53 Minute Swim - 107 Minute Bike

Yep, that's my car clock from this morning...EARLY.

53 Minute Swim - 4:30am
45 Min Actual
1x100 warm up
4x500 on 8:30 - 1:42/100

107 Minute Bike - 5:30am
37.2 miles
20.86 mph
AHR 134

I had just under three hours of actual workout time scheduled for this morning and I wanted to get back home at a reasonable time, so today was EARLY.  Alarm went off at 4:00am and I slipped on my speedo and some sweats and went out the door.  I got to the gym a little before 4:30am and there were, surprisingly, already a few people there, but no one that I recognized yet. 

I threw my stuff in a locker and hit the pool.  I started with a quick 100 yards of warmup and stretched out my arms a bit.  Then I decided that today was the day to really get some distance in.  Before today I had been doing all 100 yard interval work.  That is, I would swim 100 yards, stop, catch my breath and then continue on a similar pace set by the clock, either 2 minutes or 1:55, whatever.  Today I really wanted to up the distance, so I decided that I would only swim 500 yds at a time.  This would hopefully give me some confidence to do longer distances and give me a more realistic look at what I need to work on to get in shape for a race distance (1650 yards).

I also tried to use a new trick today, I was going to try to say the rosary while swimming so I could focus something else rather than being fatigued.  I prayed a Hail Mary on every length and then threw in an Our Father to start a new 10 lengths.  500 yards is 20 lengths, so I would basically get through two decades per 500, it worked out kind of nice and kept my pacing rock solid as well. 

Anyway, I was cruising along at a nice pace on my fourth 500 (I had one, maybe two left before my time was up) and my left calf cramped up worse than any cramp I'd ever had before.  I basically dragged my left foot for the last 50 yards or so with no kick, I couldn't even raise my hips high enough to be parallel in the water.  After I finished that 500 I tried to stretch it out with no luck.  Finally, I hopped out of the pool and hobbled over to the whirlpool and sat in there for about five minutes to work out the cramp.  It was terrible.  I have to think that the cramp was from dehydration because I didn't drink anything prior to swimming this morning - won't make that mistake again!  Anyway, got the kinks worked out and my time was up so it was of to the spin bike for about two hours.

I jumped on my spin bike and started watching Superbad.  I've seen it a bunch of times and it's easy to pay attention to, so that was a good choice to watch today (it's also almost exactly two hours long).  Anyway, Frizzy McBlonde Hair finally showed up and so did Brownie von Croppants, although this was the second week in a row with no Old Navy...I wonder if he got depolyed?  People watching was pretty boring actually, until about 15 minutes left in my ride.  Who do you think showed up...that's right Senora Gray Boots.  She did practically the same thing she did last week, suede trench coat, gray boots with heels, jeans, the whole thing.  It is bizarre.  Seeing that every week is reason enough to wake up early and hit the gym.  Other than that, pretty uneventful session this morning.