For the past 4 weeks I’ve been swimming regularly on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 6am to 7:15am. While difficult waking up that early, it has been excellent and I’ve noticed a big difference in my swimming ability – both technique and endurance. That might be because I’m still new to swimming – any swimming is better than none.

I still swim in the slowest lane of 8, but I’m ok with that – it is more about my own improvement and competing against myself than competing against others at this stage of my training.

Today, I literally fought myself. During that hour and 15 minutes, I wanted to quit at least 6 times. I just felt heavy. Like my arms and legs were moving but I was not going anywhere. I’m a bit worried, only because if I can’t make it through 75 minutes of swimming, how am I supposed to make it through IronMan Lake Placid in July?

I’m not an experienced swimmer – how often do other swimmers have bad days? Does one bad day make you feel different about swimming? The last 4 weeks have been great, but today was just horrible. If anyone out there has thoughts on how to get through those bad days, I’d love to hear them smile