to the 120s and went again. The second one took me 10:59, with the same heartrate. The third took me 11:31. Not bad overall. An improvement, I believe. It was hard, though.

I changed my stroke technique, which shaved 8 strokes off each lap. I had read the swimming technique chapter of Eric Harr’s Triathlon Training in 6 weeks book, and was trying to follow what I could remember. Front quadrant swimming, using the hand and forearm as the “paddle”, keeping a right-angle at my elbow, and pulling with an “S” shape. It was harder than not doing any of that, and my arm muscles are sore. But it seems that it works. I also changed to wearing contacts while I swim. I’ll need to do that when swimming in open water for sightings, and thought I should just start getting used to it.

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