Even further

We knew this day was on the horizon. After Monday's swim, I was looking to today with a mix of fear and trepidation (doesn't sound so good, does it?) And after a decent night's sleep, as you enter the pool area, you know it can't be a good day if you can read the entire workout from across the pool. Usually the main set is multiple pieces, so it requires 6-10 lines, maybe even multiple chalkboards. Not today. One line. Big print.

1x3000.

Who comes up with stuff like this? We got a few hundred metres to warm up. Then we were off. To alleviate some of the boredom, the set was broken into 3 parts. The first 1000m was ~20m of head-up free (also called 'controlled flailing'), the rest of the 100m as ez free. That small part is exhausting. Then we did 1000m of pull. The finish was 1000m of ez free. I was happy I'm still in a 'shit' lane, because the faster three lanes finished with 500m ez, 500m descending. I'd be dead if I had to do that.

The good news is that I survived. I can't say I was still strong at the end. In fact, I felt like I had swam about 3000m, but I don't think my pace fell off too much. I lead the lane basically the whole day. Someone else took over for the last 250m of pull, and as I was lapping a swim around 500m to go, she decided to burn herself out to lead for 250m. It's a lot easier when you get to be on someone's feet.

No real issues encountered in the day. About 50m into the free set, I got a foot cramp for about 100m. I think this was probably caused from spending 20 minutes with my legs not moving during the pull set. I also could feel that my right side was doing more than its share of the work. I tried to keep it as even as possible, but as I got tired, it could keep going. I'll need to focus during other workouts on maintaining a balance between the sides.

I'm not sure if I would describe this as 'fun', but it's a pretty good confidence booster. We weren't flying through the day, I'd ballpark the effort at about 68 minutes. I think we have a full IM length swim of 3800m in a few weeks. That's twice what I'll need to be able to finish for Muskoka, so once that's done, I'll know I'm good to go.

Swim: w/u - 500m, alternating 100 free, 100 non-free
1x3000 (1000m as 20m head-up/80 free, 1000m pull, 1000m ez free)
c/d - none, too tired
Total: 3500m

Added a quick run after work, after dealing with bus issues. People here can't drive when the weather takes the slightest turn.
Run: 4 miles @ 7.0 mph