Step inside my mind ...

The weather was gorgeous today! Stepped outside midday to go for a run and ran into my long-time next door neighbour. He remarked on how good my body looks (fit). In the past, he's also remarked that I look like a young girl. He's not that much older than I am, 10 years max, so his comments always amuse me, though I appreciate them. He's amazed to see me training all the time.

So I went for a 45 min. 7.5km leisurely run around the neighbourhood and through Jarry Park. As I was running back home, I ran past some men doing some work on a house and they commented, "Elle est en santé. Regardez ses cuisses!" [translation: "She's fit. Look at those legs!"] Sort of typical construction worker kind of comments but heck, I was wearing running tights and had a running cap on, not particularly sexy. So their comments were appreciated too.

What a wonderful sunny day to receive morale-boosting compliments for the training-deprived wounded athletic ego!

I sent a letter to my friend and trainer, Dirk:

You'd kill me if I said I wanted to run a marathon at the end of May, wouldn't you ...
Um ... just checking ... how about a half? Gosh, that feels like cheating ...

Then I went off to a painful physio session. Good news is that albeit the pain, I am making progress, so I asked C. when I could start kickboxing again. He told me "not yet but soon", so that gave me hope. Then I asked him when I can start doing push-ups again and he gave me the same answer. Argh, but by the end of the session, he said I could try ... if I was careful ...

Later, I went off to my tri club pool practice. We got to do all sorts of drills with paddles and fins. I love the speed swimming with fins gives you. Wow, I wish I could wear an invisible pair at my Ironman. I learnt something new about technique today so will try to incorporate it. Great, more work ...

Then I went off to meet up with some Montreal Coolrunners for coffee. Roly is planning to do the Jay Mountain Marathon, a 30.5 mile ultra marathon through the woods that starts by climbing 4,000 feet over 9 miles to the summit of Jay Peak. He's never even done a full marathon before, except on the treadmill. Mercury, who is in his 50's, had trained to run a sub-3:00 Boston Marathon but his plans got altered by life-saving emergency surgery. He showed me his 6-inch scar. Question: do I fit in with these lunatics? FOR SURE!!!

In fact, I brought up my desire to run the Ottawa Marathon. Probably the stupidest idea in the world - not only do I lack the training, I also just had a car accident and have not yet even recuperated fully ... DUH! But sometimes, the mind can be a really strong and stubborn thing and sometimes I forget to think about or even ask myself about the physical details involved.

This is how my mind works: I want to do it so I will do it. Plain and simple. Not a "can I do it". And never a "should I do it" because that would almost all the time warrant a "no".

Ironman Canada here I come !!!