David Taylor Gonzales

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6/20

I don’t talk about my work much on here but I think there are a lot of valuable lessons that I’ve taken from work and applied to my training. I work as a sales manager and recruiter for the Academy of Hair Design, a beauty industry trade school. I love my work. I’ve been with the company since 2023. I had no idea that I’d be interested in or particularly good at sales, but I realized pretty early on that I had a natural talent for some skills that are pretty important in sales: mirroring, personality reading and awareness, a good memory, and persistence.

I’ve got two medium distance runs back to back: 7 miles tonight, 10 miles tomorrow. I’ll update this on how I feel after my longer run tomorrow.

6/21

Here are the stats on last night’s run: 7.02 miles, 10 min per mile pace. 144 BPM heart rate. I called my buddy Colin to catch up on life during this one. It’s challenging but talking with friends while running is (almost) always a welcome interruption to the usual routine. I’ve been trying to improve my cadence so speed hasn’t been a high priority lately.

6/21

I just finished 9.4 miles this morning. It’s incredibly hot today and I needed to keep it low and slow. I set out my electrolyte water for the halfway point of this one and I’m glad I did. I started this run at 10:15 AM and by the time I finished, my water was mostly warm. Pretty wild. I ran this one similar to yesterday: 10:01 pace, 148 BPM. Garmin estimates I burned 1,200 calories which is crazy because that’s almost what I burn during a half marathon race.

The heat this summer is no joke but I’m thankful for the opportunity to challenge myself in new ways. I know the short dark days of winter will be here before I can blink. I’ll be running in 15 degree weather looking back fondly on this summer. I’m trying to be thankful in the moment even though these runs are an absolute slog to get through sometimes.

6/24

Seeing myself improve in so many areas: strength, mental toughness, endurance, quantifiable running metrics, PRs for distance and time have all played a huge role in improving my mental health over the years. My wife and I used to joke that I was the pessimist and she was the optimistic realist in the early days of dating. That has totally changed for me in the two years since I began this journey. I still probably err on the side of pessimism, but I see the world through an entirely different lens now. I think the physical activity, increase in time in daylight, and discipline required to train during weird hours with kids at home has all caused me to see the world differently. The lows aren’t as low and I am more in tune with my body than at any other time in my life. I know when I’m craving a run, I know when my mental health is being positively or negatively affected by my amount of time being active.

6/26

Running is very hard in the summer but I think about what it means to love something. Sometimes that means doing it even when it doesn’t love you back. That’s what I’m reminded of when I’m wiping my sweat-soaked face with my sweat-soaked shirt on hot days like this. Running requires almost nothing from us, other than willingness. But on the hard days, it requires persistence.

Persistence. If that doesn’t sound like summer running, I don’t know what does.

Keep Going!