23 Months | Turning 41 | LA Marathon

Happy Sunday Everyone!

I hope everyone is doing well. My legs are super sore, glad to sit down for a little bit on my desk, even though Mayo keeps looking at me while sitting on the table, wanting to go for a walk...

Nice banner to come home to. Thank you to Joe and Anna's kids (my next door neighbors)

For me, it's been non-stop again these past few weeks, with no time to sit down on March 2 to write about how things are going, 23 months since Teri's passed away and turning 41.

Now that that LA Marathon is over, I thought I should take some time to write a quick update on how things are going.

There's so many highs and lows. Not sure where to start. Let me get the LA Marathon out of the way first since It's fresh in my head. Here's a 5 min video I made while driving home:

TLDR: Race was a bit of a disaster but I finished :)

Although I don't have much to contribute beyond the video, I've had some time to reflect on the race and discuss it with a few people. Many might assume I'm very disappointed and discouraged because I missed my 3:30 goal by more than 30 minutes. However, at this point, I'm actually quite pleased with everything. I'm so thankful to have participated and glad I made the effort, regardless of everything falling apart after mile 19 :)

Why?? You're so competitive and now you owe a bunch of people money...

A bit of background on this. On my social media, I thought of a creative way to get people to donate to the Door of Hope fundraiser. I put a lot of hype about me running a very ambitious 3:30 (8 min/mile) and told my friends and family that if they donate $41 and I don't hit my goal, I'll give them their $41 back. It would keep me accountable to taking my training very seriously, as I tend to take a lot of my races for granted.

Eric said it best... Here's what everyone was hoping and it turned out to be true (actually worse come to think of it)

But in the end, I raised over 2x my fundraising goal and was really encouraged by so many friends and family messaging me because they were tracking along. It was nice to see a lot of "Erwin's on pace to do a 3:30" to "I hope he is OK." I am OK, so glad to be home after a very long day.

Everyone's super busy, so to come back to my phone and see all the love and support made all it well worth it. Also heard from a handful of friends and family that I didn't think would spend the time to track my results.

I'm most thankful that that Door of Hope benefits a lot from my running the race, with over $22K raised in total! You can still donate here (last day is today, March 16):

Donation Link is here: Erwin's Story

Turning 41 | Yoga Sculpt Teacher Training

I'm so happy to be 41 and feel like I'm in the best physical shape of my life...

Well maybe not after today's race. But pretty darn close! By the end of the year, hopefully I'll be past my 2016 / Pre-Teri days.

Many of you know that I spent ~50 hours in late Feb/Early march to do Yoga Sculpt teacher training. This was another last minute decision that just seemed like a lot of fun. And it certainly was!

It was also very stressful. Way out of my comfort zone. I'm very sad it's over. I think I enjoyed the whole experience a lot more, especially all the round robins and mock audition. I'm also curious about how I'd do if I really became a teacher. I have a lot of work to do and not sure if I want to put the time in to get good at this on top of all the other stuff I'm doing.

Thanks Melody and Maggie for coming to friends and family night!

The videos below tell the story a lot better than I could write about.

Part 1 of 2 (First half of teacher training)

As for my birthday and turning 41, I dedicated my birthday weekend to teaching some friends and family about my Yoga Sculpt practice. It was a great weekend and thankful for the ~25 that made it:

Some of the photos from the weekend

This also comes with a video (I like this one better than the first video):

Part 2 of 2 (Also talks about my 41st Birthday party)

Huge shoutout to Izzy for squeezing these videos in on top of her busy school schedule!

Okay enough about fitness stuff. What's the short story of how you're doing these days?

Gretchen asked me at dinner the other day how I was doing regarding my dad's passing. I said I didn't have much time to think about it, since I've been super busy with work and the stuff above. It caught me a bit off guard, as I am usually "anti-busy" and really try to have evenings to myself. that hasn't been the case lately, so I feel like I just really haven't let my dad's passing really sink in. It was a big blur since Jan 12. I really miss him, even though he's in a better place.

Things should be a little better with my schedule going forward. I have Oceanside 70.3 in 3 weeks but I'm gonna just keep my mouth shut about expectations, as I don't have the capacity to go as hard as I did for LA Marathon this time around. Under 6 hours should be very reasonable...

23 Months

Okay it's now 23.5 months. March 2 would have been 23 months. Despite everything happening and meeting many new people, I constantly think about Teri.

I usually just don't talk her when I'm with people so it may not seem that way. It is easier to talk about all the fun stuff i'm doing.

While driving to the LA Marathon today, I played the three worship songs that remind me of her on repeat. I do this because when the race becomes mentally and physically challenging, I can think about Teri, knowing she's watching from above, proud that I continue "doing hard things."

Sometimes I wonder if I'm crazy for blogging here for so long. I still want to do even more. Perhaps this is a way for me to cope, as it still brings a smile to my face when I think of her? Shouldn't I move forward? It's been almost two years, and we were only married for about 3.5 years.

Recently, with all the social media posts I'm making about the LA Marathon, I've also been interested in sharing photos of Teri on my social media. I even wanted to create a collage of Teri and me at all the races we attended together, but I ran out of time.

Focusing on Teri seems like area of focus for me at the moment. I suppose I need more time to work through this.

So are you gonna start dating again??

Not sure If this will make sense to most that know me well and still read, but I feel like I should dedicate 2025 to staying single. Maybe this will change In the near future (I really hope not), but that's how I feel at the time of writing this message. And no, it's not because I'm sad about the LA Marathon and don't want to deal with anyone. Or I because feel any guilt. Or because I just love my freedom and first world problems of figuring out what fitness thing to do every day. I bet Teri (and many of you) kinda wants me to find someone.

Now you think I'm crazy...

I do feel somewhat sad sharing this, but feel like doing so really aligns with focusing on my core value of patience.

My blog and podcast exist to share my values of humility, patience, and perseverance with those who are interested, a mission that began after Teri's passing. While I've always been aware of these values, her death truly made them resonate deeply with me. Living these values out really help me stay connected with her, and that's still what I want to do, 23.5 months after she's passed away.

I think I'm decent at perseverance, and of course I can't say I'm good at humility. But patience? I feel like I'm terrible at it. I want stuff now. I don't like waiting. I really don't like running slower than I should during the first half of a marathon since it's more fun to take some chances and maybe I'll get lucky. I can go on and on. I really also don't like waiting on meeting "the one" and if I do meet "the one" I'll just want to propose since it's no fun to deal with the dating process. I need to slow down. Breathe. Actually focus on other things besides trying to meet new people at yoga or at the gym, hoping it could turn into something. Come to think of it, yoga is really about teaching me to breathe and be mindful, more than make me a fitter person.

If a relationship is meant to be, it will happen. I just really think 2025 is a great year to just focus on other things besides meeting someone. So if I tell you next week "Hey _____, I think I found the one" please pull up this blog post. Or maybe I should give people $41 when I bring someone up....

Okay you're all over the place again... can you try to put this all together?

I think one of the key lessons I've learned since Teri has passed away is how important it is to make the most (and enjoy) the process of achieving a goal.

Most of my day job involves managing stuff, usually IT projects. There's clear outcomes that I need to achieve with each project. How I get there is important, but at the end of the day if the outcome is achieved and I'm not way out of line with budget/scope/schedule, people will be happy.

This mindset shift has not been easy. But it's made all the difference for me lately:

I'm happy about the LA marathon and the meltdown after mile 19 because the process since I first signed up really taught me so much about myself:

• I can fundraise. I've always avoided anything to do with fundraising and asking people for money at all costs!

• My fitness ego and thinking that 8-10 hours of yoga a week will make me a super triathlete/runner can get me in trouble, like it did today.

• It's okay to tell everyone on social media about your plans and share about your failures.

• Doing races like the LA Marathon for a good cause (Door of Hope fundraiser) gave me a lot more purpose to train and do well besides just for my own usual bragging rights.

• I have a lot of friends and family that really care about me. I am so loved.

I'm happy about the Yoga Sculpt Teacher Training because it also taught me so much about myself:

• Even after going to 150+ yoga sculpt classes, I have a long way to go if I want to be a good teacher

• I need to put in the time to practice (I made lots of errors during my round robins and audition)

• I made a few friends along the way that I'll definitely stay in touch and go to class with

In other words, both experiences really taught me a lot about patience, perseverance and humility. So regardless of the outcome, the time spent was well worth it. Maybe I'll become a teacher one day. Or run a 3:30. But at this point it doesn't matter, I became a better person through the process. Alex said it best after watching my video:

Therefore, I'm happy about the staying single for the rest of 2025 because I feel like there's also just a lot more I can learn about myself, grief, and my relationship with God (in the area of contentment).

Yes we can always learn about those things while in a relationship. But I feel like I know myself a lot better and have lots of stuff to work on.

It's like me saying I'm ready to run a 3:30 marathon next weekend. Yea maybe I'll get lucky but wouldn't it be better if I just took my running training more seriously and not let it come down to luck?

If I did meet someone, I really think ADHD mode will kick in and everything I'm doing that's going well will get thrown out the window and I'll put all my eggs in the relationship basket. That's sort of what tends to still happen in my life. First it was Yoga Sculpt Teacher training. Then the LA Marathon. Now it's this big IT project at my day job that's due April 1. Balancing is very difficult for me. I think a serious relationship will be a bit too much.

I guess I just want to slow down. I'm tired.

I want to walk Mayo now. Thanks for reading and want to learn more about how I'm doing these days, I hope it's helpful sharing about my journey. I mean it that the people that read the blog, follow along my races and check in with me, even when i'm super busy, really make me feel more loved than I deserve. Thank you.

Have a great week! Hope we can hang out soon.

Blessings,

Erwin