Training, Planning and Running the DW Race

Another morning swim for me and again I was running late, this time because of the clocks going forward, so I had only half an hour in the pool.

When I swim at full power I create a bit of a bow wave, and because the middle lane was in use, I decided to use the open part of the pool so that I didn’t swamp the lady using that lane. As I had all of the rest of the pool to myself I decided to do circuits instead with the sole intention of not touching the side. I did find myself having to take longer to recover after a burst of speed while continually swimming and I suspect that when I am swimming lengths, even though I stop for the shortest amount of time, this pause is enough to recover.

I have also invented a new breast stroke today (actually it might not be new, but it is new to me) where when my legs are fully extended and I am applying an arm stroke, I give a butterfly kick of my legs. This additional propulsion has sped my breast stroke up quite a lot. I gauge my speed on other people in the pool, and I was able to keep up with someone who had a fast crawl with my new improved stroke.

[EDIT]
I went off to find out if I had found the secret to a world class breast stroke, and it turns out I haven’t. However I seem to have accidentally stumbled upon quite an advanced level of this swimming stroke.

From Wikipedia.
"This much faster form of breaststroke is referred to as "wave-action" breaststroke and fully incorporates the whip-kick."

It seems that you can only downward kick once when swimming competitively and an upward kick will have you disqualified, I don’t know if my technique will contravene Olympic race rules but I don’t care as I don’t think I am going to be at London 2012 somehow.