MIT PreMasters

I'm back to my swim lessons at MIT - I signed up for the "PreMasters" level this session, and I'm glad I did! It turns out that the practice pool had some issues and is closed for a while - at least until Labor Day, and so they cancelled most of the lower level classes due to the depth of the pool. 

I really like this class, it's mostly swim drills, but the instructor is really good and gives a lot of individual feedback. The first week he told me to reach out further with my left arm before pulling, and to rotate less on my non-breathing side. This week he said to put my arm into the water at an angle before extending it and to look down and not move my head (it was sort of bobbing around). So, I tried looking down and thrusting my arm into the water at the same time, and I think it worked! I will continue to practice.

We did a lot of interval training - first we did 4-50's, then 4-100's. We did a rest between sets, but a short rest between set one and two and three and four, and a longer rest between two and three. Then we did 25's of backstroke and breaststroke. And then we swam for 8 minutes straight. It was all pretty tiring, but I did get into a rhythm by the middle of the 8 minutes.

We were four to a lane this week (last week I got my own mini-lane which was really nice). I started out first and was all stressed out about the person behind me catching up to me, but actually she only did on the backstroke. And then I made her go first. I actually lapped a couple people during the 8 minute swim! 

This week is really exciting because after 5.5 years at Wellesley I'm finally getting my Hilary moment! She will be on campus Saturday and I'm volunteering at the event. Also, Marie Yavanovich and a couple nobel laureates. They will be talking about women and democracy - should be really interesting.