Holy Cramps!

Around 4 o'clock this morning, I woke to an impressive calf cramp. I haven't experienced one for a long time - though a few weeks back I wondered if they would start rearing their ugly heads again with all the training.

By the time 6:00 rolled around, I was a little sore and stiff getting out of bed. I did some mild stretching, grabbed two bananas, extra Gatorade and headed out to our workout - 3 miles of running, including my favorite "fast as you can half mile repeats," followed by two hours on the bike.

The workout went fairly well - I was a little cautious at times during the run and bike, pausing occasionally to stretch my calf if I felt like the muscles were teasing me with another possible cramp.

While spinning along mindlessly during the two hours, I remembered a story about my husband and leg cramps.

A little background...my husband is naturally athletic and spent his younger years excelling at a variety of sports before blowing out most of his joints. Handball, and I mean the New York one wall kind, was his favorite. He would probably play for 15-20 hours a week.

And a little more background...at the time of this story, we played cards every Sunday evening with friends. We'd have a huge spread of food and play Hearts, Spades and May I for hours.

So one Sunday, after my husband had spent most of the weekend at the handball courts, we were in our usual seats, dealing out the cards. All of the sudden, my husband was on the floor, gripping his leg, and shouting "Ow, oow, ooow." At first, we all thought he was kidding - overreacting to a bad card play. Then we realized it was a cramp. But before the one cramp subsided, another one attacked his other leg. So he was literally rolling around on the floor holding both legs. And even though we all knew it was a miserable and painful situation - watching him was just the tiniest bit funny at the time - and became a "remember when" story for many a future card night.