Hello and Welcome to my first post for the We Are One 365 Day Challenge! The first of many…well… 365 to be exact.

A couple of things to start off. First and foremost, I would like to thank the Veterans, past, current, and future, for their constant sacrifices to this country.

Second of all, I want to personally thank Matt Wood, Marena Perkins, James Epstein and all of the We Are One 365 Team for coming up with and helping create this corner of the website as a part of We Are One 365 and allowing me to put my training towards a greater cause.

While the next 8 months of my life will be focused on preparing and qualifying for the Olympic Trials, I am truly excited for the next year of my life in terms of my training and being able to share it with the We Are One 365 community.

Thirdly, training with the incredibly talented Santa Monica Track Club in Los Angeles is an experience that many athletes don’t get the opportunity to do. As no one likes regrets, I am dedicating everything I have physically and mentally to this challenge. I believe I have a chance to make the Olympic Trials. How good of a chance? We will find out.

I look forward to sharing my running journey with all of you. With that said, I encourage any and all suggestions regarding the information I provide as well as helping decide the most interesting and engaging direction to take. Some days, my training will be short and sweet with the blog following suit. Other days will be more complex with more miles and workout breakdowns. Again, I would love to hear from you with any questions, suggestions, or comments.

Lastly, I understand that accomplishing my Olympic trial goal is going to be difficult and require an incredible amount of focus, industriousness and, most importantly, enthusiasm. If you don’t love what you do, you will never be great at it. I’m still learning a lot but it’s something that makes me happy. Because of this, I want to help put more happiness in your life by pushing you physically and offering different ways to get to new levels. By reaching out to me, you give me more meaning, purpose, and drive with my own goals on good days and bad. Having this blog holds me accountable every day and it increases my commitment to training, to We Are One 365, and to the military members that we have made our pledge. Let’s work hard together and see the impact we can make. We Are One 365.

9:30 am: Westridge Mountains

Met up with Tony, Moses, Yermie, and Zach at the Westridge canyon entrance in Brentwood. It was raining but not too chillly. I was very excited to be running in the canyons for our long run. First time this season. As we started, I forgot how steep the canyon actually was and how long an inclined 3.5 mile run can seem. We ran 45 minutes out and it took us about 42 to get back (about 7 miles out). The downhills were very slippery so watching my footing was crucial and we weren’t able to go as fast as we normally would down hills. Felt good to push up the hills and to see that I was in some sort of shape. Did some leg swings and high knees after the run.

14 miles in 1:27:30 (6:12 pace)

5 miles later this afternoon which will put me around 110 miles for this week. Most ever. Groin feels good and body feels strong.

12 days til next race. Turkey Trot in Dana Point. Trying to decide between 10k and 5k.

Congrats to the We Are One 365 members who ran the 5k this afternoon in NYC. Looking forward to hearing all about it. I’m sure it was a huge success. A great start for a great organization.

Always Remember. Never Forget. No Regrets.

Nick