Before I forget: My biggest area for improvement at the moment is in my recovery. I need to lead more with the elbow and do a better job of spearing into the water just ahead of my ear. I still tend to reach with my hand and have too shallow of an entry into the water, which wastes a lot of the propulsion that the switch should deliver.

My kick is reasonably good. Danny had me swim a couple lengths right at the start with a band just below my knees. That was a big help in experiencing what the kick should feel like. I think it would be worthwhile for me to purchase a band like that so that I can get a refresher at each practice.

My body rotation is good.

My breathing is good.

I have definitely been swimming with a very low stroke rate. So, I think that I've artificially depressed my stroke count per length. Once I started using the tempo trainer in today's lesson, I realized how much I need to pick up the pace. While right now that definitely makes it feel like I'm working harder, I think it also helps with my kick. I started at 1.3 seconds per stroke and made my way down to 1.1 seconds per stroke. Then when I came back up to 1.18 seconds per stroke it felt much easier.

1.3; 1.29; 1.28; 1.27; 1.26; 1.25; 1.24; 1.23; 1.22; 1.21; 1.20; 1.19; 1.18; 1.17; 1.16; 1.15; 1.14; 1.13; 1.12; 1.11; 1.10; 1.18. That's 22 repetitions of 46 yards for a total of 1012 yards. Over that distance we determined that I was at about 36 strokes and 48 seconds for 46 yards. Given that I did so many repetitions with minimal rest in between, I think it's fair to extrapolate that to equivalents of 25, 50 and 100 yards.

So, today's data would equate to approximately:

  • 20 strokes and 26 seconds per 25 yards
  • 40 strokes and 53 seconds per 50 yards
  • 80 strokes and 1:46 per 100 yards.

In this three weeks of practice I have eliminated 2 strokes per 25 yards, which is just shy of 10% improvement. I have eliminated approximately 17 seconds per 100 yards, which is just shy of 14% improvement.

My long-term goal for the swim leg was to swim 100 seconds per 100 yards. The goal pace for the 2014 race season was 116 seconds per 100 yards. Of course, it remains to be seen how well I do over 2.4 miles and in open water. But, just playing with the numbers using the same assumed improvement (5% per year), would set my 2017 swim pace to be 85 seconds per 100 yards. That would bring me onto dry land in under one hour!

Well, this is all just speculation at this point. But, it is certainly wonderful to believe it could be possible. And, I don't think it's too far-fetched to be possible. I've improved well over 5% in just three weeks. There's no reason that I shouldn't continue to improve through the 2014 season. Even if I don't continue to be able to achieve a 5% improvement in each season after that I would likely be starting so much faster than I had expected to be that I should still easily beat my goal pace for 2017. Time will tell.

I still plan to aim for 14 - 16 strokes per 25 yards. Danny thinks that 18 strokes for 25 yards is quite good.

I'm glad that I took the time to run the numbers from today's data. Based on my recollection of what I was doing before I started the lessons and a bit of estimating in my head, I was feeling a little bit disappointed at what I believed was a lack of progress to show for all the work I've put in over the last three. On the contrary, I think the facts show that I've made quite good progress.

I think that my plan now is to practice on my own for the next three weeks. Then I will start with Danny's Masters group on Sunday, January 12. I think that group is supposed to meet two Sundays each month.