Swimming progress - great leaps forward

A few week's back, I decided that I ought to learn to swim front crawl - so I don't look like a plonker when competing in my next triathlon!  Initially, I was able to swim just 10 minutes or so before taking in so much water that I had to come up spluttering for air.

But the last week or so has seen quite an improvement.  First up, I downloaded half a dozen educational videos from Youtube and have been very impressed with how I have been able to constructively use these.  From the very moment I started watching them, I have realised so many things that I was doing wrong.  Perhaps the main one of these has been the need to rotate back and forward off the body's central axis in time with arm motions.  For some reason, I had never known this before.  The other main issue has been breathing without drinking water - which is taking me a little longer to sort out

Secondly, I have been reading a couple of books about triathlon technique.  These have incredibly detailed instructions on swim technique and I have been slowly putting these into practice - each morning swim session features one new thing to try and remember.

So gradually some milestones have been passed.  Managing to swim one length, managing two lengths, managing twelve lengths in a row (though with rests between pairs of lengths), managing 50 lengths front crawl out of a total swim distance of 80 lengths, swimming a length front crawl in 25 seconds compared to the 40 seconds that was my fastest time doing breaststroke, and so on.

Today's extension?  Swimming 80 lengths with the final 40 being all crawl and with minimal stopping between lengths.

I now have decent breathing technique and need to work now on upper body strength so my strokes are more powerful

Probably exactly how I look when swimming front crawl