What the Heck is Wrong With Me?

Something is seriously not right with me these last few weeks?  I have been waking up at 4:15am every Tuesday and Thursday for the last three weeks and am REALLY enjoying it?  I KNOW?  CRAZY, right? Well, let me clarify.  The 4:15am wake up call is not what I am enjoying but the Master's swim classes that begin a short 45 minutes after the alarm beeps are what I am liking!

Let me explain in more detail: As I was deftly moving around the bedroom this morning with ninja-like dexterity trying not to wake the wifey - I saw my reflection in the mirror and something unusual made me take notice.  No it was not the abundance of grey hair in my 3 day old beard or the dark circles surrounding my tired eyes.  It was that I was smiling? AND  I was smiling because I was going swimming!

Yep, that is right - I like swimming and this morning was the first time I let myself acknowledge this fact.

Now I get to the gym and jump into the pool and exchange some pleasantries with Coach Katie.  I look up at the dry erase board and assume Katie is having a difficult morning because the 3000 yard workout is just loaded with kicks, pulls, and builds - she is trying to hurt us is all that I can assume!  Midway through the butt kicking Coack Katie tells me that my swimming is looking, "Strong today"!  I look over my shoulder to make sure she was indeed speaking to me and not someone else and lo and behold I am the only one in the lane.  She then tells me that I am ready to learn how to do a Flip Turn.


Now I have never attempted a flip turn in my life.  I always just assumed that a Flip Turn was something that only really good swimmers did and they had a super secret club that taught them how to do these Flip Turns  I even rationalized to myself that this group of swimmers probably even had like a cool secret handshake too!

Well today was my initiation into club because Katie showed me how to do this elusive Flip Turn!  I pretty much looked like I was having epileptic seizures my first few attempts.  The group had a couple good chuckles as my nose seemed to be sucking in more water than the new massive skimmer, A Whale,  in the Gulf.  But after a few more attempts I started to figure it out.  Still have a lot of practice to get it right but in a weird way I feel like I entered the exclusive Flip Turn Club - maybe on Thursday they will show me the handshake?

Here is a good video of how to do Flip Turns:


Thanks for Reading,

Jeff