The week after the Disneyland Half Marathon and Dumbo Double Dare was less than stellar from a workout point of view. However, it began with a really great morning. On Monday, Labor Day, Brooke and I had breakfast at Goofy’s Kitchen with fellow runDisney blogger David and his wife. I’ve been reading David’s blog, Doombuggy Runner, for quite some time. He’s a runs the runDisney races at Walt Disney World quite a bit. Additionally, he’s on a quest to run 50 half marathons in 50 states. So, being the Disney fan he is, the Disneyland Half Marathon is his California race. Ever since he mentioned running at Disneyland, we’ve been communicating online. So, it was great to finally meet him and his wife during the Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend!

Yep, I ended my Disneyland Half Marathon weekend with Mickey Waffles and Mickey Pancakes at Goofy’s Kitchen. I’ve mentioned previously that it was a life long dream to stay at the Disneyland Hotel. It was also a life long dream to eat at Goofy’s Kitchen. I can honestly say that neither disappointed. However, I’ll talk more about these places later.  If you ever stay at the Disneyland Hotel, I highly recommend that you finish your trip with a breakfast at Goofy’s Kitchen. It was sad to leave the Disneyland Hotel behind. Especially with all of our weekend chores to finish before going to bed Monday night.

Tuesday was supposed to be my first post – Disney run. I would have loved to be able to tell you that I did just that. However, I was so wiped out from the entire weekend that waking up early to go for a run wasn’t happening. Honestly, this was a week of survival for the most part. You see, from the end of July until just this weekend, life have been a crazy ride that I’m still a bit dizzy from. So, workouts just didn’t happen.

Most of the week was rather uneventful. Except on Thursday when David and his wife visited me at the Walt Disney Studios where I work. I got to show them and their friend Sean around for my lunch break. Here we are at Pluto’s corner (one of the most photographed parts of the lot). It was so much fun to show them around and impart the limited knowledge I have of the Studio with them! If you haven’t checked out David’s blog yet, you should.

Saturday was my first opportunity to really watch College Football for the year! My USC Trojans were taking on the Stanford Cardinal up in Northern California. With the above hit…

USC sealed the victory!

After 4 straight years of losing to Stanford, USC has now won 2 in a row! Both of them with a long field goal towards the end of the game. Last year, it was way more dramatic. However, a win is a win!

So here’s the deal. I didn’t work out or run at all this week and I’m completely fine with it. Why? Because, I needed the week off. At the end of July, I had my world turned upside down with a job offer that I couldn’t turn down. It lead me to a job that was way busier than my previous position. So, I had to get used to that and try to figure out how the rest of the parts of my life fit together without the down time at work. Ordinarily, this might not be that big of a deal. However, it all came in the month of August which included a trip to Carlsbad to celebrate my 5 year wedding anniversary, a week and a half visit from our niece (who came out from Houston), Brooke’s birthday, my birthday, and the Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend.  It was the perfect storm of craziness that has left me a bit dizzy. Don’t get me wrong, I loved so much of August that I would never trade it for anything. However, I also need some time to figure out how my life works now that I have this new job.

I finally feel like I’m getting into a groove with this new job. It’s starting to just feel normal. Even with the crazy busyness, I have two awesome bosses that I get to work for and the temp that’s working with us is also awesome. I’ve also been able to find enough time to get my desk to feel a little more like mine. I feel like I stepped into a position where we were very much behind and were constantly playing catch up. While it still feels that way, I think we’ve made some great progress in getting caught up.

So, this past weekend, I slept in and slowed my life down enough to come up with a plan that I’ll be trying out this week. In other words, it was time to get my head back in the game. The goal is to run Tuesday and Thursday morning before work. I’m not going to worry about much past the end of this month with this schedule. I want to see how the next 3 weeks go. The couple of morning training runs I did before the Disneyland Half Marathon were actually pretty cool. Of course, the hard part is waking up and getting out the door. I’m also hoping to spend some more time to examine what I do at the gym. For the month of September, I plan on running on Saturday and hitting the gym on Sunday. I know that it’s only one day a week at the gym. But, we will see what happens.

In the mean time, Consistency is still the goal.  My next race isn’t until the middle of October. So, I’ve got some room to breathe before coming up with expectations for that race.  Just so you know what’s coming this week, I’ll be finishing out my posts about the Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend. Tomorrow, I’ll cover “Celebrating after the races.” Wednesday, I’ll give my review of the Disneyland Hotel. Thursday, I’ll review dining at Goofy’s Kitchen. Friday, I’ll give a look at the future.

Have a great week!