My Tuesday morning swim gave me a heads-up that this practice would center around drafting, so I jumped lanes from intermediate to advance to get some extra meters in. The passing drills were more fun for some reason this time around.

I've been restless, not working out and giving myself some deserved recovery time from the marathon. As such, I've been tracking down some on-line triathlon tidbits to ponder. I thought I had struck the mother lode when I came across a page that had a weblink to frame-by-frame analysis of Olympic champion Ian Thorpe's freestyle swimming form. Unfortunately, the video link did not work, but it did give me plenty to think about with the following two bullet points:

" Pay particular attention to:

* Frames 5 and 6: look how aggressive his catch is, in particular how quickly he goes from full extension to bent elbow. THAT, my friends, is probably 75% of swimming propulsion, getting that one little bit nailed.

* Frames 11 and 12: look at how fully extended his body is, and his position relative to his left shoulder. He is fully rotated and the inside of his shoulder is probably touching his jawline."

At the end of practice, Coach Jane took some video footage of my swimming form. I've posted it on my TNT donation page:
http://www.active.com/donate/tntor/tntorSHull

Yep! Compared to the bullet's describing the Thorpedo's stroke, I will always be a work in progress.

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Group Swim #14

Warm-up 5 minutes

1 x 200 fartlech drill
8 x 25s light quick arms, :10 rest.

Advanced:
Drafting set: rotate leaders every 100 yards
1 x 200, rest :20
1 x 300, rest :30
1 x 400, rest :40
1 x 500, rest 1 minute
1 x 600.

100 easy

Passing drills
8 x 25s with a partner, practice passing. Wait until everyone in the lane is done before starting the next 25.

1 x 200 with a buoy, breathing pattern: odd lengths= normal breathing pattern, even lengths= add another stroke before breathing.

Warm-down 200 easy with bobs.

Total yds:
3100 +