Birthday Post

I figured my day of birth should warrant an update post.

Oh man Boston training has been a little rough this week, shall we say... I've been eating so much king-crab, cakes, cupcakes, cookies, and as well as boozing and bubble teaing it up this past week, it's ridiculous. This isn't exactly making me faster.

But it is prepin' me for the Boston Creme pie, Boston clam chouder, and lobster and other great stuff.  

Oh man, I'm getting excited for Boston, only 52 days to go!  =)

Mount Constitution and Mountain Lake Hike on Orcas Island

http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/mount-constitution

Panorama from Mount Constitution

I just couldn’t resist when I heard some friends were signed up for this ultra-trail race extravagant hike on Orcas Island for this past weekend, which consisted of morning breakfast, a few food stations, post event beer and pizza, despite a miserable 50K and 8000ft in elevation gain along the way (wait, pretend you didn't just read the latter part of this sentence). 

It turned out to be a great roadtrip and a brilliant escape from the concrete jungle to steer my training temporary off-roads. In other words – I SURVIVED!!

We headed down the border and took the ferry from Anacortes to Orcas Island. I was astonished to learn a little geography lesson that we were so close to home and within 10K from another island I’ve been on – Saturna Island which is on the Canadian side of the border.

Some highlights from the trail.

Powerline Trail

For three very long kilometres, we had to journey up the West Boundary Trail, better known as the steep powerline stretch. It felt like Garmin wasn't ticking. My approach was just one step in front of the other until the top, which pretty much single-handily destroyed my running legs. Truth be told, the Ironman run should be a cake-walk in comparison. 

Powerline Trail is on the left

 

 A look down (left), and a look up.

Cascade Falls

An engineering marvel exists at the eastern tip of Mountain Lake and basically in the middle of nowhere. How on earth did all this concrete get there? Runners do enjoy the best "dam" trail running experience here for a good reason and will be hard-pressed to find something similar.

Panorama from Cascade Falls

Cascade Lake

The trail around the lake is much flatter and well maintained. It was a welcomed break for my legs. There was not a single bug in sight!

More engineering marvels at hand.

Mount Constitution

The most rewarding part of the trails on the island is the view up from Mount Constitution. This might be more obvious with the pictures that are about to follow:

Me at Mount Constitution

If time wasn't a limiting factor, I would have definitely checked out the stone observation tower.

We did lucked out with this crisp clear weather. 

Dear Summer,

Please come sooner!  

This hint of white stuff is taking over. My pavement runs can be better classified in my spreadsheet as trail runs. My swims practices (in the outdoor pool) have been cancelled indefinitely. My long rides are a mistake as somehow I always seem to be poorly dressed despite my best efforts. My spins sessions are uneventful. 

I propose my bulletproof formula: 

 Summer + Road Trips = Fun!

Summer you are missed, please come back sooner.

Best!

Winstorm

PS - My new roof bars & bike rack have just arrived after nearly a year of waiting!

Bogged Down on Process

Too often, I would apply process to my everyday activities. I would rely upon identifying action items, crafting to-dos lists, and sometimes analyzing them in fancy spreadsheets to achieve process. Numbers crunching is what I'm good at, especially from first principles. Not surprising then, I've been told many times (mostly at work) that I can be a little "too" systematic when it comes to resolutions and work-life balances. This technical savy stuff is suppose to remain in zee office; however I seem to trend towards a fuzzy boundary...

Yep, "process" has been my new favourite buzz word for year 2011. It is dee word that drives people around me crazy because I can't help but fervously engage in conversations about how X can be summed up in a XYZ process. Don't worry, I won't start on the current and future processes of my training, but that's for another day. =)

First things first tho, I will start my list of new year's resolutions for 2012.

1. As per above, I should refrain in everyway possible from verbally-engaging the word "process" to quantify everyday activities. This is to salvage any existing friendships I might have, before they all start believing I have spreadsheets all figured out to map out my tier 1 from tier 2 friends.
2. As cheezy as this might sound, I'm thinking of starting my own "Happiness Project". There are some inspiring ideas while reading the book "the Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin. She applies a very systematic approach to being happier like a process, which I can definitely relate to.
3. I want to motivate others to run, not just for health/fitness benefits but because it's a great energy booster. I'll be organizing a Sun Run Team for my corporation. I'm thinking of starting up a lunch-hour run too to build motivation. Don't worry, I'll still be doing Boston in April!
4. Read more! Brilliant ideas (like the ones I'm stealing above) seem to usually come from books.
5. Travel and explore Boston and Switzerland! Current things to-do list for Boston includes eating Boston Cream Pie, lobster, clam chowder, getting one of those sweet Boston Marathon jackets, and perhaps doing the marathon since I'll be there already.

That is all for now, happy new year!

Switzerland

This video got me thinking - sigh, I always wanted to travel the world.

I’ve been to 3 different countries other than my own, but one of them was during a layover to China (Japan). So I guess that leaves me with 2 countries officially visited. That’s pretty pathetic, really.

So during a friend’s farewell party, another friend said that he’ll visit him in Switzerland and then joked he would do the Ironman there. I couldn’t resist, I vowed that I would do it too had my visiting-friend signed up for IM Switzerland! It all seemed light-spirited at the time.

Then a few weeks later, my friend suddenly sent a text, which read "IMZ Confirmed". The “Zee” was referring to Zurich in Switzerland. I knew instantly from that moment on, I had to go.


This inspiring quote is suspiciously fitting...


“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”
- Anonymous


S-T-A-R...this is going onto my 2012 to-dos list! =)

Boston

As I reflect on IMC, it strikes me again I AM SEEing bragging rights for life...
...or at the very least until my back-shoulder burns wear off. I haven’t been able to make it through one swim practice yet without somebody commenting on my freshly tanned souvenirs. I guess if you’re going get a healthy dose of vitamin D from sun exposure, you might as well get it during the biggest race of your life. On the bright side (oh the puns), yes it was cooler than a tattoo! And yes it was free!

So, inspired by recent accomplishments and back burns, I can’t promise there will be less prattling, punning, and joking, but I can say there will be more new challenges for the year 2012. This is an exciting process of my training.

There is this race called the Boston Marathon, I wanted to do ever since I was a little kid. My semi-annual visits to the dentist were a constant reminder of Boston. At those early years, I just toyed the idea that it was something cool to do one day. Maybe it will impress girls, but I really had no idea how long a marathon was, I had no idea you had to qualify (let alone beat others at registering), and it didn’t occur to me it was the most prestigious marathon. My dentist Dr. Hui had a framed picture of him centred and surrounded by a sea of runners with his metal proudly displayed beside it. As I made more visits to the dentist, my curiosity got the best of me.

Three years ago, my first attempt at the Marathon was over a dozen minutes shy from qualifying.

One year ago, my second attempt at the Marathon was 3:07:53, which was enough to qualify for both Boston 2011 and 2012. Unfortunately as the joke goes, you could have fast enough legs, but you could still be denied an entry spot into Boston if your fingers weren’t fast enough. It took only 8 hours for Boston 2011 to fill up – a day I will never forget since it was also my first day into the real world.

Since the registration process was changed for 2012 in response to the quick fingers, Boston was giving my slow fingers a break for the 2012 registration.

Six months ago, my third attempt at the Marathon was slimmed down to 3:07:32.

Last month, fast forward past a week of agonizing anticipation, I was relieved to hear when it was finally announced that 3:08:46 was the cut off time for my qualifying time group, with only 74 seconds to spare. Watch out Boston! I got my golden ticket!! =)

Ironman Extravaganza Weekend (Part 3 of 3 Series)

For my race report, click here.


When I signed up for IMC 2011 last year, I remembered the registration process had asked for my “occupation” among all the other trivial data. After graduation, I technically wasn’t quite a student anymore and wasn’t quite in the real-world either. I figured my occupation could be to help Harvey Ball (the guy who invented smiley, himself) with a huge favour and act as a “Smiles Rep”. Since a special day is coming up, I figured this would be appropriate timing for this final part 3 to 3-part series of Ironman Weekend Extravaganza (or just a super bad excuse for such a procrastinated blog post entry).
That being said, Smileybook can tell the rest of the story. Thank you friends for these dazzling rockstar photos. =)