Trek and I arrived safely at Farmor’s house in Forshaga this afternoon. It was a long trip: Portland-Philadelphia-Stockholm by air. Then Stockholm-Karlstad by train.
We had to wait for three hours in Stockholm for our train and took the opportunity to do some sightseeing around the train station. Stockholm is a gorgeous city.
As someone who did almost the entire swim portion of his first sprint triathlon using the breaststroke, and ended up staggering to the bike transition due to shot legs, I was curious to learn what good breaststroke technique looks like.
I found the video below on YouTube and after watching it I can only say: Wow!
I don’t know what I looked like but I know I DID NOT look like that. These guys glide through the water, using very short strokes and limited leg kicks. If I had a stroke like that I probably would have spent half the energy and finished with better times in all three disciplines. I have some work to do…
Of course, freestyle is the way to go, so I picked up the Total Immersion (TI) book from Powell’s yesterday and will try the first TI drills at Beaverton Swim Center tomorrow. With less than two months until Vancouver there’s not enough time to become a solid swimmer, but there’s certainly time for improvement.
This is an instructional video from Total Immersion.
If you’re like me and need some help with your swimming, this site has a number of tips: swimming.about.com. I can’t tell yet if they’re useful or not, but I figure it’s better than nothing.
Surfing in Bali.
