Swim Stroke Changes

I've had two really helpful swim lessons in a row - the first one last week Coach said that I was looking too far down and that was causing drag. And, I was moving my head too much - it should just go into the water and out, not move around. Also my left arm was dipping and not getting as much power as it could. Today he said that I was only swimming with one arm at a time - so, I am doing stroke and back, then stroke and back, like that catch-up arms drill. But, really both arms should be going at once, like on a bike. When one arm is pulling, the other is recovering and going into the water. Once I started doing that I swam faster! I even caught up with some of the "fast" swimmers :) I'm going to have to do some practice with that. I will also say it's much more of a workout.

Speaking of workouts, I switched my YMCA membership to a larger network where I could register for classes online and don't have to be Julie. I've been thinking I should do this for a while, but haven't because it's so hard to cancel a gym membership, but the woman was really nice about it and didn't give me any hassle. Anyhow, the new gym gives me 2 free personal training sessions, so I did my first one last week and have my next one this week. It was kind of fun, the guy who was teaching me was nice and he set up a couple of good circuits for me to do. I think he saw me and kind of underestimated me (not sure how I feel about that) because he kept giving me things to do and looking surprised when I could do them. I mean, super easy things like the world's greatest stretch. The two things that were the weirdest were that he just kept watching me all the time, and instead of telling me to go during a timed exercise he started the timer when I started. I'll do the second session, but I don't think I'm going to pay for more.

I did do my first zumba class last week also. It was super fun, not too hard but still got my heart rate up, and I didn't crash into anyone. I will definitely do that again. After I lifted some weights.

It's been so hot here, and I'm not a hot weather person. I've been hanging out at home in the AC a lot, but yesterday I went with a few swim friends to the beach on the north shore. It was over 90 out, but the air was a little cooler at the ocean and the water was 59. We stayed inside long enough to get a nice chill going, it was great! It took about 45 minutes to get there, definitely something I could do again.