minor breakthrough

or maybe more:

So I've been rasslin' with this shoulder problem for quite some time, and have had to take days off I wouldn't have otherwise, ease up on weaving on days I wouldn't have otherwise, you get the picture.

In trying to come up with my own solutions, I fiddled with my stroke, in particular what I do when I breathe. For some reason known only to Poseidon, I took up kind of looking over my shoulder when I breathed in. This did indeed work, at least as far as making the twinge in my left arm go away.

Jolly good, says I. But today, while I was breezing through a routine but semi-out-of-synch warmup (maybe I'm feeling that summertime out-of-whack thing, too), I thinks to meself "Arrr. There's no way that over-the-shoulder thing is a good idea. If I'm supposed to be parallel to the bottom of the pool (a place I should probably refer to as Davy Jones's Locker :), I shouldn't have my head coming up out of the water to look back."

OK, so that's not verbatim.

But I took a crack at simply looking up at the ceiling and presto! less water in my mouth, easier breathing, better hydrodynamic profile and - duh - higher speed with lower effort. That can't be good for burning calories, of course, but it sure makes the swim more fun.

Now I harbor this hope that when the massage lady can fit me in and I can get back to having a loose back/shoulder/arm system, I can use this improvement in the stroke to pick up the pace a little.

I do, after all, have promises to keep, and miles to go.