React and recover

21 October 2022

I've had no negative side effects from any of my prior COVID vaccines other than some sleepiness and a tad bit of injection site soreness for a day. So, I figured it would be a great idea to get my shot Wednesday (my "off workout" day) after work, aiming for it to help me get a solid night of sleep before hitting the pool again Thursday. Alas, my BA.4/BA.5 bivalent vaccine hit me fairly hard starting about 8 hours after the shot, and I really didn't feel myself again until this morning, Friday, when I dove into my local LA Fitness for this 4,500 yard workout:

Warmup sets (1,500)

• 1 x 400: IM kick-drill by 25s

• 4 x 100: on 1:40, backstroke descend, 1:23, 1:20, 1:16, 1:12

• 4 x 100: on 1:50, IM kick on back descend, 1:34, 1:33, 1:32, 1:31

• 6 x "50": on 0:55, 25 fast stroke, 25 easy ... but I did the last one all easy

Main Set (2,500 set)

• 5 rounds of 5 x 100 done as:

  • 4 x 100: free on 1:30, aiming for 3,000 pace

  • 1 x 100: backstroke recovery on 2:00

• Did rounds 1-3 using a snorkel on the freestyle

• Held pace times by round:

  • #1 - 1:09/1:10

  • #2 - 1:08s

  • #3 - 1:06/1:07

  • #4 - 1:06s

  • #5 - 1:06s

Cool-down (500)

My original plan was to do 6 rounds of the main set. I got through one 100 on the 6th round, pushed off for the second one and got a calf cramp. I stretched it out and finished a 50, but, after that, I decided to just cool-down with 7 x 50 recovery on an ascending interval.

This was a good workout and I felt much improved physically. The only downside is that LA Fitness "fixed" what they perceived to be a broken heater and the water temperature was back up to its more normal hothouse 83/84 instead of the glorious 78 it has been at lately.