So, the week after the LA Marathon was an intentional week of light workouts. I finished 1 run and 1 gym workout. That was intentional. I totally thought the next week would be my week of getting back on track to begin focused training for the Rock n Roll San Diego Half Marathon. Then, life took over and my plans went out the door. My schedule got so overloaded that I took last week away from blogging to get as caught up as possible. So, let’s look back on the past two weeks. Warning…they are not two of my best.

Week of March 23 – 29, 2015

After a great run and gym workout the weekend before, I was ready to focus on my next race…the Rock n Roll San Diego Half Marathon. My body had other plans. On Monday night, I came home with a massive headache. As the night went on, head congestion started and only got worse. By Tuesday morning, I was wasted with really bad head congestion that caused me to not only skip my planned run, but call out sick to work. It was really a really bad day. I was able to take some time to recap my LA Marathon experience. However, most of the day, I was pretty out of it. So much so that, by Tuesday’s end, I had decided that I would not attempt to make up for the missed run on Wednesday. It was a wise decision. Even though it killed me to do so.

On Thursday, I finally got a pre-work 3 mile run in! It was my first early morning, pre-work run since the marathon! It was hard to get out of bed. I mean, I had taken almost 10 weekdays off from running in a row. However, once I got out the door, it was all good! I finished with a fabulous time…32 minutes, 14 seconds. It was a little slower than I was hitting before the marathon. However, not by much. It felt good to be out and running again before work! I couldn’t wait for my weekend run! I was ready to focus on another training cycle and another race.

Friday knocked me off my plan. There’s a family situation that I’ve been dealing with for quite some time. On Friday, I received an email that was very difficult to hear in regards to this situation. It sent me reeling emotionally and mentally. Running the next morning was just not going to happen. I couldn’t even think about anything except what was going on.

So, Saturday was a very depressing day. By the time I got out of the funk I was in on Saturday, I started to realize all the tasks I had to do outside of running. Have you ever planned to do things many months in advance and then forgot about them until they were less than a month away? Well, that was my Saturday evening and all day Sunday.

Sunday was a big chore day and a day to see how much of my “to do” items I could get done. By the middle of Sunday, I realized that there was not enough time for me to do so. I cancelled my gym workout. However, it still wasn’t enough. By Sunday evening, I decided I needed a week off from blogging because I needed my blogging time to work on life events.

What was I working on? For starters, I needed to call up Walt Disney Parks and Resorts to make sure that they add the Magical Express to my reservation at the end of April. I booked the hotel in January and the airline ticket in the beginning of February. However, I totally forgot to call and make sure Brooke and I could get on the Magical Express. I had no idea how close to your trip that you could set that up. Thankfully, I got that all taken care of and am happy to say that we are all set up.

Also, I had been neglecting to select our MagicBands. So, I had to log on to the My Disney Experience web site and make those selections. I got an email this past week telling me that they are coming!

I also had to set up a trip budget. Honestly, this should have been done in January so we can make plans to save for the trip. This trip to Walt Disney World (April 28 – May 4) is the least amount of planning I’ve done for Walt Disney World. Part of it is that the folks Brooke and I are visiting Walt Disney World with are not wanting to have everything planned in advance. Also, we had decided on the trip less than 6 months before going. So, ADR’s at places like the Be Our Guest Restaurant were off the table. An email from my sister in law at the one month before the trip mark gave us a very limited itinerary. All we’ve decided was to go to the Magic Kingdom on April 29 and Universal Orlando on May 3. Outside of that, they want to make plans while we’re there. So, this should be interesting. It does make setting a budget a little more difficult. There are lots of resources online to give you estimated costs that helps. So, I’ve made a lot of guesses and done some research on other things to put together a budget. All of the Walt Disney World Trip planning took up my Sunday. However, there was more to do.

The Week of March 30 – April 5

This past week was full of life planning stuff. I developed a budget for the rest of the year with known expenses and income. Boy did that take some time! Part 1 of this endeavor was on Monday. I think my brain was just entirely too active and could not get to sleep until almost 1am Tuesday morning. That meant, I’d need to skip another mid-week run.

 We had a meeting with our financial adviser on Tuesday evening. We’ve been looking at various financial matters and had to get him a check for our annual life insurance payment.  After that meeting, Brooke and I had to look into and settle the logistics for us to attend the Choose Joy Event April 24-25. Last year, this Adoption conference was an afternoon and evening thing. This year, they have events going on from Friday evening through Saturday evening. So, we had to look into a hotel to stay at and see if we could take time off work on the Friday. By Tuesday’s end, we were all set up with registration and hotel lodging. Both Brooke and I loved this event last year as it gives us the opportunity to connect with others who are in the same situation in life that we are in. The waiting period of domestic infant adoption is just getting harder. So, I can’t wait for this conference!

Wednesday morning, I did make it out for a pre-work 3 miles! That was the good news. I was so exhausted after work on Tuesday that I was able to get to bed in plenty of time to be able to get out on Wednesday. As you can see with the average pace, this was a slow 3 miles for me. Honestly, I didn’t care. I thought the run would actually be much slower because of how slow the first mile went. I was really thankful at the finish to finish the run in a few seconds over 33 minutes. This run felt like a grind. The only way I got through it was to keep telling myself that a slow run is better than a missed run.

I don’t know why it was so hard to fall asleep on Wednesday night. I mean, I thought I gave myself enough time to wind down. However, it turned into another night with little sleep. Again, I didn’t get to sleep until around 1am Thursday morning. So, that meant another missed run. I was not happy about this. Thursday evening, I needed to get my taxes done. I made a huge mistake and watched Kelly Clarkson Night on American Idol. I think I was so tired that I didn’t think about how much I needed to get the taxes done on Thursday night. It’s absolutely amazing how long it takes to finish your taxes. I was up until just after 11pm finishing everything. I could swear that the last half hour was in getting the payment information taken care of. The good news is that Brooke and I are getting a refund!

Friday was laundry night!

Saturday, I had 9.5 miles on the calendar. However, I really wanted to make double digits. I thought that, since 10 miles was only an extra half mile, it would be okay. The tiredness of the week made waking up hard. The first quarter-mile had me feeling very tired. I thought…how am I going to finish all 10 miles? However, I decided to just make it through 6 miles. Since the Rose Bowl had an event, I decided on a route that combined my 6 mile loop and the 3 mile loop I do before work. The, I’d add a mile. So, at the end of the 6th mile, I’d pass by my apartment. If I needed to quit, I could. What was surprising is that the rest of the first mile went really well! I ended up holding a sub 11 minute per mile average through the first 3.5 miles! By then, it was GAME ON! I knew I was going to make 10 miles happen. I went with a 30 second run/1 minute walk. It’s always happy times when I finish 5 miles in under an hour.

In the 6th mile, I really had to use the restroom. So, I held it off until I got back to my apartment. That means, I took a restroom break in this 10 mile trek. Let me just say that it was very needed. By the time I got to the end of  the 8th mile, I realized that I was running fast enough to possibly finish 10 miles in under 2 hours! That really perked me up. I can’t remember the last time I finished 10 miles in under 2 hours. It might have been in the 2013 Rock n Roll Los Angeles Half Marathon (my current half marathon PR)! Even though the temperatures were getting kind of high (it was 72 degrees when I finished), I had to keep on going. Sure enough, I finished 10 miles in 1 hour, 57 minutes, 49 seconds!

On Easter Sunday morning, I woke up early to get in 3 miles before church. I decided to run because I knew I wouldn’t make it to the gym before it closed. Also, it meant that I’d get 3 runs in for the week! I was tired and my legs felt heavy from the very start. I had worked hard on Saturday’s 10 miles and felt it. Just like my run on Wednesday, I kept telling myself that a slow run is better than a skipped run. Consistency doesn’t come by only running when I feel like it. So, slow runs like this are important because they are building blocks for future success. The fun part of this run, was running by the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. One of the local churches was using the building for their Easter Sunday service(s). At the end of the run, I was happy to know I had bounced back from a couple of weeks with little to no workouts by finishing 3 training runs!

It’s time for me to keep moving forward. The Rock n Roll San Diego Half Marathon is the last weekend of May. So, I’ve got to keep at it. April has a lot of distractions. I think I’m in a much better place to take them on. Unfortunately, I’m not a professional runner. So, distractions will come and other life events will continue to come up. I’ve still got some planning to do in regards to the trip to Walt Disney World. I’m wanting to get 3 training runs in while I’m there. I want one run that goes from the DHS parking lot to the International Gateway entrance to EPCOT. I’ll probably take one run around the All Star Resorts. However, I’ve got to come up with that plan.

Also, I couldn’t finish this post without reminding y’all that TOMORROW is the day registration opens up for the 2015 Avengers Super Heroes Half Marathon Weekend. Are you ready to assemble with all those other Avengers runners? I know I am! The budgeting work I did cleared up what I will need to register for the Inaugural Infinity Gauntlet Challenge! If you want in for the race, I can’t encourage you enough to be ready BEFORE 9am PDT/Noon EDT tomorrow. I’d suggest that you join the Team #RunDisney Facebook Group if you haven’t already. There is a link to the page on this blog. The reason to join is that someone will post a link directly to the registration page on Active for the races. This is very important. When I registered for the Dumbo Double Dare, runDisney had instituted this virtual queue to register. You don’t want to get stuck in the queue. I should say here that if you’re in the virtual queue to register, it’s not the kiss of death to your chances of getting in. It’s just easier if you’re not stuck waiting while others are busy registering.  I’m thinking that the Infinity Gauntlet Challenge will sell out in 30 minutes or less. Next will be either the Inaugural Captain America 10K or the Avengers 5K. Within the first 1 – 1 1/2 hours, I’d bet that the Avengers Super Heroes Half Marathon will sell out. So, be quick if you want in. You can read about my experience at the 2014 Avengers Super Heroes Half Marathon in the “Races and Results” tab.

I’m pretty sure that I’ll be back to full time blogging and full time training this week! See you all tomorrow!