Endorphins, wonderful endorphins!

This week was great, I trained hard and made some great progress. For the last couple of years I have been slacking, I didn't compete or work out to my potential and as I grew slower I chalked it up to age and injury after injury. This was folly on my part and probably more of me justifying being lazy than being too old and broke down.
Since getting back to a hard training schedule as well as making every effort not to get myself injured again, I have had first a running then a swimming endorphine rush, my first one in years. I forgot about how great that rush feels, that rush helped me push through what Buddhists call the "Monkey Mind". If you have ever tried meditation you've probably experienced the monkey mind, that unsettled, uncontrollable, confused/indecisive mindset. I suffered that on two of my workouts this week both times a feeling of exhaustion and a desire to just quit but surprisingly my mind or body fought back with a rush of endorphins and a specter from my past yelling at me to pull it together.
I don't run or bike and listen to music anymore, cardio time is my meditation time for the most part, especially when I run outdoors. Even at the gym I try not to pay too much attention to the t.v.'s or the movie playing in the cardio theater. When I run outdoors I like to listen to the environment, play math games in my head, or just trying to have a clear mind. I've never understood why people like music so much while they run, I used to run with music but its so often such a distraction that it never benefited me. If you run with music, try a few runs without, talk to yourself, (as long as a stranger doesn't talk back in your head you're probably ok...) and see how your run goes.

Here are my workouts from this week:

Mon.
R 40min strides for the last ten min (strides are the increase in speed but not sprinting)

Tues.
B 60 min. hard pace 85% heart rate

Wed.
R 60min long run strides for the last 20 minutes ( I did 20 second strides followed by two minute normal pace)

Thurs.
S 700 yds (was meant to be a long day but the fatties at the gym had a class...) 1x100 warm up, 1x600 main set, no cool down except telling the instructor she was a stupid bitch. ( I was rather upset and shouldn't have said it, but really trying to put 5 guys into one lane? You know what, fuck her!)

Fri.
Rest Day

Sat.
S 1x1100 yrds race pace which for me right now was 2:20min per 100yds, that needs to get down to the 1:45min per 100yrds though.
B 45 min low effort immediately after the swim.

Sun.
B 90min