I had a really good running week last week considering the situation I was in – living in a hotel and sitting through training sessions all day followed by eating bad food and drinking at night. I managed to run about 6 miles on Friday – 3.3 on the elliptical trainer in the hotel gym while I waited for daybreak and then I hit the trail for the rest.

Saturday I was supposed to ride with my friends. When I got home Friday my car was sick (no power steering) so I didn’t go to meet them and didn’t go out on my own, either. Sunday I was supposed to run 10 miles. I never went. Monday I was supposed to go swimming and then running. I didn’t.

Today I woke up and found myself once again, plastered to the sheets. I had to have a little talk with myself

Self – WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU!
Other Self – I can’t do it
Self – What do you mean, “I can’t do it? I’ve done it – many times”
Other Self – I just can’t. I can’t do it. I won’t finish..I’ll fall over… I can’t do it.

And that was it – I finally realized that I have a real fear of failure, like I”m going to crumple up and just not be able to find my way home. This comes in spite of ample evidence to the contrary – over 700 miles run in the last year and a half and over 500 miles on the bike in a year. I know those aren’t very impressive statistics for some but it certainly should be enough to convince me that I can make it.

So – I’m going off to the Sacred Valley in Peru to meditate on this problem and find a path to enlightenment. Okay that’s sort of a lie but I am leaving on Thursday for 10 days in Peru. 2 days in Lima, 4 days in Cusco, Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu and 2 days at Lake Titicaca (tee hee). There are a couple of travel days in there, too. I will not be running as acclimating to altitude will be hard enough without forcibly depleting oxygen from my body. I will, however, be doing a lot of walking and hiking and building up an excellent titer of red cells for the Nike Women’s Half when I get back and that’s a good thing because I have not done enough training. No problem, though because at least 1/2 of me knows I can do it.