"In pain there is truth"

So my mantra for the next little is going to be "in pain there is truth." At least, it will be until another one comes along. I have it written in red, capital letters on a card that I put in front of me when I'm biking.

Today I started off my day with my first swim in weeks. It has been almost a month since I dipped myself in chlorinated water. I got a new Sugoi poly Turbo Swim Racer swimsuit, so I was rocking out with that. I basically just did 1500 yards (I was going to say metres, but I swam at a 25 yard pool today) at a pretty easy pace. It wasn't the muscles and it wasn't the lungs, but I had zero motivation. I think I had to start racing myself again. That made everything better. I basically just need to get through December because in January I'm going to join the Masters' swim club. I have such a hard time motivating myself to swim on my own. This week I'm going to swim with the tri club because they got a good time of 8:15 to 9:15 (as opposed to 10 to 11:00pm).

Tonight our running coach wasn't around, but he left our workout with someone from the group. We did time pyramid intervals... good times. I did the intervals at 26s 100s (ie. 100 metres in 26 seconds) and it went like this:
200m, 300m, 400m, 400m, 300m, 200m (with equal rest in between each interval)
10 minute rest
200m, 300m, 400m, 400m, 300m, 200m
cool down, stretch

It was a really good workout. I got new shoes the other day and I could definitely feel the difference. It's funny how new shoes can give you a little extra bounce when you need it. Two weeks ago I couldn't do 26s 100s and this week I was doing more like 24s 100s. It felt a lot better, too. My ankles didn't hurt and I had a lot more "spring" and that's saying something on a concrete track (I think it's concrete).

All-in-all, I felt that today was very productive in terms of my training and it has helped me get back into the swing of things a bit. This week, my goal is to do all of the workouts my coach gives me... including weights!!!!