"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. " Mahadma Gandhi

This was a hard week, not from the physical aspect of it but the emotional. I am tired at the end of the day, this is my second week of being back at my 11 miles a day plan and I feel great if a little fatigue. Somewhere, somehow, the emotional test seems to be a bit harder to ignore than just my tired sore legs.

Everywhere I turned I heard the same comment over and over, "maybe that is a bit too much" my race schedule is decided and it looks a bit ambitious but in my head not imposible. The total mileage for my racing season is 583K and if I do register on the Swiss Jura marathon it will be 948K. Crazy maybe but it is over 8 months, not impossible, also my training is tailored for endurance and quick recovery not necessary speed. Even one friend of mine suggested I should stop running, he is a CEO of a company and we met for tea,"nobody will take you seriously if they hear you run two hours a day" I was mad. I was still mad when I met my friend Nadia later. she laughed about it " he thinks that stops people from taking you seriously" then we looked at each other, there I was standing with stilletos, long hair, black eyeliner and a suit that takes a serious meaning of "power suit" " you know because the first immpresion I get when I see you is , 'high IQ"

I emailed my friend Peter Lubbers, there are people that I reach for when I am feeling like what I am about to take is maybe out of my reach.He is an accomplished ultrarunner, very respected by the runner community, he is always kind to answer my questions, you might want to check his blog to take his quad challenge, I was feeling pretty good about myself, 2:30 then Hans beat me by 30 seconds, now a secretly practice in my bedroom just to take him again on the quad challenge

At night I usually read articles of people that inpired me, like Andrew Skurka Adventure magazine's adventurer of the year, his story is a facinating, he hiked for 7 months and 6,874 miles with no support crew just himself. He hiked what he calls the Great Western Loop, everything about his story appeal to me, even the 7 months he spend alone, sleepin under the stars didn't scare me, it seem almost romantic. until I got to the part of his food, his daily food consists of power bars and candy bars, pringels, mixed nuts, and for dinner he had instant mash potatoes rolled in a tortilla. that I couldn't do, I love food, real food. But by far the person that inpires me the most is Amy Palmiero- Winters her story is an amazing story of courage and determination, she is an amputee, welder,single mother of two that can run a marathon in 3:04 and is now trying to qualify for the olympic trials competing against fully able athletes among other things she also hold recors in triathlons and is Runners World 2007 people's choice Hero award recepient. I read her story and all the doubts about being able to finish my races vanish.

I have my first race of the year soon, I am feeling excited like a child wating for summer holidays. I have been running 11miles/day for a couple of weeks now and my body is doing OK. I am going to go down in mileage and up in intensity by next week just before my race. I have eliminated coffee now and I understand the attraction of caffeine in hollywood, I am so hungry all the time, all I think is about my next meal, but that is a better way for me to get my energy and also by eliminating coffee now it will be more effective when I need it for my longer races, I only introduced it early to get my stomach used to the acids,I haven't felt that awake in a long time and I was never very hungry.

My favourite thing this week is Wyclef Jean's song " the sweetest thing" that will be the song I will play when I take my first step in the Frozen Ass 50K in Feb 18th, I am looking forward to wearing that t-shirt to my next board meeting while humming away Wynclef Jean's song, take that CEO's of the world, you haven't seen anything yet