The alarm goes off at 5:40... I look at the screen and vaguely remember typing in "live your life by design" after a new series of podcasts I've been listening to in the car on health, nutrition etc. It's a good thing this message popped up and invaded my thoughts first because as much as I'd like to be that really incredible woman who meditates for an hour every morning and manifests her day, I just haven't gotten there yet. My meditation time is running. And... I run because I race. I know myself well enough and discovered early on as a teenager that if I didn't have a race to train for, I sure as hell was not getting out of bed at 530 to go run around Canmore in the snow. It's just the way I'm programmed. And so had I looked out my window without this thought in mind, I might have just crawled back into bed and slept through the next alarm.

So, with this positive quip having lifted my spirits slightly, I cautiously raise the drapes to see if the relentless snow has stopped. Ha! Not a chance. Still going. And still plenty of it on the ground. Looks like Christmas.

Ignoring it, I stumble to the kitchen to make my green tea and coffee, take my fish oils, and begin the pre-race routine of packing, eating, hydrating, putting gels together, bib numbers, changing outfits as the sky brightens... and decide I need a little inspiration. You tube has gotta have some tough races to watch. Some sort of positive reel to attach my brain to when it starts to hurt at about km 16. Like the one my friend sent me the other day of a woman who falls in an 800m Olympic race and still gets up to win it. Unbelievable strength. I've got a pretty wicked head cold/ sinus infection that developed at the conference I was at yesterday and that I was hoping might be gone by morning - just like the snow, it's still here. Sigh.

But hey, at least my legs work right. I stopped to visit my grandma at the Canmore hospital last night on the way back from the conference and there were so many people in long term care who were in wheelchairs. I bet they would give anything to be able to run. Snow or no snow.

So here I go. Police Half Marathon. Once around the Glenmore Resevoir. Start time: 8am. The glencoe icebreaker two weeks ago was a horrible time, tons of ice all over the road, wore my yak tracks, but still a second place finish. Two weeks before that, St Patty's day also a second place. Today, I'm hoping for a first but it really depends on who shows up.

I have to race smart. Fuel properly. Stay on my feet and off my butt.

More later...

Amy