Today it happened, that eureka moment when you finally get what your coach has been shouting at you for months! After having had moments in the past where I almost wanted to cry in the pool I today felt a bit like Ian Thorpe on the picture above. At the swim course I attend we do loads of drills and this afternoon we were doing a drill where we were to imagine pilling a zipper up along our sides, all the way up to our shoulder, before lifting the hand out of the water and completing the stroke. After a length of that coach Martin asked us to swim back and all of a sudden my body position improved heaps and I rolled much more smoothly, allowing my breathing just that tiny bit more of time that it needed. When I reached the end of the pool I (almost) punched the air - it felt like a proper breakthrough in my front crawl training. At the end of the session coach Martin told me that my stroke was 'beautiful' and I don't think I've ever been more genuinely happy for a compliment...front crawl for me has been/is blood, sweat and tears but maybe, just maybe, I will conquer it!
