Back to the pool last night. Managed six lengths before having to stop for a few minutes, and managed either 19 or 21 lengths over the 90 minutes or so I was in the pool. Which isn’t anything compared to some of the people in there – one girl just swam breaststroke (which is apparently the most technically difficult and physically demanding stroke) continually for an hour while we were there and then just got out of the pool and walked away like she hadn’t even broken a sweat. The evil so-and-so.
Still though, I’m feeling more and more comfortable doing this, and my stamina is going up. My form is appallingly bad and my noseclip doesn’t really clip my nose, and the goggles are as anti-fog as victorian london. I still can’t get the timing right on the breathing, not during front crawl and not during breaststroke. I keep getting a mouthful of pool water or just not getting my old breath out in time to take any breath in. So the CO2 builds up in my lungs and my body decides it’s aphyxiating (which technically, it is), and that’s just plain unpleasant. Breathing out underwater while swimming isn’t easy, either, and tends to get the panic levels rising again, which is wierd, because that doesn’t happen even when I backflip off the deep end and dive for the bottom facing upwards while breathing out (the tumbling in the water bit’s much easier than the swimming bit, probably because I spent so much time tumbling in the air from the Aikido in college). But still – getting better slowly. And I seem to be down a belt notch already, which was unexpected.
But – and it’s a large but – I’ve still not picked up a rifle or pistol since the start of August. Going to have to start technical training soon.