Butterfly Breakthrough
Well, it's more than just the butterfly, but the alliteration sounded good. Tonight at practice, I dramatically lowered my time for the 50y free (from about 35-38s to 27-29s). But, more importantly, I actually managed to do a bit of fly. We did a 200 drill where we essentially just did the butterfly pull without worrying about the over-the-water recovery or the dolphin kicks. After that, I felt comfortable with the underwater motion, so I added in the arm recovery. That worked, so I let my legs sort of dolphin kick whenever they wanted. It resulted in a 1-beat kick, but that's better than nothing! It looks like my body may be capable of the fly after all.
Meanwhile, I'm fairly certain I am going to do well at Aquapalooza. We had a mini-meet time trial earlier this week, and I swam the 50 breast in just under 30 seconds. After a three-week taper (yes, I've decided to taper) and swimming fresh, I've got some high expectations for my times at the meet. I'm not going to share them in the interest of not jinxing myself, but I'm confident and excited about them. I'll let you know what they were once the meet is over.