I upgraded my fitness center membership to include the Masters swimming.

I got up this morning and rode my bike to the fitness center to talk with the Masters swim coach. I won't say that I'm entirely at ease after my discussion with him. I have some apprehension about whether what he is going to want me to do in the pool is what I would have been doing given my choice. But, that may be just what I need. Maybe I need to get out of my comfort zone and do something different.

The coach is familiar with Terry Laughlin and the Total Immersion program. He says that he doesn't do as much drill work as Terry likes to do in a workout. He also doesn't completely agree with Terry's method of the hand's entry into the water on the crawl. However, he does use basically all of Terry's approach for swimming breast and butterfly. He also is totally in line with swimming with a two beat kick.

What the coach suggested I do is to swim with the Masters group on Tuesdays and do my own workout on Fridays. Unsurprisingly, I'll start out in the slow lane. That's where my pace is and that lane gets more coaching on technique. So, assuming that I recover fully during this week off, I will be in the pool on Tuesday for my first ever Masters swim workout.

Let's see how this goes. The worst that happens is that I spent $50 to find out that Masters swim workouts really aren't for me. The best that happens is that I find myself an excellent coach who takes my swimming to record setting levels. While I don't think it's likely that I'll ever be setting any records, I am willing to maintain enough optimism that swimming with a coach will improve my technique.

See you at the pool.