Sometimes you do things...

...when you're out of town that you wouldn't normally do. Yeah, I'll admit it. I got back to the master's swim practice at lunch again today, and they were already about halfway finished with the workout. One hundred yards or so was all the preparation I got before the first challenge. I dove off the blocks. Goggles filled, I stopped and emptied them. Haven't done that since college, and somehow in those races I managed to keep the seals tight, no leakage. Maybe it was the way I pulled those straps so tight my eyes were about to bug out of the sockets.

Next up, I demonstrated not only my breaststroke for the coach, but also my backstroke. He'd already seen my fly on Tuesday. Not many people get to see me do anything other than freestyle, much less all 4 competitive strokes. Thankfully there was no sidestroke or trudgeon requests. I'm sure it was quite a sight, seeing me struggle to complete my "weakest strokes," 100 yards at a time, on 2:20 (shut up! it was hard!).

I did get lots of tips from Dirk; probably more in 30 minutes than I've gotten in the last 3 years combined. He pulled his chair up to the end of my lane to coach, correct, and complement. "Joy, freestyle is NOT your worst stroke." I said, "thanks!" then quickly realized that I had just done most of a 100 of backstroke. "No, backstroke is." Hmmm, that somehow doesn't surpise me. "Your breaststroke isn't bad, and... I'm not going to judge your fly." Ok, two out of four is nothing to be ashamed of, especially since I only use one in races! I'm pretty sure he was laughing at me while I made my flopping attempt down the lane and back, but that's ok, because I was laughing at myself too! That didn't help the water stay out of my mouth.

Too bad I'm missing tomorrow's practice. It's Friday Relay Day. I can only imagine the potential embarrassment I could face there. Sounds like fun!!