Skip to main content

I is for I.M.

I'm not discussing Instant Messaging today. Instead, I'm talking about the Individual Medley, a race in competitive swimming. The heroine of my YA swimming-romance-murder-mystery Streamline--Audrey Rose--specializes in the I.M.

The individual medley features all four strokes in the following order: butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle.

This race is fun to watch because there are often lead changes. Rarely is one swimmer awesome at all four strokes (even Michael Phelps has an "off" stroke of breaststroke but "off" for him would be very "on" for most of us!) The I.M. does tend to favor breaststrokers though because that stroke comes at a pivotal part of the race.

Training I.M. is fun because there's so much variety. Getting tired of butterfly? (My answer is always a resounding yes! My friend Joe calls my butterfly the "ugly".) Flip over to backstroke. Backstroke shredding your legs? Time for breaststroke. And then bring it all home on the freestyle.

I.M. transitions require great technique and finesse. Here's a short video showing two swimmers demonstrate the turns from fly to back, back to breast, and breast to free.



Now you'll have some more knowledge for the swimming events in the Olympics this August.

Comments

Kyra Lennon said…
That's very cool! I really like the sound of Streamline!
Anonymous said…
I've learned something new today. Thanks for this post, Jennifer! :)
I used to love swimming in competitions. Just you and the water.
Really interesting. I'm going to check out more of your posts!
Heather
Grammy said…
Oops, you just lost me, ha. I am a very non-swimmer. I had to take a semester of swimming when I was a freshman in college (50 years ago), passed with a D, took Red Cross course in Swimming years later, still couldn't do it. A friend tried to teach me, fear still kept me from succeeding, so I finally just faced up to the fact that I am not meant to be a swimmer. I am quite good at other things, but no, no, no, not that. Ha. Best regards to you, Ruby
Like Jack, I just learned something novel and fun today. Thanks, Roland
Laura said…
Wow - that's such a great race. Unfortunately the words Laura and Finesse don't belong in the same sentence, but I do love to watch incredible swimmers
Lx
Mimi said…
WOw!, that's some skill, they're just like fish!
I'm hoping to get to some of the Olympic events, I love synchronised swimming, but will take almost anything and definitely yes to watch this if I got the chance!
Jennifer Lane said…
Kyra, Streamline was my first novel and I had a lot of fun writing it.

Jack, it's always a good day when you learn something new.

Heather, exactly! There's a lot of peace when it's just you and the H2O.
Jennifer Lane said…
Grammy, your swimming experiences sound traumatic! Hope you took some deep breaths after watching that video, ha ha. God gave me size 12 feet (I refer to them as my flipper feet) so I think I'm meant to be a swimmer. But some people prefer the land.

Hey Roland, glad to share some meaningless tidbits from my fave sport!
Jennifer Lane said…
Hi Laura, or should I call you Ms. Finesse? ;D I'm looking forward to some eye candy watching the summer Olympics. Yowza!

Mimi, I love synchronized swimming too. What gifted, graceful athletes.
danneromero said…
sounds like a good read.... my kids are swimmers..... i will have to look into this... :)
Jennifer Lane said…
Hey Danne, you poor thing. I bet you're stuck all weekend in some hot natatorium while your kids compete, eh? At least it makes them behave. Thanks for stopping by the blog!