Flip turn update

Hello everyone! Sorry it's been ages (it seems) since my last post. What can I say? Life gets busy! And I have certainly been flying around--work has been crazy busy the past couple of weeks, I've had meetings and outings crammed into every spare moment, and oh, did I mention that I'm training for a triathlon? I'm only just now able to catch my breath and think about what's been going on! 

Without further ado, then, let me give you the short-version update: I learned how to do a flip turn! Now that I'm swimming longer and longer, it's helpful not to have to stop and touch the wall to turn around at each length. Also flip turns look awesome. See?

My friend/college swimmer Jess taught me (again) how to do a flip turn, and the second time was much more successful. My flip turns are nothing like the video above, but they're getting there! I'd say about half the time I complete an amateur-but-functional flip turn, and the other half of the time my flip turns look more like this:

Seriously. Just imagine that moose being under water--one great big awkward moment, limbs all akimbo, some struggling, then quickly moving away trying to pretend like nothing just happened.

It's only embarrassing when there are really good swimmers in the pool, and I'm there flailing around, ending up in other people's lanes, hitting the floor of the pool, and generally making a fool of myself. Ah well. I've seen one guy several times when I hit the gym over my lunch break, and I happened to catch one of his flip turns in action the other day. It was so inspirational.

Also big news in my swim-training: I swam 17 laps on Wednesday! The race is just under a half-mile, which is 16 laps, so I'm good to go! I'm pretty sure I've done it before, but the problem with learning flip turns is that I suddenly lost the ability to count laps while swimming and flip-turning. Too much to think about! Wednesday was the first time I remembered to count how many laps I was doing. I'm so glad I did--earlier in my training I had estimated my finish time at 32--35 minutes. Then I looked up finish times from last year's triathlon, and the people at the end of the pack were finishing the swim in maybe 24 or 25 minutes... and I was picturing myself as a tiny little spec on the horizon of the lake at that point, slowly splashing my way to the next leg of the race!

My 17-lap stint the other day reassured me: I'm still going to be at the back of the pack, but at least it looks like my time should fall in the realm of normalcy. I was beginning to feel like I was stuck in one of those bad dreams, where you have to run, but you can only move in slow motion... what a terrible way to begin a race! So I am very glad to find that I am right on track for my swim time; and my coach-friend Jess also told me that my time will only get better from here as I continue training! I suppose that makes sense, but I had not thought of it. Hurray for encouragement! That's so key at this point in training.

Stay tuned: Next week I'll update y'all on my non-swimming training!