In training

It's eight days until the Big Sky State Games, and that looming deadline has gotten me to the pool twice last week and twice so far this week. I'm signed up to swim the 400, 200, and 100 IM, and the 1,000 and 200 free. (The 1,000 was Mik's idea; I pretended to be intimidated by it, but really I was just glad he didn't want me to do the 200 fly.)

I'm not putting in too much yardage. In fact, my training has been focused on three very specific objectives:

1. Make sure I can string together 100 yards of butterfly without dying.
2. Figure out a reasonable pace I can hold for the whole 1,000.
3. Undo decades of bad freestyle habits by learning to kick.

Sigh. I was a competitive swimmer for 10 years, and every coach I ever had tried to fix my kick. And now Mik's coaches are constantly on his case for the same reason, and I've been backing them up—blithely acting as if it's not a near-impossible feat of core strength and coordination to move one's arms and legs at the same time. So now the pressure is on to set a good example (and to avoid a torrent of well-deserved teasing and "so-that's-where-he-gets-it"-ing from the coaches). I'm a little worried for both of us that it's a genetic condition. Maybe I am where he gets it.