Masters? I'm No Master!

Last night I reluctantly signed up for the Masters Swim class at USF. Mike and Katie had been going to the class for a couple of months now, and I finally joined them. What is a Masters Swim class? Good question. I had heard the term many times and just assumed that it was a class for the very good swimmers, hence the term "Masters", right? Well, it turns out it is actually a national program for anyone looking to improve "their fitness through swimming".... here is the actual description from the US Masters Swimming website:

"United States Masters Swimming (USMS) is a national organization that provides organized workouts, competitions, clinics and workshops for adults aged 18 and over. Programs are open to all adult swimmers (fitness, triathlete, competitive, non-competitive) who are dedicated to improving their fitness through swimming. Founded in 1970, the non-profit corporation is organized with 500 clubs in 53 regions throughout the United States. Membership numbers more than 42,000, with individual members ranging in age from 18 to over 100."

To start the class, we had a series of warm up drills such as kicking and pulling. I was pretty much exhausted by the third set of four warmups and obviously the coach noticed because she came over and gave me a few tips, such as relaxing my kick and doing more flutter kicks than deep kicks. She told me to continue the drills rather than doing the interval training and kept a close eye on me, correcting any mistakes as I went along. All in all, it was very exhausting, but a great class and I will definitely continue to go because I have a lot of work to do before thinking I can swim 2.4 miles. There are swim classes Monday through Friday, but I hope to make it at least twice a week, hopefully on Tuesdays and Thursdays when possible.