It’s hard to believe it, but my last race weekend was way back in January at the Star Wars Light Side Half Marathon. I was having a lot of fun that weekend and finished the Rebel Challenge for the third straight year. I thought my next race would be….

The Los Angeles Marathon. Unfortunately, training for this race simply didn’t happen. My first Christmas as a daddy, finalizing our adoption of Colton all combined to leave me 6 weeks from the Los Angeles Marathon and only that Star Wars Half Marathon as my longest run. So, I turned my focus to the Rock n Roll San Diego Half Marathon.

The initial goal was to run a 2:35:00 half marathon.

I got off to a great start in the first 4 weeks!

I got some great track workouts done in phase 1 and 2! I even did 8 x 400 at the track…a new record for me!

I did some hills.

I worked my way up to a 13 mile training run. With 2 more long runs, I was slightly off track and fighting to keep my training going. While phases 1 and 2 of this cycle went well. I stalled and struggled in phase 3 and even more so in phase 4.

I transitioned from running in the evening to running in the early morning. There was a lot that happened in these last two months to derail my training. Some of it could have been avoided. Some of it couldn’t.

For more than a year now, the goal has truly been the 2017 TCS NYC Marathon. Right now, it sort of sucks that I didn’t hit any of the goals I set for myself last year. I didn’t PR the 2016 Avengers Super Heroes Half Marathon. I didn’t even run the 2017 Los Angeles Marathon. Now, my training has left me pretty confident that I won’t run a 2:35:00 half marathon at the 2017 Rock n Roll San Diego Half Marathon. Back when I made those goals, I knew that whether I made all 3 of those goals or if I made none of them, it wouldn’t matter if I couldn’t run a sub 6 hour TCS NYC Marathon.

So, where does this all leave me as I head down to San Diego today? Well, I’m treading both the Rock n Roll San Diego 5K and Rock n Roll San Diego Half Marathon as training runs for the 2017 TCS NYC Marathon. When I ran the Rock n Roll San Diego 5K two years ago, I wanted a 5K PR. This year, I just want to have fun being in a race again and to hold to a run/walk interval of run 30 seconds, walk 90 seconds for mile 1. Then run 30 seconds, walk 60 the rest of the way. I’ll let the time be whatever it’s going to be.

For the Rock n Roll San Diego Half Marathon, I have the following plan that I hope to be able to keep to. I want to run 25 – 30 seconds, walk 90 – 95 seconds for the first 10K. Then, I hope to switch to a run 25 – 30 seconds, walk 60 – 65 seconds for at least the next 5K. Then, I’ll see how I’m feeling and either keep the 60 – 65 second walk breaks going or switch back to the 90 – 95 second walk breaks. However, the goal is simply to hit each and every 25-30 second run interval as it’s supposed to happen for the entire race. In my half marathons, there is usually a point where I break from the pattern at least a few times. If I can hold to either a run 25, walk 95 or a run 25 walk 65 for all 13.1 miles, I’ll consider this race a victory. No matter what time I finish in, it will be a victory. I’ll give it an A if I can hold the run 25 walk 65 seconds from the 10K mark all the way to the finish. I’ll give the run a B if I hold that pattern from the 10K mark through the end of mile 11. It will be a B- if I only hold it through 15K.

This race will show me how much work I’m going to need to do to pull off this NYC Marathon goal I set earlier this year. I’ll have around 5 months to be ready to take on the 5 boroughs of the NYC. So, the good news is that, no matter how slow I am this weekend, there is time to improve. Next week, I’ll probably mention where I’m at in week 1 of NYC Marathon training goal wise. However, I won’t be talking a whole lot about goals for that race until the fall.

No matter what happens this weekend, I’m thrilled that it’s finally here! I can’t wait to run the streets of San Diego all weekend long! Let’s go San Diego! I’m ready to Rock n Roll all weekend long!