It's been so long...

I probably don't have anyone following the blog anymore, because I haven't written in such a long time.. life gets in the way sometimes. Over the last hour or so, I came to the website and read an entry that I had at the end of last year. It basically stated all the goals that I had for this year, and how I wanted to approach my running for this year. At the time, my wife was 8 1/2 months pregnant, and I didn't know how much would change in my life with re: to running, work, etc. Well, it's been 5 months since that post, and I'm still here plugging on.... so in a nutshell this is what has happened over the last 5 months with my life:

1. Alayna, our 3rd child has entered into our lives. She will be 3 months old next week.

2. I am working quite a bit, which actually is a good thing in these tough economic times.

3. Adryana, my oldest daugther, is finishing her first year of elementary school.

4. I have run 1010 miles for the year

January: 179 miles

February: 162 miles

March: 180 miles

April: 219 miles

May: 239 miles

5. I have signed up for the San Francisco Marathon, which is July 26.

6. I have run a few races since the beginning of the year:

Wiregrass 5k: 19:30

Clearwater Half-Marathon: 1:39:45 (with a friend)

Chasco Challenge 10k: 41:27

May Classic 5k: 18:54



There you have it...
I have improved my running quite a bit, and I am training more than I thought I would have been able to at the beginning of this year. We have adjusted with our new family, and life is good... hectic... but good.

I want to continue to become a better runner, because I am realizing that I enjoy running all distances, (not just the marathon). I have gone from being one of the slower runners in the race, to usually at the top 10% of finishers in the races....and I love that feeling!!! I love coming home with medals to give my kids!!!!

I will try my best to update my blog on a weekly or 2x/month basis as I lead up to the San Francisco Marathon. This race will not be my goal marathon race for the year, because it will be a vacation for me and the family, and I don't want to feel like crap for my vacation. But, depending on how it goes, I will decide later on in the year, if I want to attempt to qualify for the Boston Marathon, which requires me to run a 3:10 marathon..... yup... 3:10, that's 7:15 seconds per mile for 26.2 miles. It sounds completely out of my league right now, but we will see how it goes.
Even though I won't be blogging minute by minute about my running endeavors, you can track every run that I do at the upper right corner of the blog. You can see all of my weekly runs, that are updated every 24 hours, and track how my runs go. That pretty much explains it all.

Oh yeah!!! One more thing... the purpose of the blog is changing. I used to blog about how all of my paces and training runs went (which can still be followed by looking at my runs)... well, now I think I want to blog about how I manage to do my training and stay active with my family life, spiritual life and work life... because that is what we all struggle with. How do you maintain a sense of balance with all aspects of life? I struggle with this on a daily basis, but I hope that some followers of the blog can find that we all struggle with the same things in so many different ways. It's hard to think that some folks actually get inspired by some of the things you do... but I get inspired by people that don't even realize that they inspire me.
1. My clients at the weight loss facility that I work at inspire me on a daily basis. Them walking 1 mile is more impressive at this point than me running 10 miles.
2. My patients at Renewal Rehab inspire me because of their determination to recover from various injuries to return to normal life.
3. My RWOL forumite friends (3:20 thread) help get my butt out of bed when I hear of their insane training schedules that they have with the same or more amount of responsibilites that I have. One of them literally got me out of bed, as she was down in my area, and ran 18 miles with me yesterday.
4. FB friends that are very active such as "K" who goes to the gym every single day and crushes out her workout sessions, and "A" who has completed 2 half-marathons despite having lupus... very impressive.
Most importantly, my family, particularly my wife who allows me to do this crazy stuff. She is my biggest fan and supporter of all.