"Off Day"

I'm trying not to run more than six consecutive days until my body re-adjusts to the mileage increase, and because I'd rather have 5-6 quality running days in a week as opposed to 7 lower mileage/slow days. The body was feeling good this morning but I decided to stick with no running and maybe double tomorrow. Instead, I took myself to the pool to build some swim endurance.

I hadn't been in the pool since Wednesday, so I decided to get at least an hour's worth of work in. I warmed up with a few easy laps, doing some of the drills Julie taught me. Up until now I haven't been doing more than a mile at a time. I set out to do 5 x 400 yard repeats. I didn't have an official clock on them but they were all between 6:00 - 6:30. I definitely felt stronger as I went along and was feeling pumped about the workout. With 200 to go on the last repeat, I kicked it into overdrive and swam as fast as I could. Big mistake.

As soon as I finished, I tried to pop myself out of the pool, and my forearms, wrists, and right calf all cramped up. Fortunately, this was about my 100th calf cramp and I know how to breathe these out (take deep, hard breaths, and don't freak out). I downed my water as fast as possible and managed to pry myself out of the pool. Then I tried to stand up from a sitting position and my hamstrings cramped up, probably still feeling yesterday's races. I waddled over to the showers and managed to get under some hot water which helped loosen me up enough to get to the car and drive home. I drank about a half gallon of water when I got home and all is well except for some residual soreness in my right calf. Offset this by the four Arnold Palmers I had at dinner and we are back to square one. Icing the legs on and off for the next couple hours. I'll probably wake up early tomorrow and do an easy jog to get the blood flowing.

No long-term damage, 2400 yards in the pool between warm-up and cool-down. Solid day.