05/19/2026
and I are officially half marathoners! We had a blast this Sunday at the pushing our minds and bodies unlike either of us had before.
I can barely walk—our training was not exactly adequate 😂—but Amanda is doing amazing! (See last slide of me being KO’d and her rubbing my feet)
Lessons learned:
1) We can do anything we set our minds to ✨ My fav slide here is #2 of me capturing Amanda overflowing with joy, triumph, and pride as she approached the finish line 🥹
2) Pace yourself: we were very intentional about not getting caught up in the excitement of the start of the race, and both of us saw our splits improve as the race went on. We were not battling any other competitors—we ran our own races without being influenced by what others around us were doing.
3) Our bodies require proper fuel: I didn’t eat properly in the 24 hours leading up to the race, and I paid for it — video on slide 4 is me catching up to Amanda around the 1 mile mark cuz I was in a porta potty at the start of the race 😂 around the 2.5 mile mark I took another emergency porta potty pit stop (reflected on split slide). Definitely looking to avoid that situation in future endurance runs... We also probably shouldn’t have danced until 5:00am Friday night/Saturday morning at 🪩🕺🏼💃🏽, but when and .guchi throw a party, you don’t let things like running a half marathon in 24 hours slow you down 🙃
4) Perseverance—I saw multiple signs during the run that really impacted me but the one that hit me the most said “pain is temporary”. My knees, hip, and ankle were barking at me starting around mile 7…pushing through the pain came natural as I told myself that I’ve endured many rough patches in my life and come out on the other side a better man from it. The back half of this race was just one more opportunity to prove to myself that I can push through pain knowing glory is waiting on the other side.
5) WE WANT MORE. We have our sights set on the ‘27 LA marathon now. We def need to train properly to 2x what we did on Sunday, but we are committed to it and are going to run multiple more half marathons leading up to it 💪
