Swim improvement!

2 weeks ago (or was it already 3 weeks ago?) we did 350m swim with around 1min rest. As many as we can do until we slow down by a lot (~10sec) but min 6 of them. I did 7 of them and in 5:34-37 range.

We did the same swim today. But this time I managed to do 8 and faster! I went 5:37, 37, 33, 32, 28, 27, 35, 45. So nice improvement. And I am pretty sure that it is real improvement because it did not felt hard until the last one, whereas last time my arms were dead already during the 5th one. Today I was able to pull pretty well until the end. Much better than the last time:)

I was little worried that I will be slower because last time I was in a lane with two speedsters and I was worried that they will lap me and thus I was swimming fast because I did not want to be lapped!
Today I was in a lane with one guy and a girl who is the best junior triathlete in Slovakia. (Although I think that it is not because she is that fast but rather it is due to lousy competition in this country) Nevertheless, she was a very good motivation for me:)
I started slowly at 5:37 and then picked up the pace until I got too tired and slowed down to 5:45. But we were totally uncoordinated in our lane. She went first, I went 10sec behind and the guy 10sec after me. She caught him with around 50m to go, me with around 25 to go. Unfortunately it worked out every time that as she was passing him we hit each other. And then then she slowed down and I had to pass both of them in last 50m and it was a mayhem. Well, good practice for tri swim start:)

We took longer break after the sixth one and we also switched lanes a bit. I went again to the lane with my speedsters. Fortunately, or rather unfortunately, the guys in the lane were tired so no lapping but one slowed down way too much and I caught him with around 125m to go and did not know how to pass him without headcrashing to the other guy, plus the 'slow' guy was not that slow and it would have taken me some time to pass him. So I settled into easier pace behind him, I would have gone faster if I had not caught him.
Unfortunately by the 8th one it was only me and 4 other speedsters in other lanes, so they left me in their (water) dust very soon and I was on my own with noone to compete with.

I am happy about the improvement. Although of course CH kept screaming at me, first it was me going like a windmill, then I was not finishing the stroke all the way to my tights, then I was pulling myself up and down instead of forward and thus wasting my precious energy. Nobody is perfect:) But I think that it was because of the lane mayhem, I was not paying enough attention to my stroke in last ~100m because I had to pay attention not to get hit or hit someone while passing my lanemates.

Good swim!