You do. You just do. You get your happy ass out of bed at 5:30 a.m., you lace up, you procrastinate a bit, but then you go. You just go. I have started over at least 12 times since running a marathon. But you know what? That’s okay. It means I still care. It means I still have goals to achieve – and I do – but failure is a part of every success story.

Those close to me know that my job has brought on a crazy, ever-changing schedule, endless great meals including free peanut butter cookies always at my finger tips and a slew of stressful-just-want-to-sleep nights. But you know what? Not an excuse. I set out to prove that to myself last week when Festival Season kicked in. I set a goal to workout or hit my 10,000 steps every day, stay on track with my food, get a lot of sleep and hydrate and you know what? 90,000 steps later, I did it. I even managed to have a social life after a few 10 hour days. Fast forward to post-festival and I erased all that hard work. So you know what I did this morning? I started the fuck over. I grumbled and groan as my alarm went off at 5:30 a.m. but three miles later, I forgot about the “dammits…” that ensued as I was risin’ and not-so-shinin.’

At mile one, I told myself “it’s never too late to start over.” It’s cliche but so damn true. So I may have had a pastrami Reuben sandwich (work lunch, I promise) and some gelato the day before (not a work lunch, piss off), but before those slip-ups got out of hand, I knew I needed to step back to zero and just run. Just run.

Going forward, I plan to increase my runs to 2-3 per week, with a lengthier one on the weekends so as to work my way up to the Reno 10-Miler. It’s a lot closer than it seems, but I have faith I can kick some ass.

My other obstacle ahead is learning how to fuel for longer runs without carbs. I’ll save that story for another day…