Two Months Until U.S. Nationals

Because of my skewed swimming season from June to March the USMS Long Course Championships takes place in the middle of training for me. Accordingly I can’t expect much this year in respect to my times other than hopefully some positive progress, but if I do continue swimming next year this competition will be one of the two Masters swim meets I will taper for, the other being the March long course swim meet in Victoria. So it’s a big meet for me and therefore one I’m willing to spend time and money traveling wherever to participate in. An extra concern for this year is being able to swim outdoors properly (i.e. swim straight) and consequently I’ve been working on staying away from the lane lines by constant checking where I am in relation to them. This peeking throws off my stroke and body positioning and so Coach Brad is trying to get me to just swim straight instead and save myself the bother. Easier said than done. One cause which pretty well guarantees my going off-line is a tendency to come off a turn at an angle, partly because of the practicalities of workout swimming and partly because of my poor turn technique. Another cause is a slight variation in effectiveness between my right and left sides’ strokes. Hopefully with practice I can improve to the point where I can swim reasonably straight and only need to check the lane lines only four or five times per lap by the time Nationals come up. Yet another instance of the more kilometrage I get in the better prepared I’ll be.