And Week 1 of training of 22 is in the books! The long journey to the finish line of the 2017 TCS NYC Marathon has officially begun! After having to scrap my plans last year, it feels awesome to have made it to the training for this race! My week didn’t get off to the best start training wise. But, it was a fabulous week.

Since National Runners Day was on Wednesday, I pushed my first run of the training cycle to Wednesday. I was still a little tired from running the Rock n Roll 5K and Half Marathons the weekend before. So, my expectations were a little low for this first run. I wanted to run 25 seconds and walk 95 seconds the whole way. After all, this was more of a recovery run and celebration of the ability to run kind of day.

These splits are surprisingly consistent! That’s the good news. The bad news, I was consistently slow. It’s okay, though. I did enjoy this run for what it was. I really wanted to beat 52 minutes and I did that. Before the Rock n Roll San Diego races, I had gone to running 3 miles for 2 weeks on the mid-week runs. So, my comparison goes back a few weeks and I was actually slightly faster than the last time I ran 4 miles! I wore my 2014 WDW Marathon race shirt to get good vibes heading into my NYC Marathon training. Overall, for the run/walk I had going on and having the goal of just to get back moving, this run wasn’t all too bad. I want to be faster than this and I will as time goes along.

Sadly, the boy was a little under the weather Wednesday night. So, I did not get to sleep until around 11pm. 5 and a half hours is not the way I want to go into a run. Especially when I have to take the boy to day care and go to work after. So, I ended up skipping this run. Fortunately, the boy doesn’t cause the skipping of runs with poor sleep regularly. It was merely bad timing this time around.

Friday was a really fun day. I got to take a tour of Walt Disney’s Offices at the Walt Disney Studios (where I work).

The folks at the Disney Archives have done an amazing job of restoring Walt’s Offices to their 1960’s glory. Included was this map of Disneyland from back in the 1960’s. I’ll have to do a proper post on this experience because it was so cool! The map behind me has Disneyland under construction with new things mapped out like the Haunted Mansion, It’s A Small World, and New Orleans Square (among them). Fun times!

You could just feel the history of being in these offices where so many celebrities and heads of state had once visited. The vision and imagination of Walt himself were very much alive and well!

Thanks to the Walt Disney Archives for putting on this really fun tour!

Also, on Friday, I picked the boy up from day care and took him to the summer kick off party at my wife’s work. It was a Hollywood Awards theme! So much fun! Colton totally enjoyed being able to toddle around the grounds of my wife’s school.

Saturday morning, I got up and made it out for a brand new experience. I finally joined the Pasadena Pacers for a training run! My first time running with a running group was pretty cool and I think I’ll join them again this next weekend. My thought is that I’ll check them out for these next 4 weeks (hopefully) and evaluate it from there. I did have fun with the two people in the pic above who were the leaders of the group I ran with.

It was a fun 6 miles over a different route by the Rose Bowl. Ordinarily, I’d just run two laps around the Rose Bowl loop for 6 miles. The Pasadena Pacers had their own 6 mile route all planned out.

There was lots of climbing on this route. Mile 3 featured a killer hill that I’ve never run before. Although, I can’t say that I actually ran it this time. I walked the hill mostly because that’s how I felt. The group I ran with was doing run 5 minutes, walk 1 minute. I tried it out and realized quickly that I needed to take it differently. Mile 1 was spent gradually working my way down to a run 30 seconds, walk 60 seconds intervals. By the end of mile 1, that’s where I was at. I decided to let most of the group go without me because I’d never done run 5 minutes, walk 1 minute. What was great about being in a group is that one of the leaders waited when we got to that crazy hill to make sure those of us in the back knew where to go. Walking up that crazy hill gave me time to talk with the leader that waited. Shortly past mile 3 was a water stop. Fun times. I reached the turn around somewhere in mile 4 and made my way largely downhill. Thanks to the downhill, I ran negative splits!

My overall time wasn’t too bad. I was actually around 30 seconds faster than the two weeks ago! However, I know I have a long ways to go in this training cycle. Still, I had fun with the Pacers and am looking forward to seeing how the rest of this month goes!

On Sunday, Brooke and I spent the day with Colton’s biological parents at Disneyland! We had so much fun at the parks with the boy!

I think this might be my absolute favorite pic with my boy ever! We had lots of fun in Mickey’s Toon Town. Colton got to roam around a little bit (which he LOVED!). I gained a new appreciation for Toon Town.

We went over to the Star Wars Launch Bay in Tomorrowland. Sadly, the Empire won’t allow strollers inside. So, we had to park at the Land Speeder Parking. Love the theming!

We also made our way into Disney California Adventure where we…

Yep. We heroed it up at DCA!

As we waited in line at the Little Mermaid ride, Colton conked out. Theme parking is tiring business you now.

Over all, it was a fun time at Disneyland and DCA to end an eventful week! Yes, I only got 2 runs in for the week. However, I’ve got time to get better and will. The boy sleeps through the night on most nights. So, hopefully, this week, I’ll get all three runs in that are on the calendar. Bring on Week 2!