Swim Lesson

I had 2 important appointments yesterday: an appt with my ART Doc and a swimming lesson.

FIRST: ART APPT.

Everything went pretty normally. He can tell my heel is getting better, but there's no running for me quite yet. I'm meeting with him again in 2 weeks, and we'll see where it's at. There's still some soreness now-and-then down near the base of my heel, but it is feeling better. I'm going to keep cross-training and foam-rolling to keep it loose so it's not pulling on itself as it heals. Oh, and I'm still sleeping in that night splint shown here - can't wait to be done with that.

SECOND: SWIM LESSON.

So I can't run right now. I can bitch about that, or I can focus on something else. So I figured I could work on my swimming form. Andrea (the swim coach at the Y) met me for a 30 minute lesson yesterday, and I wanted her to "fix" my form.

She saw my "weird" kick right away. Swimming buddy Julia always teases me about my "giddy-up kick" that I do with my right leg. I don't know why I do it. My left leg kicks normally, but my right leg kicks as if I were kick-starting a motorcycle! WTF!

But Andrea noticed something else. When I did that dumb little kick, it made me move my head too much (and in a "wobbly" fashion) when I turned to get air. Andrea figured it was throwing off what little rhythm I had. So she had me do a number of kick-drills, and then had me swim freestyle again with a "better" kick. It felt totally different... and guess what?! My head was staying in line better, and I didn't lose my form as I took a breath!! Yay!! I don't have the desire to build a super strong kick (because I'm training for OW triathlon swimming and I want to "save" my legs for the bike and run), but I WILL work on my kick if it helps make my overall form better!

So, Andrea helped me with my head placement when I breath, some slight over-rotation issues when I breath, showed me how to kick more with my whole leg (and not just "from the knees"), and gave me a number of kick drills to try. She wants me to kick with and without a kickboard along with some 1-legged drills (try that - it's awkward and harder than you'd think). And she wants me to try some variable speed kick drills: for example, 8 x 75 with 25 moderate, 25 hard, 25 easy.

Kicking is something that is TOTALLY fine for my heel, so I plan on swimming a bit tomorrow and doing a LOT of kicking!