Just Keep Swimming/Run Forrest, Run

It's been so cold, but despite the weather I've still been fairly active. However, I do feel kind of Florence Welch if I run, or if I don't.

I'm either really sore and want to give up/start from scratch again, or really sorry. Sometimes I'm both sore and sorry, and I think this may have to do with a few things. Mainly, my breathing and pacing (which I think have been recently impacted by the weather, but alas, that I cannot control). Both were important as a swimmer, but old habits die hard.

Breathing
As a swimmer, you need to do two things to improve your speed: master the stroke and know how to breathe. I learned how to both at a fairly young age (well, I could always BREATHE, but for swimming, it's much different). I took swim lessons when I was young, and I perfected my strokes in high school. As for breathing, I had my voice coach to thank for that. Who can sing an Italian aria with perfect breath control? This girl, and that skill helped tremendously when I was competitively swimming.
 
 When you swim, and when you sing, taking in deep breaths and slowly releasing them is key to keeping your speed and strength or maintaining your stamina to sing and reach high notes. I can take one deep breath from my diaphragm and use an entire minute to release it. I can do this while running, but instead of this skill being an asset, it is hindering me. But I don't know any other way!

I could pace my self to swim an entire 50 without breathing. I was once advised that I should breathe every other stroke, but this only slowed me down (plus, I looked like an idiot). Has anyone seen Michael Phelps do this? No, because he, too can swim entire lengths without a breath.
 
Why does this not work when I run?
Instead of giving me more energy to run, I just feel tired. I hear I'm supposed to breathe according to my stride, but I can't pay attention to that when I run. All I can hear is music, which brings me to my next problem... pacing.

Pacing
I'll never forget the first meet where I felt I could keep pace with my competition. Usually, they were either too fast, or way too slow. I didn't feel like I was doing any good for my team. But that meet, I felt pressure. I knew the times of the girls in my heat, and they were so close to mine. If I wanted to get better, I had to beat them. I had to try. My coach came to me at the beginning of the meet and told me to listen to the fastest song in my CD collection (no iPods then, kids!) that would get stuck in my head. "Why?" I asked. "Because," she explained, "you need to go fast today. The fastest you ever have. If you don't win, we lose the meet. I did the math." That blew me. Me? I started swimming so the pressure wouldn't all rest on my shoulders! I pressed her for more information. "Why do you think that will work?" She smiled.

 At the pool where we practiced, there was also a synchronized swimming team that practiced at the same as us. They played music under water so they could hear the cues for their jumps and leaps. She had observed that I swam faster when their music was playing. I realized she was right. I found a CD that had Freebird on it and got it stuck in my head. When it was time for my heat, I was humming the chord progressions. I was ready. Needless to say, we won the meet. From then on, I got a new song stuck in my head before I swam for a meet. On the way to meet, no one bothered me; they knew I was memorizing a beat.
 
 I would swim to a beat and that was my pace, regardless of how tired I was. I could never swim after that without music, and I can't run without it. I run to the pace of the songs. I have a playlist for when I run. This seems to be problematic for me because if I'm supposed to match my breathing to my steps, then I will be panting when I shouldn't be, holding my breath when I shouldn't be, and all kinds of terrible, wrong things people say not to do when you run. And it makes me feel awful!


So, now what do I do? Just keep swimming, or run, Forrest run?