Battle of the Mind

I’ve been a little behind in my blogging efforts this week. So here’s a little catch up…

Twin Peaks Tuesday at Mary’s with Pacifico, Dos Equis, Chips & Salsa, and Fajitas. Love Mexican food!

Wednesday night AND Thursday night, no time to cook, ugh. Dinner looked something like this for me…

Banana Soft Serve, swirled with peanut butter and peanut butter puffins cereal. Nutritious right? 🙂

I was bummed I didn’t have time to cook any of my planned vegan recipes this week, and sadly I found eating vegan when you don’t have time to cook, the local vegan cafe is closed, and going out to eat at non-vegan friendly places, makes it pretty difficult to maintain. By Friday night, I went ahead and gave up on my week of vegan eating. I know, pretty pathetic showing, but now I know, the vegan diet is most likely not for me. Although as I’ve said, I do think there’s value in focusing more on “plants” than animal protein and eating whole, unprocessed foods.

This morning I went out for my final long run before next week’s half marathon. I had taken more days off from running than I would have liked during the week, but my back was still in a little pain from the weekend before. Thankfully I was able to run Thursday and Friday without any pain so I was hopeful for this morning’s run.

Well, I can’t say I felt awesome on the run this morning, and I can’t say it was due to back pain. Running is so mental for me and lately I haven’t been feeling all that successful at it. And today’s run was no different, it was a constant battle in my mind to keep running and let’s just say the battle was frequently lost. I ended up being out for ten miles, but I probably only ran 60% of the time and the rest was spent walking. I know what happened, I let all the negative thoughts take over for much of this training plan and I’m so disappointed. I’m going into this race mentally unprepared for sure and physically unprepared too.

Fellow runners, have you ever had this happen? I’m feeling a little stuck. I followed my training plan last year almost exactly and felt great all the way through, I don’t know why this time is SO different?

I am still planning to participate in the race (will have to think about the second one I’m scheduled for in October), but I know it’s going to be pretty tough and there WILL be walking. I guess I’m just hoping to snap out of this “I can’t do it” attitude.

What do you do to stop that inner monologue of “I can’t”?