Hello again! It’s been forever and a day since I last wrote a blog post.

It’s hard to believe, but one year ago, today, I ran and finished the 2017 TCS NYC Marathon. On Sunday, I made sure to watch the 2018 TCS NYC Marathon on TV. I’ve also seen all the posts coming from running friends who were running this race or the Wine and Dine Half Marathon Weekend at WDW. It’s crazy to think how fast time flies.

As I celebrated finishing the NYC Marathon, it all felt like the close to one chapter in my life. As I took most of November 2017 off from training, I never envisioned how 2018 would actually turn out.

At the start of 2018, I totally thought that I would have run a 5K without any walk breaks by now. However, what looked so doable on paper, has proven to be much more difficult in reality.

Y’all know that I did finish the Angels Baseball Foundation 5K earlier this year.

Over the summer, I added the runDisney Virtual Shorts Incredibles 5K’s to the schedule because I needed some runDisney in my 2018.

So, I ran a 5K around the Rose Bowl in June…

Another 5K at “The Strand” in Redondo Beach in July….

And finished the series with a 5K at Santa Monica Beach in August.

Then, I ran the Santa Monica Classic 5K in September as the first part of my Triple 5K Tour of LA.

Each of these was put into the schedule to try and get me working out and working towards those goals I set back in January. However, life got in the way.

The workouts started going off the rails as I prepared to move into my first office at Disney. It was an exciting time for sure. I was a new paralegal. I have never had my own office to work out of. So, I took a lot of time to figure out exactly how I wanted my office to look like. It took a lot of time to get the look just right…and pushed workouts off the radar. Back in May, when I finally moved into the office, I thought I’d just get back into workouts.

Then, I got into various projects around the apartment. Included in this was finally getting all my race medals up and on display. We also made some upgrades in the furniture which took time and energy to build. I really wanted to get out and run or workout. However, the timing wasn’t working out.

Also, my boy turned that magical age of 2 years old in March. His growth and development have been both awesome and hard to deal with at the same time. I’ve learned what the “terrible 2’s” are all about. Don’t get me wrong. The boy isn’t anywhere close to some sort of demon child. However, talking back to us and not listening to us has become part of our lives. Discipline is hard, yo! It takes a lot of you. But, we’ve got to stand our ground. These days there too many self-entitled kids out there. The wife and I don’t want ours to join them. So, we’re doing our best stand against bad behaviors now. Hopefully, in time, we’ll see some good fruit to our labor. Adjusting to this new season in my boy’s life wasn’t easy. However, I do feel better adjusted now as I write this.

For a good part of the start of 2018, I had lots of things fighting for my attention…all of which lead to many missed workouts. Over the summer, the stress of my new position lead to more missed workouts. With the regular 5k’s and the virtual 5K’s, I hoped I would find my way back.

I don’t know what plan I’m on now. But, as I watched the NYC Marathon this year, I had so many wonderful memories come to mind that it seems like this is as good of a time to come up with a new plan and get back in the game as any. Early this year, I learned a few things that will make their way into my goals for 2019.

First off, I learned that I need to lose some serious weight before starting another couch to 5K program. I started 3 different couch to 5K programs through the first part of the year. Each time, when I got to 2 or 3 minutes of running consecutively, I failed. By the third one, I realized that a big part of the problem was my weight. I had come up with a good idea of gated goals. The problem is that I should have made the weight loss my first gate to get through. So, in 2019, the first goal is to lose 50 lbs. before I start trying to run a 5K without stopping.

Secondly, I have really missed runDisney races and racing period. I only ran two regular races this year (a career low). So, since I can’t do anything about runDisney races, I am planning on adding more 5K’s to the mix. I’ve already got the Pasadena 5K in January and the Big 5 5K (as part of of the Los Angeles Marathon) in March. Plus, I’m already planning on running the Angels Baseball Foundation 5K (whenever it ends up happening). I’d love to run in one 5K per month (if possible) to keep me running. I’ve got an idea of how to use the 5K races while I’m loosing weight and how I’d use them once I start the pursuit of running an entire 5K without walk breaks.

For the rest of 2018, I’m setting a goal of getting 2 workouts in per week. With the holidays starting up, this goal seems like it could be a little difficult. However, it is important to get me moving again. I don’t have any goals other than this for the rest of the year. My thought is that, I need to find some sort of consistency this year. If I can find that, it will set me up well for 2019.

I’ve lost my way in 2018. All I can do now, is get back up and move forward. In addition to the 2 workouts per week, I hope to be putting up a blog post at least once a week until the end of the year. I’ve also been toying with the idea of doing some v-logs that I’ll post on my YouTube page and Facebook page. So, keep tuning in. I promise more content is coming.