Two Different Swimmers

I’ve been relying on my fins far too much these last two months. It’s a bad precedent for me to set for myself. They provide a false sense of strength and I don’t push myself to get better when I wear them. I tell myself I need them for “stroke” work, i.e. anything other than freestyle, but I then I just leave them on.

I’ve been trying to avoid them on the weekend swims, and I successfully did that last Saturday. Today, however, I had them off and on. And I think that’s what led me to tell my lane mate, a lovely lady I’ve been getting to know (we are a good pace pair) “I’m a totally different swimmer when I wear fins!!”.

As soon as I said that, she agreed. She quickly said (that clock was ticking for us to start the next set) that she gave up fins three years ago and she had a really hard time adjusting. She said she had to redesign her entire stroke.

As we set off, I realized that must be true. I had just done a full set without them, barely making the intervals - well, I made them, but made them on the very second I had to start again - and heave breathing the entire time. But the second set, with the fins, had me calm, collected, and finishing with 10-15 seconds to spare. I barely made an effort to swim in contrast to the immense effort I had to make to swim without them.

I think I need an hour in the lane just by myself, which will probably happen once the City of LA re-opens their pools this summer. I need to be able to swim totally relaxed with no fins and try adjustments to go faster without them.

For the time being I’ll try harder to use them less. I think this will be doable in the coming week as I’ll be back at the Culver City Plunge and I think they still limit two swimmers per lane. The pressure of having someone behind me reaching for my toes will be off so I don’t have any excuse. Right?