Time to Swim

Wednesday, 1/16, 6pm on F train heading towards Brooklyn Today is a non-running day, which means I am heading to the pool. I really wish I did my swim in the morning, but as usual I slept too late to make it to the pool on time. I really need to get to bed earlier. I just don’t want to go to sleep so early. I just want entertainment at night, whether it is watching TV, chatting online or perhaps best of all, having sex with my wife. But even after all that is done I don’t feel like going to sleep. It’s like I’ve suddenly become afraid that I am going to miss something. If only we didn’t have to sleep. I am really not in the mood to go to the pool. The whole point of the pool workout is to give my legs a rest, serve as active recovery and to keep my cardiovascular fitness improving. That is looking at it negatively though. I need to change that line of thinking. Swimming will give me a much needed upper body workout, balance out my body and for vanity’s sake and keep me looking good. I look back at my IMLP photos, especially from 2005/2006 and I see how cut I looked. I love the way I looked in those pictures and do want to get back there. Swimming is one way to do it. I just got to start swimming in the morning so it doesn’t seem like such a chore as when I do it at night. Anyway, so I am on the way to the pool. Hopefully it won’t be crowded, or even better it will be closed because someone puked in it. Hey, that’s not good… Did I really just say that? Thursday, 1/17, 9am on F train heading into Manhattan I felt really good after my swim last night. As I stood in the locker room feeling the warmth in the muscles of my upper body I began to feel like a triathlete again. I guess in my heart I will always want to be a triathlete and not just an ultrarunner. Suddenly, I was feeling like increasing my schedule to incorporate more swim and bike training. However, that is not what I am supposed to do. I am an ultrarunner now and that’s what I have to focus on. I ran 9 miles this morning. It was supposed to be 8, but I took a new course and misjudged how far I would go. I kind of knew if would go over, but I didn’t really care. I figured a little extra distance won’t hurt me and besides I was enjoying the run. My legs were a little sore from the previous days strength training session, but it was a good soreness. The weather was beautiful outside and I just wanted to run. I would have gone longer had time permitted. Friday 1/18 6pm I am sitting in my office drinking a Bud Light waiting for the poker game with my staff to begin. I am kind of out of sorts today. I woke up around 4am and decided to get out of bed. I had a bowl of Total Whole Grain Cereal and then decided to get on my bike for an hour instead of going back to sleep. I didn’t want to take a chance that I would go back to bed, oversleep and miss the workout. So I headed to my trainer in the basement, put on the season finale of Dexter on Showtime on Demand and spun easily for 60 minutes. I finished by 5:30am which left me 2.5 hours to go back to sleep before I had to get back up for work. By the time I woke up again, I wondered if the workout had ever really happened. I had to check my HR monitor to see if I actually recorded a workout. I did, but I still felt as though I did nothing for the day. I called my coach later on and asked him if I did a workout in the middle of the night, went back to bed and then woke up feeling like I didn’t work out, will I have actually have done it. He said yes, so I didn’t worry about doing another one even though I still feel the need to get in some exercise.