My worst swim in years

I got in the pool today and literally could not feel the water.  Worse still I felt my hands slipping through it.  (Not helped by pool being too warm).

Horrible.

The main focus before getting in was to concentrate on technique and especially my hips 'holding on the rail' for as long as my arms were recovering to help sort out the right sided breathing.  

But I had to go back to basics first.

I tucked in behind a convoy of swimmers traing together and focussed on relaxation.  Immediately with less effort, I was on their heels touching their toes (would they let me past is another story).

I focussed on weight shifting and some of the magic started to come back. Then I focussed on rotating with the hips especially when breathing right and i began to understand what's been going wrong even better. I have not been committing the hips when shifting to the left rail.  When I do it feels better (still quite some way to go but at least 'finding it' was encouraging).  Old habits of turnign/w twisting head that side head further than necessary and not tucking my chin in came back to haunt me.  (Note to self ... must focus more on lazer on forehead).

It took half a hour to sart feeling myself moving through the water weel.

But here's the thing. ... I swam last Friday.  Before that maybe only twice the previous week.  Much much less than usual.  So if you've been out of the water or not in it as much as usual you have to be patient with yourself and get back to basics.

Tomorrow I am confident things will feel better again.  Did  enjoy my swim today?  Not much whilst I was frustrated - but much more when I started working through the checklist.

Not by nature a patient individual with myself this was good therapy for me!