I swam 22 X 50 yards @ 1.40 seconds per stroke today.

Even filtering out the obvious outliers from when I didn't punch out the lap time on the first try, there is a clear positive slope to the best-fit line of my times. Once again my best time was the first repeat. I didn't do anything special or put any additional effort into it, but it was better than my last repeat (which wasn't my slowest) by almost 6 seconds. So, it might be reasonable to consider that first repetition an outlier as well. But, my second and third repetitions were four seconds faster than my last.

I don't think I should swim at more than 1.40 seconds per stroke, though. If anything, I think this is a bit too slow. I feel like breathing on every third stroke is too much time in between breaths. I think I will try 1.38 at the next workout, although there would also be merit in seeing if I could relax more at 1.40 (see note below) so that I'm not as hungry for oxygen.

My strokes per length on the way out held pretty steady at between 17 and 18. There were maybe a couple that went to 19. My strokes per length on the way back were around 19 - 20. There may have been one or two that I completed in 18 and one or two that took me more like 21.

Something that I became more aware of towards the end of the workout and tried to practice was having a softer feel. I think that I'm needlessly wasting energy when I'm pushing more. I can't say exactly what's softer versus harder. But, I think it has to do with how I kick and how my hand enters the water. Besides thinking of it feeling softer I would describe it as just being more relaxed. I want to continue to focus on the approach of relaxing into better and faster swimming instead of being rigid and trying to force myself into it.

I did cut down the rest time in between significantly. There were a few times that I needed to give myself a bit of extra recovery time, though.