GrooveTime!group - CLOSED!!! (Page 78)

General question about swimming for the group...How much 'glide' or pause in your stroke do you have? And when?

I seem to not have one with freestyle. Some other strokes (breast, side, etc) I glide but not with freestyle...

Steve, I am so sorry about your mother in law.  My condolences to you and your family.  Even when it's expected, it is not easy saying goodbye.

Anne, thanks for the info on the Phonix product.  I started taking a homeopathic supplement about a month ago and it seems to be positively impacting my sciatica as well.  Between the stretches and the supplement, I am healing much more quickly than usual.  But I will keep the info for future reference.  And I love your comment about the wind.  I will try to view it as a postive training tool.

Lisa, the heat simply does not help me at all with this problem.  Not sure why, but if anything it seems to exacerbate the pain.  The only thing that works for me is the ice.

The ride yesterday went fine despite my back.  I did use a support belt just to make sure I didn't do any further damage but no problems.  Got in 8.6 miles. 

AND I felt like I had a major breakthrough on my swimming today!  I had stopped using the pull buoy for part of my lap swims last week and as usual my legs sunk like a stone.  My trainer suggested another drill on Monday and that didn't help much either.  But through lots of experimentation today, I finally found something that seems to be working.  With each recovery, I am taking a loooong time on each side before starting the next stroke, like 3-4 kicks, and making sure my hips are completely up at the surface before beginning the next stroke.  It took awhile to get it down, but once I got it, it seems to be working.  I figure if I can get my body trained to keep my hips up on each side for awhile, then I can simply begin shortening the time in between each stroke.  It worked and I drilled for 30 minutes just trying to relax and stay buoyant.  For whatever reason, it truly felt like some kind of a new revelation, primarily because I actually kept them up, did freestyle the whole time, was breathing on both sides, had no problems with my shoulders (far fewer strokes there) and was not using a pull buoy to keep me up!  I am so excited to find a drill that really seems to work for me.  Given that I am not running this week, I am going to swim every day and try to get this drilled into my muscle memory.  This obviously is not doing anything for my speed, but if this can become my "sweet spot" even if I need a break while swimming I can return to this and not stop swimming.  WooHoo!

As noted above, my sciatica is improving far more quickly than usual.  So I am not running this week but hopefully still can pull off the 5K, even if I need to walk part of it.  All of this is so new to me that I really feel like I need to get through a race to get beyond that.  This probably seems crazy to the veterans in the group, but just doing the race is huge for me. 

Our weather here finally seems to be reverting to normal rather than cold so it will be a great time to focus on getting comfortable on my bike and swimming while I am not running.  And I am really looking forward to the volunteer time for the sprint tri on the 14th.