Swim Lesson Leading into Timberman

I went into my lesson with some key questions this week.
1) As the distance gets longer, I feel that my form falls apart and I become very inefficient.
2) The tempo trainer / Swim metronome. I've been working with this for a couple weeks now and it's a very effective tool for me. I asked him to help me dial in my settings to maximize speed and efficiency.
3) I mention that with a pull buoy / wetsuit. I always feel I can be much more efficient. My cardio isn't taxed as much with a pull buoy or wetsuit. Should I up my cadence?

He must not have liked what he saw during my warmup. Because before we did any of this, he swam beside me and then had me adjust my catch position and the speed of my recovery stroke. This helped a bunch and I felt like I was swimming well within a few laps of this adjustment.

1) He has me swim 500yd and he's timing my splits. I'm working very hard to hold the slower cadence I had been finding so comfortable lately. When I finish he tells me the following.
I need to establish my breathing rhythm immediately. Once I start losing my breath, that's when I start to lift my head differently and pull differently as well in order to lift my head.
As a result of that other nonsense, my stroke count increases as does my cadence.
None of this is surprising to me but it's good to hear what the source of the problem is. I'm not sure I would have put that together. Always best to fix the source of a problem right?

2) Time to break out the metronome. He had timed my cadence during my 500 and gave me the beeper. I look at the setting and tell him that it's considerably quicker than the pace I've found on my own. He's surprised by this, seeing how my 500 time was fairly good and he figured it might be my natural rhythm. So....
200yd swimming the cadence from the 500, followed by 200 using "my" slower setting.
I was slower using my setting but only one second slower. So obviously using the lower cadence is more efficient.

3) Now with the pull buoy. Same result, only less taxing on my cardio. So he had me mix it up breaking away from the metronome pace for a 25 sprint, then fall back onto the metronome. From this we find that I need to catch much more water on my sprints and a 20 stroke sprint would be a decent count to start with when trying to break away from a pack.

Next he checks out my sighting technique and then has me close my eyes and try to swim a length. I knew what the result of this would be. I go to the left. He was amused by the fact I was pefectly straight for about 6 strokes. Then within 3 strokes of that I was into the lane line. So his suggestion here was not to learn how to swim straight in less than a week. It was to visulize the bouy being off to the right of where it really is. Good plan. I hope I remember to do this on Sunday.

So it was a solid lesson. Only one thing remains. He believes that the metronome is legal for triathlon. I'd like to know for sure before being Disqualified at Timberman. So I contacted the USAT head official. Here was his response.
"It is legal only if it is not worn under your swimcap or on your head."

Well that presents a challenge which I hope to find a solution to later today at the lake. Obviously if I can't use it, it's not the end of the world. Just checking out my options.

More later!