Leg Cramps

Drew and I spent the afternoon running errands, but I knew that I desperately needed to squeeze in a swim today. Somehow, I conned him into coming along and swimming with me. When we got to the pool there was a girl that was just getting into an empty lane. Since one of us would have had to swim with her no matter what, I asked her if she'd mind moving over one and sharing with someone else so that Drew and I could swim together. Luckily for us she agreed!

I had brought along a workout and I figured that I'd just try to get as much done while still keeping an eye on Drew and giving him a couple of pointers on his swimming. I don't hold out any hope that he'll turn into a triathlete, but I think it could be a good thing for him to be better at.

This is the workout I ended up doing:

Warm-Up: 16 Lengths
Drills: 12 Lengths drills
Kick: 12 Lengths kick
Main Set: 3 x 6 Lengths

Total: 1116 yards (0.63 miles)

For the drills, I practiced doing something that I had read about somewhere recently (unsure where at the moment). Apparently, a good way to know how often you need to sight is to close your eyes, start swimming and then see how long it takes for you to run into the lane line. It turns out that I'm naturally a fairly straight swimmer, although I have a slight tendency to drift left. But it would take me about the whole length of the pool before I ran into the lane line.

While we were doing the kicking, Drew's legs started cramping. He's not a very good kicker in general and I'm sure that this morning's workout had something to do with it. I've noticed that it's mostly boys that get these leg cramps. That's what it always seems like at the Terrier swims. Whenever I get a cramp (mostly in my toes), I just swim through it. I always figure I'll have to do that in a race, so I might as well get used to it.

I did part of my main set, but Drew's legs were still really cramping up, so I cut my workout a couple of minutes short and got out with him. But, like Sarah told us a couple of weeks ago at practice, there are no junk laps and getting in and getting wet is better than not swimming at all.

Here are my actual workouts from the week:


Oops. Not the best effort ever. Mainly on the biking front. But I blame the bike shipping for that one. I do just need to remind myself that I'm currently training for an Olympic and 6+ hours of training for the week before an Olympic triathlon isn't bad at all. On the swimming front, I'm not quite as bad as it looks. I should have have done 5500 yards - did 3132 instead (missing 2368 / 1.34 miles). I just can't worry about this. I'm excited for the race and I feel pretty ready, so I'm going to keep that feeling and go with it!

Swimming
Time: 25:12
Distance: 1116 yards (0.63 miles)
Pace: 39:44/mile
Calories: 200
Maximum HR: 158
Average HR: 138