All I Want for Christmas is GOOD SWIM FORM

Last Friday I wanted to get in a fun swim set, but add a little structure to it.  The quick goal was to get in 1600m and throw in 10 x 100m zone 3-4 pushing the heart rate a little while still trying to focus on form.  
After trying to swim correctly for 3+ years now and hasn’t happened, I’m just accepting the fact that I wasn’t meant to be a swimmer.   As much as I love swimming, I know I’m not meant to be an Andy Potts.  

I had a good warm up, tried to concentrate on kicking and smooth form.  I felt nice and consistent so I wanted to continue that into my 100’s.  Thought I’d kick the heart rate real quick and do a few 50’s which I always like to do before 100’s or 200’s.  

Going into my 100’s my goal was to try and negative split, obviously that didn’t happen.  I noticed after my first few 100’s, I would do a decent job of kicking (really hard for me), but after 50m i would start to tighten up and tire where even when I was thinking about it I had a hard time with my coordination.  I felt like I was sinking when trying to kick and had a hard time keeping my left arm in the water trying to streamline, but found my left arm either already coming through which made me sink or I could feel it bend and start to sink.  I tried different things whether starting off slower, faster, steady the whole time or just try to kick, but every 100 turned out about the same not able to coordinate my kick with my breathing on the side.  

For those that know me know I’m not flexible which doesn’t help, but after my 100’s and three 50m cool down’s, I went to check my data and something shocked me.  I thought I was going at a good pace for my 100’s, but my three 50m cool down’s I went as slow as I could go just enjoying a nice super easy pace that I felt could hold for a couple hours.  While doing the 100’s I figure I could hold that pace for 1500m.  
I noticed my super easy 50m cool down’s were only 8-10 seconds off my 100m pace.  During the cool down’s I could feel my feet sinking, dragging and using only my upper body.  

How can it be that swimming at a zone 3-4 pace per 100m would only be 8-10 seconds off my extremely slow zone 1-2 heart rate pace?  My only answer to this is PROPER SWIM FORM!

Once I learn to get a little bit of correct form in there, I’m curious to see the difference.