Beach Cities Challenge...It's on!

DAVE O'BRIEN, 4 DESERT RUNNER...SO AWESOME!!!

So have I already said how much I stink at blogging...for real! But I'm going to make a promise to myself to do better...I need this...to write...it's therapeutic...

So part of this blog is my running journey...I was training for the Surf City Half Marathon...my third half marathon. I had a goal...to break 2 hours...I did it (barely!). Surf City was OK, but it wasn't my favorite. I guess I need a change of scenery every once in a while while running, and SC is basically all one straight line on PCH...kinda boring. I guess it would've been less treacherous if my Pandora hadn't decided to quit at mile 8. I have always been someone who said I couldn't run without my music. In fact, if I am planning a run and find out that my iPod is dead, I won't run. And so there I was, with no music and five miles to go...the silence almost killed me...but I did it. I finished the half in 1 hour and 59 minutes (average 9:07 mile)...goal accomplished!

So what's next?! To keep the momentum, there has to be something around the corner to train for...but what? It seems that the next step would be a full marathon, but I have been having a HARD time wrapping my head around 26.2 miles...I mean, I was watching the marathon runners as I was running my half and just kept thinking, "HOW can they do that? I could NEVER do that!" So that goal died...for the time being...another half might be the right ticket...

Fast forward to last Thursday and Friday...I am sitting in the Long Beach Convention Center at the Juice Plus+ Conference listening to the 4 desert runners of team Juice Plus+, Dave O'Brien, the oldest person to ever finish the 4 deserts, Samantha Gash the first woman and youngest person to finish, Ricky Paugh, and Lisa Tamati. They ran 4 deserts in one year(the Sahara, the Gobe, the Atacama, and Antarctica). This equaled 600 miles...broken down to 150 miles for each desert. Each desert was run in 5 days...that means the first three days they run a full marathon, the fourth day they run 50-60 miles, and they finish the fifth day with a 10K...WHOA!!! I sat there in my seat listening to Dave saying, "For me, once you've truly found your passion, there's only one way to go about it, and that is to grab it with both hands, commit to it, and finish it. There is no 'It isn't going to happen.' In my book, quitting is not an option...For me, it's just a matter of feeling well all the time and being healthy."

Right there, I made the decision to take the leap and run the full marathon...if this average 57 year old man can run 150 miles in 5 days, I can certainly run 26 in one day. So here I am...ready to run...I will be doing one half marathon (The OC half) on May 1, and then I'll be doing the Long Beach Marathon in October. My mind is finally right with this...if I continue to give myself the nutrition I need and train consistently, there is no stopping me...so the journey continues...I have raised the bar for myself, and I'm looking forward to this new challenge. To Be continued...