Breathing right.

As opposed to breathing correctly. And as opposed to breathing left.

One thing that stood in the way of my swimming sans snorkel for a long time was an apparent inability to get my mouth out of the water long enough for a breath. It took a while to figure out that this problem only happened to the right, which unfortunately was the side I always tried at first.

Once the switch was made to the left side, the progress came. Now I'm sort of plateaued speed wise, so it seems like a good time to work on addressing technique issues.

This was strangely difficult to get around to. Getting in the pool and not having a distance/speed expectation to live up to is not the normal MO. After warming up for 200m it was time to see if I could breathe right at all. Rotation to that side is a bit unreliable, and my form was terrible, but there was finally enough base of experience to keep moving. Swam 800m breathing only to the right.

Success. Needs a lot more work over the winter, but having done something once is a big confidence builder, and a little confidence goes a long way.