Swim Advice from a Lane Partner

I hit the pool for 100s yesterday. Half way through, a guy I commonly swim with jumped in. We're swim buddies (and we've chatted across the street at the grocery store a few times), but we don't know each other's names.

Ron Swanson's thoughts on friendship from "Parks and Rec."

As he jumped in, I jokingly said something about the "water being slow" in the pool today. He offered a few pieces of advice based on the 100 he saw me swim as he was standing in the pool. He noted I could pull through the end of my stroke better by my hips, and I acknowledged "Yeah, I think I get a little lazy there." He also noted I could slow down my stroke-rate and hit my streamline a bit more. (Luckily, he didn't say anything about my non-flip turns.)

So I tried to keep those things in mind for the last half of my workout. And my times WERE faster. But were they just faster because it was the last half and it's not uncommon for me to negative split swim workouts? I dunno.

Times for my 100s in the first half of the workout averaged 1:27.6 (between 1:26.x and 1:28.x).

Times for my 100s in the last half after thinking about his advice averaged 1:26.3 (between 1:23.x and 1:26.x with ONE being 1:29 where I let my mind wander and stopped thinking about form).

Often times, I try to keep 1 or 2 "form tips" in mind as I'm swimming, but I haven't done that in a while. I think it's time to start doing that again, because I think that helped me be faster yesterday. (Half-way proved by the 100 that was my slowest when I stopped thinking about form.)