Will You Teach Me To Swim?!?

I'm finding myself feeling quite happy at the moment! I feel like I'm back to my old self- chatty and peppy and more cheery. :) It appears that I'm finally really coming out of that little hole I was in... Hindsight is 20/20 and if I'm honest with myself, I'd admit that through most of last fall I was so tired that my emotions were stunted or something? I was just going through the motions... like an auto-pilot robot... not truly excited about much and little things really pissed me off... Going forward I will pay closer attention to that type of mood and use it an an indicator that I should take a few easy days! Then through the month of Dec I was maybe a bit on the depressed side. Disappointment from a crap race + eating a whole ton of crap food + no exercise = NOT a good combo for me (who am I kidding- it's not a good combo for anyone!!)

BUT in good news, I seem to have found my way back to a nice little balance of work and exercise and healthy food and sleep and family/friends that has allowed me to reclaim some energy! My outlook is more positive and I'm able to let go of little things that might have otherwise been irritating.

It's also JANUARY and a New Year means new motivation not just for me but for most athletes. It seems like a time when many are taking stock of their weaknesses and trying to find solutions to fix them.. and this year more than ever before I'm getting phone calls and emails from athletes who are tired of being inhibited by their swim! It's pretty cool to see and I enjoy being a go-to person who athletes will ask for help.

I'm finding myself spending several hours each week at the pool now 1:1 with athletes (on deck) teaching swimming principles... how to generate more power and how to reduce drag, etc. The more I do that the better I get at it and it makes me feel good to know I'm making a difference in someone's season! :)

I am not grabbing Kelly's boob here- I'm trying to show her how to activate her LATS!

I got an email from another local athlete who I am excited about as well. He's a guy with a ton of motivation and potential- just needs some direction and I am happy to provide that! I met him last week at the pool and saw that he's a decent swimmer, but like many, he doesn't swim enough and doesn't really know how to swim TRAIN, so I told him to show up Monday morning at 7 and join our little group. I knew he wouldn't have the endurance to swim our whole workout BUT he needs to start somewhere and I figured seeing swimmers TRAIN would show him what it takes... and sure enough, he showed up this morning right on time, didn't say a word but hopped in the water and just did what he was told. I came up with a main set that we could modify so he did the bulk of it but got a little extra rest here and there... It went like this:
MS: 3x (2x200's@3:20, 6x50's@1:00 1st 4 bands only, last 2 fast swim) We rested an extra 20" between rounds. My new guy did an easy 100 instead of the 2nd fast 200 and went without bands on the 50's, so it ended up working perfectly for everyone. It was actually a lot harder than I anticipated it would be but mostly b/c Mark and Lectie are swimming so damn fast right now that the 200's were blazing (for me!) as I was trying to keep up. My December break caught up with me though and showed itself during round 3 when I felt like I was falling right off the cliff! But at the end everyone was happy for the awesome swim session and even though Sergio said he thought he was going to puke, he agreed to come back on Wednesday. I can see that he will get faster very quickly and he's going to be an athlete to reckon with this year! So fun. :)

Anyway, time to go to the pool again for the next swim lesson... Aloha!