And we're back!

In the words of Sir Elton John, "oh, the bitch is back/stone cold sober as a matter of fact."

Mission 26.2 was accomplished in March 2015 when I completed the Snickers Marathon in Albany, Ga.  It was a fabulous race and I would highly recommend participating in the event.  The people are great, the course support is awesome considering it is a small race, and they qualify something like 15% of the field for Boston.  The high of completing my first marathon lasted almost the whole of last year.  It made me feel invincible.  I could run anywhere at any speed!  I was faster then a speeding bullet and more powerful than a locomotive!  I could leap tall buildings in a single bound!!  I had it all! I had concurred the unconquerable. I had slain my "el Guapo" and emerged stronger, more confidant, and fitter than ever....

So then, why are we back you ask?

It's hard to describe what happened, exactly, in those months after the marathon.  The marathon high lasted for a while and with it brought a wave of complacency.  But when that wave receded, it left behind a sense of emptiness and discontent.  It was like a living running death.  I followed my post-marathon taper plan and knocked out the lower mileage weeks with minimal thought.  As time passed, I found shorter miles would not satisfy me.  When it was time to reintroduce speed-work, the faster miles left me feeling discontented and left me wanting more.
 I introduced weight training to my routine and got a little faster (placed third in my age group at a small race in December, had some success at a half
marathon in November).  But I couldn't find a race to truly inspire me; I couldn't find a goal to get me back on track.  The excitement of self-discovery that I felt when training for Albany was gone.  And before I realized it, the year was gone too.  There was no more 2015.

2016- An opportunity presents itself....

Running is what you need it to be for you at any given time.  In January, my dad was nursing an injury that precluded him from running for several months.  What this meant for me is that I would be running with Kevin in the races they had committed to that spring.  This was exciting.  I had a blast, and we didn't do too badly either.

This was the push I needed and provided me with the motivation to get back into the game.  Rolling off a great runner's high after one of these races, I decided I would enter the lottery for the 2016 Marine Corps Marathon.  And I got in.  My sense of self discovery has been renewed.  This time, I will return to our nation's capital to race.  Victory will come in the form of completing those 26.2 miles and high-fiving the marines at the end.  Victory will be in the form of self-discovery, of learning more about myself this time around than I did before.  Victory will be the rebirth of new dreams and goals for the future.  Victory will come on Oct 30st, 2016 and on all those miles in between now and then.