Two years ago I lost my job. I was ecstatic. True, my wife had just given birth to our twins a few weeks earlier and we were hoping to buy a house in the near future. But things, I figured, would work themselves out. The twins would eat, surely, and given the portentous warnings in the real estate market it seemed a good time to rent. Thus assured, I sat down at my desk and did what I've done now for years whenever I've found myself unmoored and without a plan-I set down my goals in writing.

First on my list of goals: breaking 20 minutes in the 5K. At the time I had just turned 40. Thoughts of my impending physical decline shadowed me constantly. Conventional wisdom said that my best running days were behind me. My previous PR in the 5K-which I'd run in my early 30's a few weeks before running my one and only marathon-was 21:53. This was probably a minute faster than my next fastest 5K time (I've now run about 20 5K races). A 20 minute 5K seemed a formidable goal and the idea of accomplishing this feat after the age of 40 gave me an intense thrill. Like Steve Austin, I wanted to feel that I was "better, stronger, faster than before." Well, faster anyway.

There were other goals I set down that day having to do with-if I recall-career and family and, oh, some other such stuff, but those fell by the wayside as my obsession with breaking 20 minutes took over.

I devised my own training schedule culled from various magazines and websites. Two ACL surgeries on separate knees during the previous five years meant that I couldn't train every day. My left knee especially became achy when I overused it. So I set out to run on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. One day would be devoted to a tempo run, one day to speedwork, and one to LSDs. I tried running hills but that aggravated my knees too much so I simply cut it out. Each week I upped the intensity of my workouts in one or two of my workouts. According to my plan I would reach my goal within a year. At least, this was according to the plan. Alas, life intervened.

The babies quickly went from sleeping a lot to puking a lot. Reflux, a condition that many babies suffer from, was keeping them uncomfortable for much of the night (and day). And because we had two babies on our hands we often needed two sets of hands to handle and soothe them. This meant very few nights off for either my wife or myself. Ten-minute catnaps became the norm. When it came time to lace up, I would sit at the edge of the bed. My head, however, sensed the proximity of the pillow and all too often my body was overwhelmed with the temptation to fall backwards into the horizontal position. On many occasions I awoke to find a single sneakered foot dangling off the end of the bed.

The house chores piled up. With my wife recovering from a poorly performed C-section, there was much to do around the house. When you are not working you can't help but wonder how it is possible to have kids and work and still find time to do what needs to get done around the house.

Worst of all, that first year I got sick much more often than I'd ever gotten sick. One of those dirty little secrets about having babies around is that they act as germ factories. Since their immune systems are not fully formed yet they get sick often, and, by the transient property of infection, so too do those around them. Getting sick not only takes you off schedule in your training, it weakens you and sets you back. A three-day illness can set your training back three weeks. And, as I discovered, yelling at your kids to not get sick doesn't help.

So, with all of this going on, my training took two steps forward and one-sometimes three-steps back. But, on the whole, it did move forward. Sometimes one painful inch at a time. At other times, however, there were real leaps. And progress inspires.

So here I am now, two years later, still without a job, but with two beautiful children (who sleep like angels!) and a wife who puts up with me. And my training? Yesterday I ran a 20:37 5K on the treadmill. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Just 37 seconds to go. Should be a piece of cake, right? Well, with my wife about to give birth next month to our third, I'd better hurry. I'm certainly not getting any younger. The race is on!

Jesse Sommer lives and runs in Riverside, CT.