Finals

As I typed out that title it occurred to me that my swim instructor was in the midst of her finals for university as I had my final swim lesson and that is kinda neato and stuff.  I even got a report card!

Final lesson was good.  Near the end she had me doing regular front crawl with the proper breathing (even though I had to take breaks to breathe due to lack of cardio fitness) and that's pretty much the entire reason I went to lessons in the first place so yay!

And now I'll tell you about the hilarious gear failure experience I had the day before my final lesson!  

I think I mentioned it but in my first lesson or two I would close my eyes to breathe under water and then end up going sideways, often squishing my poor instructor into either the wall or the whatever you call them ... floaty lane divider things.  (Yes there's a name for them, no I am not going to google it right now.) So she suggested I try goggles and I bought a pair and then discovered I had the identical pair from years ago and had forgotten about them (not the point, just a note) and those goggles were fine but left ring marks around my eyes.  That I didn't like, so I googled to see if there were goggles that didn't leave marks and there was a brand recommended that scans your face from their app and custom fits goggles for you so I bit the not-in-the-budget bullet and bought them and they arrived two days before my final lesson so I wanted to take them out for a spin before the lesson.

I also hadn't tried the nose clips as I'd forgotten them at home last week so I brought one of them to try too.  

I was all actually very proud of myself for getting to the pool *without* the "have to" of a lesson and so I got into the pool, I turned my watch to "going to swim" exercise and I slapped on that nose clip thing and I threw on my goggles and I dipped my head in and kicked away!  And immediately water went into my goggles and then the nose clip fell off and I made my way to the end of the lane and discovered that I'd actually NOT set my watch to "be ok in water" mode and it was like ALL the gear failed at once oh my!

Once I checked my watch out and saw it was still working (and I cleared it of water and then ACTUALLY set it to "water exercise" mode) I tightened the goggles and swam my way back free of eye-water.  I found the nose clip and because I was a little flustered I carried it for the rest of my workout (rather than getting out of the pool and putting it aside) (d'oh!)

I've sent an email to the goggles company about the fit because once I had them tight enough to keep the water out they left quite a ring that lasted quite a long time so I'm wondering if the fit is imperfect or if maybe my skin just takes pressure and holds on to it in a squishy kind of way.

So for my final lesson I did try those goggles again and just lived with the marks and I didn't use the nose clip and probably won't as I feel like I've been doing ok after that one lesson that didn't go well.  I do think I get a little more "inhaling of water" like as I tire but that's not the point.

Instructor said my breath control improved and that I should try to keep on practising once a week, and a few other helpful things.

I'm glad I did it.  I had a lot of days where I really didn't want to go and that often got me quite upset or stressed or even angry the one time but I went anyway and I'm hoping to keep up the momentum that started.  And yeah, I guess it's finals time for a few of us, eh?