You Get What You Work For.

This is one of my favorite quotes:

Sadly, it's also the quote that most accurately reflects what is happening with me right now. And I need to own up to it if I'm going to change it.

I had great plans for the Summer of 2014. I was going to start it off by running the San Diego Rock and Roll Marathon, dedicate myself to my running and strength training, and run the Ventura Marathon in September for a Personal Record.

Yeah. Not so much. My plan went off-track right from the start when I had to sit out the Rock and Roll Marathon because of bronchitis. The rest of June was a mixed bag. My running was on track but my strength training was non-existent and my eating was out of control.

And then came July. My running was somewhat on schedule, but again, no strength training and poor eating choices.

And August? Pfft. It's bad. My running has been hit and miss, no strength training, poor eating choices and I've been hit with one thing after another in the real world.

At this point, realistically, I'm still confident that I will be able to complete the marathon but I have no chance of a personal best. It will be all I can do to not slow my running buddy down and throw her off her own marathon plan.

This is a tough blog to write. I'm telling the world that Captain Awesome is not so awesome after all. And I have no one to blame but myself. I have an arsenal of inspirational and motivation tools to get me on track, and I'm not using any of them. I'm just checking off days and going through the motions.

I'm going to spend some time today thinking this through and figure out what I can do to get this turned around. It's a little late to dramatically improve my marathon performance, but I have three relay races on the calendar this Fall and I'd like to avoid embarrassing myself in front of my teams.

I'm not giving up. I'm not giving in. I'm just taking a long look in the mirror and not liking what I'm seeing.

Reality check? Done. What's next? I'll figure it out today.