Even after two days' rest the stroke rate was too aggressive. I'm tiring myself out to not gain anything. My stroke count was basically 20 - 21 per length and it took me about 57 seconds for each 50. I guess that, looking back at my data from Sunday, the stroke count was basically what was predicted. But, the time is about four seconds slow. Regardless, I'm too tired trying to maintain this. I don't believe I would be able to sustain it for 2000 yards, much less 4000 yards. And even if I could sustain it, my time isn't improved enough to warrant the exhaustion. I think I could swim the same time with far less effort.

Tomorrow I will try 1 X 50yd @ 1.5; 1.49; . . . 1.31; and see what my numbers come out to be.

I'm a bit frustrated at the moment. There are a few questions I can't answer.

  1. Why was I able to increase my stroke rate and maintain my stroke count at my lesson without improving my time from the 1.18 to 1.10 rate? It seems like the math of SR X SL = V is not holding up.
  2. Why was I able to swim at 1.18 at the lesson but I'm struggling even at 1.25 now?
  3. How have I made so many changes to the things I was doing wrong and not showing some quantum improvement?

I don't have even a good guess for the first two questions. But, for question number three I think the answer may be that it's on account of changing so many things; even though I was doing the things wrong before, I had adapted to swimming that way. Now that I've changed all these things my body has to adapt again. Maybe things get worse before they get better?

My main gripe at the moment is that I'm getting so tired during the practice and this seem totally counter to the philosophy of TI. I feel like I'm right back on the freshman swim team, just suffering through a workout.

So, let's see how things go when I bring the stroke rate down a bit. I know that on Sunday when I swam that first 1.30 it seemed significantly faster than the rate I had been using. I may just need to slow down in order to speed up. I think that the stroke rate I've been pushing myself to do is not allowing me to use good technique. One specific thing that I'm pretty sure is wrong is that I'm not leading with my elbow enough on the recovery. I think that my shoulders may be tight and need time to gain more flexibility.