Things to focus on in the pool

There are two months and three weeks till Nationals.  During that time, I've got several things to focus on in the pool.  It seems that my backstroke isn't improving quickly enough for me to make Nats cuts in it this year (at least, not in the 25-29 age group, although some of the 19-24 cuts look in reach), so I will focus on fly and the IMs (at least the 100 IM, possibly the 200 and 400, as well).

• Flip turns: My flip turns are rather lethargic--I've got great underwater work coming off the wall, but my actual flip speed is pretty crappy, so I lose ground on that portion of the turn.  If I'm neck and neck with someone going into the turn, they'll normally push off a fair bit earlier than me, but I can almost always catch back up to them, if not pull a bit ahead of them, by the time I get to the surface of the pool.  If I can get my turn time down, I can give myself an extra boost in races.  During my individual practices (not the team ones), I'll do a lot of 25s and 50s from the middle of the pool, working on increasing my flip speed.
• Open turns: My mechanics seem to be decent, but just don't have the turn speed.  As far as I can tell, I'm staying low in the water, not popping up as I turn.  Just have slow leg speed as I draw them towards my chest when I touch the wall.  Same as the training for the flip turns--lots of 25s and 50s from the middle of the pool should help out on this.
• Back to breast turns: Up until this week, I've been doing an open back to breast turn in practice and in meets.  I don't think it's a bad turn, it's just not a very fast turn.  My senior (and possibly junior?) year in highschool, I did a back to breast flip turn, where I'd turn mostly onto my left side, touch the wall with my right hand, then flip and push off leaning towards my stomach on breast.  I can only do it if I turn to that side--trying to do it to the other side is grossly uncoordinated.  The timing and body positioning is very tricky--since I can only do the turn to the one side, I have to be at the exact same part of my stroke when I hit the flags every single time, otherwise the timing is off.  And in regards to body positioning, if you cross the 90 degree line as you're coming into the wall and lean towards your stomach, DQ.  But you have to be right about that 90 degrees in order to turn and flip in that short a distance, so that's a very tricky line to cross.  I've been DQd once for that that I can remember.  Likewise, when pushing off the wall on breast, your body has to cross the 90 degree plane leaning towards your stomach, or DQ.  Gotten DQd for that once, too.  Did that turn for the first time since highschool in practice on Monday night.  Ooh boy.  Timing was off, turned too much towards my stomach going into the wall, and was almost flat on my back coming off the wall.  Yeesh.  Been working on a lot of back/breast turns this week, and I've gotten the timing down now, but still am working on the body positioning.  When the turn is done correctly, I used to be able to pull ahead by about half a body length over people who did an open back/breast turn.  Got a long ways to go, so those 25s and 50s from the middle of the pool are going to be a big component of my workouts for the next two months and change.
• Hypoxic work: My lung capacity has improved quite a bit since I began swimming again last fall.  That being said, my body requires a LOT of oxygen when I race.  At the meet this past weekend, in my 50 fly and 50 free, I only took two breaths on both, one down and one back.  Started to feel the oxygen burn pretty bad when coming into the flags at the finish on both races.  I'd like to get to the point where I can do the two breath 50 without hitting that burn.  I'll do more underwater 25s and more speed work with long breathing patterns. 
• Fly endurance: Just keep on swimming lots of fly.  I've gotten to the point where random 50s or 75s of fly here and there in practice are no big deal, and I can do sets such as 4 x 50 choice fast on :50 all fly without dying.  Just need to keep increasing the yardage and get to the point where 100s are no biggie.  I'm planning on doing an all-fly-with-fins practice this week, possibly on Saturday, to see how much my shoulders can take.
• Kick: My underwater kick is still my biggest asset when I race.  Once I'm on the surface, though, my kick is just middling.  Gonna keep pounding the kicking yardage in my individual practices, and will also incorporate vertical kicking at some point.

And for stuff outside of the pool.

• Weights: So far, I've yet to hit up the weight room.  Gonna make a concerted effort to make it there.
• Core work: Same thing as with weights.  I think a stronger core will help my kick out, and also help tighten up my body position between the walls.