Small mental victories ...

Today was Day 2 of my swim program. Despite some lingering inner thigh soreness from Saturday's swim I felt pretty good when I woke up this morning. It was a different story 30 minutes later.

I don't know what I did but, when coming back into the house after brushing off the car (I live in a place where there is LOTS of snow right now), I bent a certain way and *ping* ... I felt a big knot form in my back. I tried to do a few stretches over the next 10 minutes as I was collecting my gear to see if I could loosen things up but, no luck. The knot was in tight.

These knots aren't new to me. I get them from time to time. Typically they take a few days to work themselves out so I usually take a day or two off so as not to further exacerbate the situation. But this morning, I kinda felt like it was a defining moment. If I passed on today's swim, it would be easy to pass on future swims when I'm sore and achy (which I'm sure I'll be feeling alot of in the near future) so despite the knot, I headed for the pool thinking 'I'm up, I might as well try it. If the pain is really bad, I'll just get out of the pool.'

MENTAL VICTORY #1

Hooray! I'm glad I went because I managed to complete the full hour swim. The knot is still in my back but it didn't seem to bother me during my swim and I think the swim may have actually helped to loosen it up a bit. (Note to self: Really need to remember to stretch after swimming. I didn't stretch at all after Saturday and I'm thinking that's s a big reason behind the knot.)

This morning's swim:

- 400m warm up
- 100m legs only
- 100m pull (arms only)
- 2 x 200m (swim + pull)
- 4 x 100m front crawl (rest 15s in between)
- 4 x 100m front crawl (rest 10s in between)

MENTAL VICTORY #2 : I did my crawl breathing every 4 strokes instead of every 2.

I guffawed at the coach before the holidays when he suggested I try it because there are times when I can't even seem to get comfortable breathing every 2 strokes. But this morning I finally gave it a go and IT WAS AWESOME! I'm thinking it's because breathing every four strokes gives me more time to (naturally) get all the air out of my lungs, where as when I was breathing every two, I was rushing to get all the air out before my next breath. Hmm ... I'll see if I can keep this up in future swims.