Music to my ears!

Second swim day this week. The first time I go only two days apart. I was a little apprehensive, but since I'm going away tomorrow, it seemed better to attend practice than not to. When I arrived, the women in the locker room all agreed it was a bit of a monster workout. Great. OK, well, let's see what I can handle.

After 250 yards warm up, I got out to stretch the shoulder a bit. That was a good move. It felt better when I jumped back in. The workout started with 12 50s. Getting progressively faster. Managed to make all the intervals, no fins. Pretty pleased. Shoulder felt stressed but not painful. OK. What's next?

Drills you say? Fine with me. We did some of those, probably about 200 yards worth. Now what?

400s. Oh really? Isn't that special? On 8:30? Really? OK, here we go. It seemed like I missed the first interval somehow. Which I don't understand since I passed two people who were wearing fins. But to be safe, I put on the bloody fins for the next two. Of course, then I had too much rest time. Oh well. OK, Amy. We're ready for whatever is next on the damn sheet. More speed work? Dear God.

8 25s, 4 50s, 6 25s, 3 50s, 4 25s, 2 50s, 2 25s, 1 50. Thank you sweet Jesus I have to get out early for an appointment!!! I'll see how many of them I can do before I have to leave. And we're off.

Then it happened. What I've been waiting for and aspiring to all this time. It doesn't matter that it was simple logistics to even out the lanes. It doesn't matter that they were swimming the same intervals at that point. I heard her say it. Coach Amy said it. She even repeated it. "Jacqui, why don't you go to lane 2?" I damn near tap danced on top of the water from lane one to lane two!! That made my day for sure, maybe even my week.

So now I must work hard to be worthy of being with the faster folks. I'm one lane further away from her, so maybe she won't notice if I don't breathe to both sides, I'll go faster just to the right. Yeah, right. That was a pipe dream. The rest of the workout sounded like this:

Jacqui, kick the feet. Big splash the whole length of the lap.

Jacqui, breathe both sides.

(Damn, she doesn't miss a thing)

Jacqui, kick up and down, you're separating when you breathe.

Jacqui, finish the stroke.

(Damn, doesn't anyone make any mistakes???)

JACQUI, BOTH SIDES!!!

(Damn, I'm going to change my name)

Don't get me wrong, I love it when Amy coaches. And I love all the corrective measures. I'm determined to get faster and this is how to do it. All the same, I was happy when the guy behind me mentioned the time and I realized it was time for me to go.

Final calculation for the morning was 2500 yards. Nice.