Got an Itch?

Okay, close your eyes. Now picture you're in the African safari and you wander along a watering hole. There's plenty of wildlife there, including a hippo sipping from the cool water. Now, picture that hippo getting an itch and needing to scratch his rear end. Why are we doing this exercise, you might ask? Well, that's the imagery that popped into my head as I was swimming yesterday. You see, I decided to work on something that I had been putting off for a while. Instead of focusing on a good cardio workout, I decided to focus on trying to turn (one of those underwater, somersault turns). I used to be able to do this when I was in Elem/Jr. High School. But since I hadn't really tried to do it much since that time, it was a bit difficult. I picked last night to do it, because there was hardly anybody at the pool and I relative anonymity. By the end of the session, I was getting okay at it. I say that, not because it was technically sound or pretty, but because I was able to put several (about 8) lengths together with underwater turns. I found that it is much harder to keep my wind when I turn underwater, but I know that it'll help push me to gain endurance for when I try to do any open water swims in the future. So, from now on, I'm planning on only using the underwater turn and not the easy breathing turn in order to further my training.

Slightly on the same topic. I've told many people, but in case you haven't tried it, swimming is probably my favorite way of exercising. I think I appreciate it more after running in hot Texas because when you're finished with the workout, you are very tired, but at the same time, your body doesn't hurt. It also was my exercise of choice while I was training for the two triathlons I competed in because I was pretty afraid of not being able to swim the entire route. I had the best results with weight loss while I was swimming and hopefully I'll see that again if I make it a regular part of my routine. So far, I've gone two weeks in a row and I'm hoping to go again on Friday.