The Past, Present and Future

The Past

I should be 75 days away from running my first marathon. Finishing the LA Marathon has long been a goal that I have quietly kept to myself for many years and I thought this year would be my year. However if you've seen me lately I am anything but "race ready". Over the summer I had mentally prepared myself for the race. I had even gone as far as to put up huge monthly tables on a wall showing me how many miles I had to run in order to be ready for the March event. Plus the fact that the race would originate from Dodger Stadium and run itself to the Santa Monica Pier made me even more excited. Before my training began I started what I called my pre-training runs, that were actually more like 4 mile walks on the Whittier Greenway Trail. I did this maybe 5 times before quitting cold turkey. I always had an excuse why I couldn't go out and train and days became weeks and weeks became months and now it is too late to participate in this years event.

The Present

Today I find myself sadden that I've let a great opportunity pass me by. I find myself needing to get healthier which is part of the reason I also was up beat about the race. I figured that while training for this race, I would naturally lose weight and of course that would be a plus. In reality I have probably gained weight. I find myself sadden that instead of participating in the race I will be watching on TV, probably turning it off immediately in disgust with myself.

The Future

I believe I've given myself a very realistic opportunity by allowing myself more than a year to get into race shape. I will not need to follow the guidelines for most new people which says they must train for 6 months. I am allowing myself more than twice that amount. I am allowing myself more than a year, 14 months to be exact and that actually brings me hope. I can concentrate on doing it right. I can concentrate on losing weight and then conditioning my body to make the distance. A distance of 26.2 miles. I don't care about timing, I could care less what my finish time is, I only ask of myself to finish and pass that finish line.

So why is this blog going to change anything? If you couldn't do it before, why can you now? Are you really going to stick with it? You're just going to make yourself look bad and be the butt of a joke! You're all talk but can't walk the walk!

These are all thoughts that are running through my mind and probably yours. I am here to show you, you are wrong. I am here to prove to myself I can! Welcome to my journey.