Sheila Taormina Swim Clinic

Sheila Taormina an Olympic swimmer, triathlete, and pentathlete did swim clinics for Tri Zones last week. She is 5'2" and is the smallest person to ever win an Olympic gold medal in swimming! That has to be some kind of good juju for me!
Look at Sheila's guns! Seriously, I have never seen such big arm muscles on such a small person before. Photo by Tom Marek

The best part of the clinic is that I feel like we got some really good information. I tried to incorporate Sheila's advice during my Friday swim and I felt like it made a big difference. Obviously I need lots of practice and time for my muscles to strengthen, my shoulders and lats were sore after my Friday swim and swimming never makes me sore!
Tri Zoners listening intently Photo by Tom Marek
Sheila showed us some strength exercises to do with our new strength bands, I'm not doing a great job in this picture. Photo by Tom MarekPhoto by Tom Marek
It was so great working with Sheila, her enthusiasm and passion for swimming are contagious and she has an awesome attitude! She said so many things that Ingrid and I both found really inspiring.
She even brought her gold medal from the 1996 Olympics. I had never seen a real gold medal before so that was pretty cool too! Photo by Tom Marek
Then I got to wear it!
Ingrid working on her pull with the strength bands Photo by Tom Marek
Sheila and Coach Jen hamming it up for Tom Photo by Tom Marek
Sheila demonstrating proper kick technique, this was Ingrid's favorite demonstration Photo by Tom Marek

We all got copies of her book "Call the Suit" too, so far I'm loving that too. I tried to incorporate Sheila's advice during the Austin Tri too, it was tougher to do during a race since it isn't really natural for me yet, but when I was really working on it I passed lots of people.