Freestyle Breakthrough!

This is my official announcement that I am training for a mini/sprint/half triathlon next summer. I can only make this announcement because of a significant mental breakthrough I had yesterday in swimming. Before yesterday, I had only swum freestyle for 100 yards before half-drowning myself. I've never been so close to death. Ugh!

Yesterday, however, I swam freestyle for 500 yards and had energy for more!

What the heck happened?!

Two things:

1) I slowed down when I got tired. I do it all the time in running and biking, but it had NEVER occurred to me to slow down my swimming. Can't exactly think of why. Maybe I thought I would sink. Also, I decided to try a 1 minute breather after every 100 yards. The slower pace and extra breaks allowed me to keep up freestyle the whole distance, which is faster than the variety of strokes I was using before without the breaks. My time stayed almost the same!

2) I wore a swim cap. I felt kinda dorky, but I discovered in the Stoneman swim that the cap keeps water out of my ears. Huzzah! Without the cap, I was reluctant to turn my head as far as it needed to go (to breathe) because that happens to be the perfect angle to drop water straight onto my ear drum. With the cap, I could breathe so much better! My attention could finally focus on stroke.