Day Thirty Three -"Off Season"

"Life is too short for traffic"
David Bellack

Sitting on 400 South heading towards Atlanta at 7:43AM is the most painful thing I have experienced today.

In the middle of the life a thumping noise awoke me from my slumber at 1:09AM. I heard the noise increase in volume as it made its way to our bedroom door. The door creaked open and then closed as I heard the shuffling of feet across the carpet towards the end of the bed. The dark figure I witness stood there for a brief moment before it took action and said, “mom?” Pause…”Mom?” I expected the voice to be my youngest daughter, but in fact it was the elder daughter of the clan, Grace. As I asked her, “what’s wrong” she indicated that she was scared of the demons and could she sleep in our bed. It being 1:09AM and my facilities not in check, I said, “Climb in”.

1:08AM was the last good amount of sleep I had on Monday night.

For the next 4 hours my 12 year old daughter kept kicking me, pushing me and even sitting up in bed to pet the cat, my sleep continued to be deprived.

I got out of bed at 4:59AM to escape the insomnia of the bed and head off to Master’s Swim on a Tuesday morning. With the lack of sleep my demeanor and alertness to my early morning duties was lacking. I muddled through the kitchen and headed out the door.

At LTF I walked through the lobby towards the locker rooms shuffling in a Zombie state. I unpacked my stuff and hit the pool deck. A majority of the swimmers where jumping in to take the first lap of the morning. I slumped myself over to Lane 1. There was a swimmer in the lane already and I they approached I noticed he had a snorkel. Without even acknowledging the swimmers on the deck, Snorkel Man turned and headed to the opposite end of the pool. After 3 laps, I was about to jump on top of him in the water and tell Snorkel Man to get out, but being in the state of the undead, I calmly slithered into the water and stood right in front of the wall which Snorkel Man was approaching. He ended slowing down and even with no recognition of the other swimmers Snorkel Man swam to the ladder and climbed out of the pool and disappeared into the hot tub.

Coach Mike’s Swim Workout:

200M Warm up
200M Choice
100M Kick

3 X 200M on 3:40
6 x 100M on 1:45
12 X 50M on :50
8 X 25 on :25

6 X 100M Kicks on 2:10
8 X 25M Kicks All Out 10 second RI

4 X 25M with 8 deck push-ups
12 X 25 in and out 3 times then the next 25M

100M kick
100M Cool Down

I would rather do this 3 more times than sitting in traffic.

After the swim I needed to start my journey down to the airport. I was not heading out on a trip but, was performing some work at one of the local rental car businesses. This lead me to sitting in the Atlanta bound traffic which took 1 hour and 45 minutes to travel 33 miles. Insane. My traffic in and around Alpharetta is mind numbing, but traveling down 400 everyday would drain the life out of me.