My inner voice...

...looks like this:



Bellatrix Lestrange or me in the mornings?


Or at least that's how I've started picturing her in my head lately (maybe it's because I just finished watching a Harry Potter marathon over the weekend).


I hear from this inner voice a lot (I promise you I'm not going crazy). She's very good at talking me into eating bad foods or skipping runs or giving in during spin class. She pops in at the most inopportune times.


My goal is to silence her. Of course, easier said than done. If it was easy to do, I'd weigh a whole lot less, would be eating a whole ton cleaner, I would be in perfect condition for the half marathon and I'd be hitting my sub 30:00 minute 5K more often than twice.


I give into my self-doubt very easily.



I'm going to start off easy by setting a plan for my half marathon and sticking to it.


The plan is to run it. Well, run the majority of it. I'm going to stick to the plan that I had with my Niagara Falls Half which was to run until I got to a water station. At the water station, I will grab two cups of water (or one water, one Gatorade) and walk until I finish both, mostly so that it actually gets in and then run again. There will most likely be a bathroom break somewhere along the way (it's hard to hold it after having two kids) but other than that, walking is not an option.



The course!


I'll have to definitely silence Bellatrix later in the race. My legs will be screaming and my body will want to stop, but I'll just have to keep pressing. I'll let you know on Monday how it went and whether I was able to start the demise of my inner voice.


Do you have an inner voice?


How do you defeat it?

5 Days to go...

..and I'm as ready as I'm going to be at this point.

Thanks for the vote of confidence.

If you lived with me, you'd probably think I've given up running completely.

I haven't run in 3 weeks.

I just have no motivation to get out there and go. You'd think that the looming half marathon would be motivation enough, but nope. I've even accepted that if I don't reach my goal then meh.

I think that 14 weeks (or 12) is too long for me to train. I need a shorter time period with more intense workouts I guess. I'm thinking that next time a 10 week training plan will suffice.

This isn't anything new.

I was horribly trained for the Nike Women's Half in DC in April and I was somewhat prepared for the Niagara Falls half last October. I figured my body has done this once or twice but I can handle it again.

I'm looking forward to it.

One big thing I'm going to try is holding off on my music until I get to the struggling stages of the run. I've heard that tip from Janae at Hungry Runner Girl a few times and I'm going to see if it works.

This weekend is a busy one.

Friday night, I'm off to see Wicked with some girlfriends from work. Saturday is the expo/packet pickup and I'm spending the night at my sister's so that I don't have to worry about parking, getting lost, etc. I'm going to take the train to her place on Saturday and the take it home after the race on Sunday. It'll make life much easier!

So, if you're in a finger crossing mood, I'd love some sent this way!

It might be the only way I make it through this half.



STWM Update!

I haven't posted for awhile since life has been really busy with schools, the boys and a little bit of running/fitness thrown in.

Most nights I'm heading to bed around 9:30 since I'm up early and on my feet most of the day.

I haven't been getting my short runs in, but I have been getting to my long runs which I think is extremely important. So far, I'm up to 14k and I have 16 or 17km for this weekend coming up. They are very slow, but I'm finishing most right around the average pace I'd like to so I'm hoping that I'll be able to push during the race and get my pace lower than it currently is.

I'm still aiming for around a 2:30 finishing time, which translates into an average pace of just over 7 minutes. Most of my long slow runs have been around 7:20 but there's also a lot of hills on my running route which add to the slow time.

This past weekend, I ran the Island Girl half marathon relay. I ran the second 10.5km in 1:09:59. My goal was under 1:10 so I beat my goal! I'll post a race report next week but it was wet, rainy, sunny, humid and hot.

I've added in spin classes on Tuesday nights too which I absolutely love! I look forward to it every Tuesday. Almost as much as my son looks forward to his gymnastics each week.

One issue that has come up is stomach problems, but that's a post for another day and I'd love your feedback.

How is your training coming along? What are you training for?