And so it begins

And so it begins. Little did I know it, but I have been training to run the New York Marathon this November since December 16, 2011. It was on that date that I "ran" a PATHETIC 5K with my wife and daughter. I "finished" that 3.2 miles in just under 47 minutes. Thats right, 47 minutes. At that point I was right around 220 lbs. Pretty much the heaviest I have ever been in my life. It was that day that I decided/realized that something had to change or my beautiful daughters would be forever ashamed of their fat dad who was too tired and lazy to get off the couch and away from the delicious bag of doritos.  I also wanted to restructure my greek god'esq psychique that my adoring wife so loves and craves.   I began researching some apps on the interwebs to help me with my weight loss attempt and came across a nifty little doodad called "LoseIt." I plugged in a modest goal of 188 lbs and hoped to achieve that by sometime in June of 2012. I've never really been one to halfarse anything and this little project was no exception. Not only did I lose the weight, but I lost in about 2 months ahead of schedule thanks to cutting back on my daily caloric intake by around 2000 calories (thats right, I was busting out dang near 4k calories per day. Srsly). I also thought it to be a good idea to start moving around a little so I began running. Fast forward to April 17, 2012. By this time i've lost dang near 30lbs and I'm running pretty much every day. Not only am I running every day, but I'm talking about running every day to everyone who will listen. On April 17, my dear mother went into the hospital for a routine'ish procedure to remove a spot from her lung. She's doing just fine today. I'm sitting in the waiting room working when I get an email from one of my more persuasive friends, Bryan "Doubles" Timmons. Timmons says that I need to jump on this New York Marathon application. I laugh out loud (LOL) and say ok, sure man. SO I did, figuring that there was NO WAY IN HELLO that I would EVER make the "cut" or get any further than the $11.00 application fee. The instant I clicked submit on that application one of those preverbal "fires" began burning inside my soul. This was something that had to happen. 26.2 miles. A lifelong asthmatic. Fat and lazy for the past 12 years. 26.2 miles. A 47 minute 5k. 26.2 miles. Twenty Six point frikin 2 miles. Failure is NOT an option. To lock myself into this commitment, I have put myself on the hook for a $2500 donation to the Think Pink Rocks team for the guaranteed entry. I'm in. NO looking back now.