July 22nd - 1st Derek Garcia Swimming Lesson

Today Julienne and I had our first swimming lesson from Derek Garcia.  It was at Honeysuckle Beach also with Aaron at 9am in the morning.

 Julienne, Derek, Richard

at Honeysuckle Beach

Derek had me not wear a wet suit so he could see more clearly what my mechanics were. He could see clearly that I was not breathing comfortably. The first thing he had me do was practice just holding onto the dock and breathing out then in. I chocked on the water several times. Then he showed me how to more force-ably get the air out before breathing in.  That helped a lot and I was able to more comfortably do it 20x rather than 5x.  Here is a picture of me looking up just after doing so. Pretty old looking guy if you ask me in the picture below, but in the picture above it is the first one for decades at 159.9 pounds which I weighed in at this morning.

Next he asked me how much swimming I was doing in the pool. Nothing at all I replied for I am trying to get comfortable in the lake. He said I needed to be practicing 3x a week or so in the pool. I should try to swim as far as I can while breathing correctly, then stop and relax for 30 seconds then push on. Then I should swim the entire length. And do as many lengths as I could do in 30 minutes. Then I should swim as far as a I could extending out further a little each time.  He said the pool was good because I could see where I was going, have breaks, etc. I had previously thought that come summer I should abandon the pool. 

Months ago Lauren at the KROC center helped give me my first swimming lessons in 43 years.  That was all Julienne needed to make much improvement. I'm afraid I was far behind that. 

Derek helped Julienne extend her arm out further from her head in her reach and with other tips such as sighting high and sighting something to the left and also to the right of where you are headed. 

I then put on my wetsuit and enjoyed the wonderful warmth and buoyancy it provided for my rear end and legs and swam breathing more comfortably 1/2 the length of the Honeysuckle dock and then rested for 30 seconds and swam another 1/2 length.  Julienne said I looked better like I was catching on. That was encouraging.

Derek remarked that from my times I was doing great at cycling and running but needed to concentrate on swimming and only cycling or running about 1x per week.  He told me to practice at the pool two days, then the lake once, then the pool and report in to him on Friday.  I will do so.