Saturday Swimming

Today after a long while I went swimming!

Oh how I've missed it.

I used to do about 10 laps of freestyle on one side, then another 10 on the other side. This was because when I taught myself to swim freestyle, I started with the left side. But I wanted to be able to do both, so I spent many laps doing the right side. At first it was horrible and I kept swallowing water, my form was awful but after a while I got the hang of it.

Today, I combined: I swam left and right after 5 strokes. I know it's such a long time to resurface back, people usually do about 1-3 strokes, but I like to play with my breathing. I think it helps me a lot in my running. To be able to do 5 strokes without resurfacing is hard work for me. Because I haven't swam for a while, the first lap of that left me winded! When I swam regularly I could do a straight 100m (albeit a slight delay at the end of the lap because I have yet to master the flip turn!) but now I had to stop after 50m for 5 seconds before continuing.

After 500m of so, my breathing went back to normal and I was able to focus on my form. I wanted to make sure I wasn't kicking from my knees, but from my hips instead. I read in various swimming forums that knee kicking is the worst thing you could do. Plus, with my weak knees I do not need the extra pressure.

I did the last 100m in a faster pace, just to send my heart racing a little bit.

Best part: the chinese uncle who swims regularly (always see him on saturdays) for his spine problem gave me a thumbs up after my final lap. "good la you," he said. OH YEAH!

It was an amazing 1km swim. I can't wait to do it next Saturday!