Geeky Yet Waterproof

Bearcat territory on the bleachers





50 meter, 10 lane pool



This weekend we had our first meet of the long course season, at the Thunderbolt pool in Beaverton.



I swam the 400 free, 200 free, 200 back, 100 back, 100 butterfly, and 200 IM. Notice the high presence of backstroke. I’m tired of swimming nothing but free and fly at every single meet, so I’ve *decided* to become an IM’er.

One of my races was amazing, three were OK, and two were Very Bad (7 seconds off my best time in the 200 free?).



I also got my butterfly straightened up once and for all (bad pun intended; you’ll see). Here’s how.


When we went to Husky last November, I saw people breathing to the side in butterfly. I had never seen this before, so I decided to try it.

It seemed to make it easier for my arms, because I didn’t have to come up so high to breath. So for the last five months, I’ve been breathing to the side in butterfly.

But I also haven’t gotten any best times in butterfly since then, and my side-breathing seems to be getting worse; I just can’t straighten out my arms enough, and so I’m still coming up as high as I otherwise would were I breathing straight.



So in my 200 IM this weekend, I started breathing to the front instead of to the side, and I finished the butterfly ahead of everyone else. Cool! I guess side-breathing works for some, but not for me.

Remember how last night I said I was looking forward to morning practice? Yeah, well, now I’m in pain. Not because of morning practice though; I was feeling fine before swimming this evening! I’m just not used to going swimming twice a day. We did a 1½ hour practice this morning, a two hour practice at night, and two dryland sessions (one in the morning and one in the evening).

But since we’re doing three doubles a week, hopefully it won’t take long to get used to it…



Swimming at Willamette was still awesome though. The water was freezing, but that somehow made it even awesomer.

For nine months, our pool at Willamette has been out of order, due to Evil Geysers Under the Floor. For nine months, we’ve been practicing at Chemawa, where the water is yellow and the walls are covered with green slime.

But now, our home pool has finally awoken from its coma. We’ll still be swimming at Chemawa in the evenings for the next few months, but from now on our morning practices will be at Willamette.

And to celebrate our triumphant return, we all went to Willamette this evening instead of Chemawa, to play ultimate frisbee and work with the little kids.



What a contrast. The water is cool blue, the floor is white as snow, the walls are clean as a Mac’s virus record, and we have diving blocks.



Somehow, I’m actually looking forward to going swimming tomorrow at 5:00am.