With a bit of "dialling in" they're the most comfortable goggles I've worn, and I've tried lots!!
They don't leak (again, a bit of trial and error), the field of vision is excellent and they're really light.
I've got headband elastic as the nose bridge (not string) and an elastic lace from my running shoes as the headband, including the plastic adjuster.
Absolutely love 'em.
The best £6 I've spent (inc p&p!).
Not really the thread topic so I'll quit waxing about goggles!! :)

I've had many 'a ha's' since swimming with a new coach. Nothing can beat having a very skilled coach on deck....plus the capacity to take their instruction and apply it.

* finding/understanding the 'power alley' in general
* making sense of the subtle torque changes (in my stroke) that occur through the pull relative to body rotation
* refinement of the 'whip' within the kick (work in progress)
* there is room (for my stroke) to take the hand entry wider than I'd think & it saves my shoulder plus helps my power alley. (I've got a torn labrum)
* the sound the water makes when the stroke is good--this was/is a total wonderment to me once I got that! I can still hear it with my Mack's.
* that I have a strong 6 beat kick, and 'should' be a 50y sprinter (wtf?)
* the right drills for the individual can really make your swim rock--so I am always working drills & finding the sweet spot which is not always easy.
* using bungees can be totally fun/fast and revealing of the most minute technique errors, and the most terribly painful thing depending on how you use them. Both ways are good.

The BIGGEST 'a ha'
** timing of the breath** Coach kept telling me to turn my head back into the water sooner (we're down to subtle timing now)....except it would leave me short on air. It was through one arm drills that it occurred to me: I can breathe sooner, and then finish the breath sooner. Ta Dah! I'm still working on this though.

THIS never entered my mind for years until I started with a real coach last year. Turns out this is my bend as well. As a matter of fact put my best 50m time down in a test set this morning so quite excited to see the progression on the sprint side coming along. I love OWS where I can take in the scenery, but anything over maybe a 400 in a pool is like torture to me so I'm open arms about the sprint side of things:)

I had no idea I'd been doing it "wrong" all these years...! Yet, I can't wrap my mind around what it would take to be competitive in the 50y free, loads more in the weight room, loads more in the pool, all for me to take few secs off my best time. Yes, to be really good at sprinting, requires a shit ton of work. It's a huge effort for so "little" time reduction, and sprinting leaves no room for mental or technical errors... I like outdoor scenery too.

Natural born swimmer!!!

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I have been swimming for a long time and I am fairly good at it. I discover new things and make new observations everyday! I learned something today in fact. I tend to flick my wrist as my hand moves from the end of each stroke to the recovery portion. It has been my trademark since I was a kid and is how my mom can spot me in a crowd of 2000 swimmers. I realized today the overemphasis of my push through meant my rotation was extended which allowed for up to three extra kicks on each side. Concentrating on putting all my power in my front quadrant I was able to eliminate the wrist flick, a good bit of kicking, and engage more of my back muscles. I eliminated the extra energy I was wasting and still swimming 1:20/100m. It was definitely an 'a ha' moment!

I haven't had an "a ha" moment yet, but I figured this might be a good place to ask a question. After the last several times I've been swimming -- public pools in Atlanta and Cobb County -- my sinuses have been messed up the rest of the night. This is a bit confusing because I've been swimming on and off for about 2 years now and this issue just now popped up. My thought last night was that maybe the chlorine is really drying out my sinuses and I should hydrate better. Has anyone else had this problem? What would you suggest?

Doesn't mean you can't be a great middle/distance swimmer though, just maybe your best skill sets are at the sprint. I'm actually in a sustained period of cutting my yardage down every few weeks and getting faster and faster. Some of that can be from a bit of inadvertent taper, but 'loads more in the pool' I'm not. I think my sweet spot might be right about 10k a week. Dry land routine in 90 minutes twice a week same as usual. It's fun for sure though I enjoy it much more than staring at the black line for endless mind numbing threshold sets!

I'm not fast by any stretch, but been knocking down some barriers that I never thought I would lately which has me on kind of a buzz. I was very stale with swimming middle and longer distances. Might go back one day who knows, but enjoying the sprint side of things for now!

I swam competitively growing up and in high school, and recently had an unexpected A Ha moment. I had a swimmer in the lane next to me point out that I was swimming with my head up, looking forward. At first it made me mad, because I was substantially faster than him, and who was he to point out something wrong with my swimming? I always knew that you were supposed to keep your head down, but I grew up sharing a lane with 10+ people, and you HAVE to look forward to avoid head ons and you have to time you stroke so you don't have arm collisions. Additionally, I frankly didn't believe it would save that much time. Well, the next day I tried it, looking down at the stripe at the bottom of the pool, instead of the cross at the other end, and it made a HUGE difference - literally 1 second per 25 yards. Unreal. I'd also like to add that my garmin 910xt was extremely useful in quantifying this improvement in time and efficiency improvements.

That's more or less what helped me knock my 50m free time down today. When I turn on my sprint 6 beat I have a tendency to look up a bit with my head. The net net of that is probably a few inches more depth with my feet, but the drag was enough to be noticeable. Put my head back down, felt a noticeable rise in my hips and boom, boom.....back to back PR's!

Oh...thank you. Trying that one tomorrow. I know about "head down" swimming, but this is a twist...awesome pointer!

Kathy - I could never visualize / make the "high elbow" work until I was told the following trick. Rather than think about "high elbow", visualize this: instead of a black line on the bottom of the pool, imagine it's a brick wall and you are swimming along the top of it. Now, imagine that the wall is several bricks wide, enough so that the only way you can stroke without hitting this imaginary wall, is to pretend you are paddling with your arms wide and on both sides of it. If you understand the imagine, and practice - right now in from of your computer! - you'll see that your elbows end up high and wide as you avoid hitting this wall.

Worked wonders for me!

Love a good bunch o' cussing once in a while. Awesome!

My big "ah-ha" was being told that I was wasting 1/2 of each stroke by not pushing harder in the last half. Everyone hears the tip about "touch your thumb to your thigh", and I was doing that, but not with any power.

The person who schooled me on this one asked me to demonstrate getting out of the end of the pool. I put my two hands on the side, then hoisted myself up. When I was half way out of the water, he shouted "now is where it counts!" and he was right. I needed to continue with the "stroke" right through until my arms were straight and I was able to put my knee up on the side. As he explained it, while the first half of the stroke is important for the catch and some power, the best is in the last half as you use the real power in your arms/chest to push the water behind you...all the way until you touch your thumb to your thigh. You can't drag yourself out of the pool by applying all the power in the first half of the exit and reducing as your arms past your stomach, so don't do that while stroking when swimming.

I have been and will continue to struggle with the swim. I am very comfortable in swimming most distances without stopping but this thread has opened up my my mind a bit about what to work on. This thread is my a ha moment. Here are the things I added this morning and in just one seasion cut a minute off my continuous 1800yd swim interval in a 25yd pool:

-The barrel and wall analogy really works. I read Swim Speed Secrets and countless threads but for the first time I have a visualization of what I should be doing.

-Pushing through the stroke to the thigh was something I didn't give enough tought to. As soon as I thought about it more it was amazing the difference in fatigue because I was never pushing all the way back. My hand would come out of the water too soon so I was leaving something on the table with every stroke.

-Breathing and head position were also always after-thoughts. I knew they were important but coordinating and controlling both is more difficult than I would have thought.

-Time in the pool. I have put in an insufficient amount of time in the pool to complain about my ability to swim properly and really get my time down. I believe that a min of 4 days/week should be spent in the pool as long as I am spending and equal amount of effort on biking and running. Bricks are of course mandatory.

Putting it all together is a PIA. It takes constant thought and intention when moving down the lane. It is easy to get lazy and go back to the old way of doing things. Thanks everyone for their a ha moments. The one thing I will add is that swimming is way more than strength. Of course it helps but surely doesn't define the swimmer completely. There are people that get in the pool that I wouldn't think would get to the other end but they end up rocking it.

Perhaps learning to swim is a PIA for many people but, on the bright side, if you can get to the point where you swim on auto pilot, I think you'll really enjoy it. Assuming swimming next to a lane rope, you could in theory swim for an hour or so with your eyes closed, since just by counting your strokes you'll know when to start your flip turn. You'll never do that on the bike or run, except of course on the trainer but there is NO "movement through a medium (e.g., air, water)" in that case, so it doesn't really count in my book. I don't think you could run on a treadmill with eyes closed, but even if you could, you're still motionless whereas in the pool you're moving smoothly and powerfully through the water. Once you really learn how to swim, it is far from boring:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Maybe I missed it, but where is Hotman!?

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"Sweep the leg...Do you have a problem with that?" - John Kreese

Weirdly, for me, if I look straight down, I lose 1sec/100 compared to intentionally angling my head forward enough to keep the water at my high forehead. I suspect part of it may be that this position forces me to straighten the head faster, as well as use a better EVF, but I'm still playing with it as I was surprised to see how much speed I lose from getting my whole head in the water looking straight down.

Dude, slowman banned him like a month ago.

Is that 1800 continuous a typical workout for you?

It is how I start but follow that up with various intervals. Usually 100yd sprints with push-ups/sit-ups between. I am starting to mix it up more and as I am going to start upping the yardage/frequency in the pool that is going to be necessary to keep the pool interesting.

I'll leave it to the fish here to recommend how you should change up your swim workouts, but simply put, you should change up your swim workouts. That straight 1800 isn't likely the best way to use that time in the pool.

Must have missed that

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"Sweep the leg...Do you have a problem with that?" - John Kreese

Head over to the LR he is 'superjayfive'. He has some epic commentary already how the earth was populated by aliens and plenty of 'factual' evidence he discovered on the Googles! Just look for the '!', quotation marks and LOL's.

Oh my goodness. Well if it's on the internets, it can't be a lie.

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"Sweep the leg...Do you have a problem with that?" - John Kreese