When the feel isn't there,

When the feel isn't there, swimming is no fun at all. Today was one weird swim. Normally I love to get in the water. I can't wait to get started. But today there was no mojo, no feel for the water. I stood at the end not wanting to get wet. Even after starting, it's like I couldn't get a grip on it. My stroke was subtly off, and my lungs were still in bed. I swam 40 minutes, but I wouldn't call it a success, not really. I was trying to muscle through the water, not slide. That doesn't work so well.

I was thinking that today would be the first intervals, and I did do some, but it didn't work out as expected. After a slower than expected warm up, where I essentially ran out of gas about 500 m in, tops. I took a little rest and did my first interval, trying to be smooth and strong. I was thinking I'd be about 100 seconds per 100 m. Not. 105. That's a huge difference. The others got slower. I didn't do many. I think I need to work the flip turn exercise back into my core again. I was paying attention to them today, and most of them sucked. I'm going way too deep in the water, and it's taking forever.

Dolphin kick wasn't too bad. Oddly enough, fist felt reasonably smooth. One arm was a bit of a thrash. Backstroke felt ok. So I'm not going to worry too much about this one, just marking it up to an off day.

The lovely but bruised Ms. L joined me this morning. She was mentioning her swim was feeling a bit off as well, but it looked pretty fast to me. At least she has a good reason. Coffee after was nice! Normally I zoom straight from a swim to work, so it was a bit of a change for me. Good to get out of the rut.

If I'd known how much of my swim I was going to lose, I don't think I'd have taken as much of a break with it over the summer as I did. Oh well.