freestyle breakthrough

Something happened with my freestyle today. Julie has been telling me for a while to keep my armpit rounded, as if I'm holding a grapefruit there (mmm, grapefruit. . .). But today, I think it was the tip to "let your elbow catch up with your hand" that actually meant something. I have a completely new freestyle now. The other tip that I can't forget is to "sweep it under the rug." It all makes sense when I'm in the water. I was concentrating so hard, though, that I kept forgetting to breathe. Oops! It was was the perfect workout for figuring this out. Decent drill, with a few intensity challenges, but mostly lots of time to just focus on stroke work.

Warmup (400m): swim, kick, pull, choice.
Kick set (200m): 8x 25m maximum effort (2:00). I came in anywhere between :26 and :31. I'm not sure how I got such a wide variance. There were a few slow ones, though, where I felt my legs seizing up in the last 5-6m, though.
Free technique (300m): 4x75m :25. kick rolling--hands at side/ one-arm/ freestyle. focus is on hips controlling body roll.
Threshold (1250m): 3x [1x200m {50 drill/ 50 swim}:20, 1x50m on 2:00--perfect, 1x200m--100perfect/ :05rest/ 100 MAX] - [finall 100 MAX] 1:00 set rest
Warm-down (100m).
===2250m

This is really what I needed to get my head back into things. It was seriously exciting to feel my freestyle be so strong! I'm using way more lats this way, and it feels powerful going through the water. Now I just need to remember what I was doing, next time I get in the water!

***photo by Muffet on flickr