Let the Rockstar Tour Begin!

It’s nice to be back in the bloggy world again.


I’ve just been so busy MOVING these days (yes again)! Only a 3 month stint at our previous place and it’s already time to pack the bags again. Not the most ideal way to train for zee ironman per se, but as an opportunistic triathlete would say, I consider it practice for transitioning faster. And I recommend leaving your training items unpacked to the side, just so that you can still sneak out of the house and log in those valuable training hours. See newly added training log at bottom. ;)

Anyways, enough with the mundane details, I’m excited about the Winstorm’s official 2011 rockstar tour. Much of the race schedule will be dedicated to prepping for the ironman in late august. I plan to do the BMO marathon as a build up to the distance. Should be a marvellous marathon; surprisingly I have not yet participated in any BMO events to date. Next up will be the Subaru Western Triathlon Series: Shawnigan, Victoria, Vancouver and Sooke.

By the end of August, I plan to do IMC. Hopefully work won’t conflict; there is a small chance this may disrupt my plans. Yes, in the real world, you have to come prepared for these kinds of things, I’m keeping my fingers crossed for good karma. =)



Oh yes SUN RUN is in less than 2 weeks! SUB 38 minutes? I’m going try, but I think more realistically is SUB 40. I have the added pressure of performing well as newly appointed Team Captain for my company this year. Let’s hope it all goes well! =)



UBC Tri « Olympic « march 6 - 2:40:05
Sun Run « 10km « april 17
BMO « Marathon « may 1
Shawnigan Lake « Half « may 29
Victoria « Half « june 19
Vancouver « Half « july 3
Sooke « Half « august 7
IMC « IM « august 28

Happy New Year!

Source: http://www.vectorstock.com/assets/preview/292762/year-of-a-rabbit-vector.jpg

Happy New Year everyone! This year is the Rabbit, which will translate to a year with fast times and many new pbs I would think. With all the red pocket love [i.e. $$$] I've been getting, I guess this is one holiday I wouldn't want to miss.  =)

Moving can be a moving experience.

 Happy new year!

It sure has been hectic these couple of weeks and what a relief to finally settle into our new place to ring in the New Year. Engineering our way for 100+ boxes of stuff and more ridiculous amounts of furniture to reasonably mingle together into a tight space was no trivial feat by any means; it was amusing to witness (one of us even cleverly Google Sketchup the arrangement).

I wasn't kidding, it totally did freaked out our new landlords!  

Another tight squeeze was along the beltline and you could definitely call me a FATTY now, since I have managed to gain up to 10 extra pounds over the Christmas break. Blame it on daily Chinese restaurant holiday family dinners as the culprit...or oh right... must be because of the extra heavy lifting and bulking up of course. Somehow Costco cheesecakes were even smuggled into the mix as desserts for a couple of those occasions! On the record, I had six during one of those sittings; it was utter devastation!

Since I’ve been keeping a training log for the past few years, this December has been the coldest of cold turkey month of training. Wait for it, wait for it...a whopping 5.5 hours of combined swim, bike, and run time!

Yep, indisputably that’s no ironman training, 2011 will definitely have to pick up the slack. But yes, 2010 will always be forever remembered as a special year to me: graduated from school for realz this time, volunteered for the Olympics in my own backyard, achieved many milestones trainingwise, found a job and moved to cap it all off. It’s time to move on and I am ready for new goals!! 2011 should be an exciting year!

Some key 2011 Training Goals:

• Sub 38 min 10K 
• Sub 4 hr 50 min Half-iron
• Sub 10 hr 30 min Ironman!
• Register for BOSTON!!!

Bummer now I can't disappoint, since it’s all on public record. =)

The nerdiest room space planning tool ever

Big news for the Guo family, we’re going to spend this winter holiday moving! Not anywhere far per se, only a whopping 1.3km of driving distance from current to new place.

Luckily for me, I had already drawn up my furniture back in my glory days of free spiriting, so it wasn’t too difficult to plan out my new room. Yes Google, the nerdiness in me is finally coming out. Next thing you know, I whip out the GPS watch and start importing the data into Google SketchUp (haha just kidding).

My fancy surveying measuring equipment consisted of my own feet. I measured out the new room, and WALL-LA, it came out to be 10.5 by 9.5. Back home, I did the simple conversions. This is what I get.

This room screamed my name, since by default my sister had claimed the other room with the larger closet. That’s correct; no heated arguments necessary, the number one criterion to any room (in my sister’s eyes) is closet square footage.



I imported the items and by trial and error came up with this close to bulletproof optimized plan. Hey presto, check it out.

It fits! ..kind-duh. =)

LESS is more.

Finally, a blog update!


I’ve been meaning to do FIVE but I just have been procrastinating. This picture I found pretty much sums up my less than kick-ass motivation of late. My downtime has mostly been reallocated to beauty naps.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/9-ways-to-work-less-and-do-more-2010-9?slop=1

The ante has been upped for searching quality naptime since I’ve started my day job. The only nap time I can take is after workhours. Hence, the lack of productivity on my blog.


At work, the line of work is still super secretive at the moment and the interesting assignments I’ve come across definitely passes time more quickly. It beats school work in a heartbeat back when I pretty much enjoyed napping in each and every class. No joke. Surprisingly, I’ve managed to survive being discrete about it and nobody in the office seems to mind when I take up to 3 different desks for my work (Okay two of the three were actually assigned to me for temporary desk-parking locations). =)

When it comes to that other form of blazing flash of fun and excitement (i.e. running, biking, and swimming), it’s been more like my physical training to become a ninja. Only weekends to I get to enjoy training in light and get my dose of vitamin D. However, I have also been struggling to get in my naps so I have to bank a lot of time during the weekends.

This has been an extremely busy week for me. Fall classic on Sunday (stayed tune for full race report - I’ve been meaning to write it up, but it seems like the time officials are spending just as much time as me procrastinating about correcting the times). I also had my convocation on Thursday (woohoo, it feels good to be done!), the temporary laid white stuff on the ground decided to join us for the big party, which allowed for some pretty cool pictures. Checkout that giant snowball being ricoheted off my sister.

For me, I know it might be super lamesauce going to the same convocation twice within two calendar years. Hey, last year for my Bachelors and hello again this year for my Masters. The chancellor looked at me funny and perhaps realized I was back again. Funny most of my friends still think it’s just MEH. But this time if felt REAL.

No more delaying the inevitable this time (oh right the blog update). I guess I’ve kinda exhausted that lifeline already.

Chancellor, President, and "Space Lady" Julie Payette was there to accept her 19th hon. degree.

Really!? I must admit Space Lady/Engineer/Musician is REALLY a bit of an underachiever. =)

The Real World Welcomes Winston!

I was getting too comfortable.

I realized that being in the business of a full time triathlete, parts of the nitty gritty everyday job description involved doing the house chores and making sure I don’t miss my midday naps. However, there is this relentless magnetic field that somehow keeps revolving around the same question time and time after again. WinSistorm and my dad keep me honest, let’s say. They would chuck metal objects towards this question everyday...

When will you get a job and enter the REAL world, Winston?

I knew if I didn’t find a job soon that I would be stuck in this forever sticky mess of explaining myself during every family dinner conversations with regards to the hairline details of my current onrush on job hunting.

The patience pursuit towards global domination is not good enough it seems. I realized this. Try convincing this to your family for notions of approval and in return, they automatically return this funny look. Trust me, I’ve tried.

Source: http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/289508/568242.jpg

This week, I have started my job and the beginning chapters to the rest of my life! I’m pretty excited, I love taking in new challenges. Recently, dinner conversations are a lot more pleasing to the ears.

There’s a lot of top secret classified information for this job and I’m not suppose to spill the beans on as part of the agreement of my contract, not even to fellow employees not involved on the project. Don’t be surprised if you find out that I’m actually a secret spy working for a federal agency. ;)


What I can say is that it is a welcoming experience returning to the company, who once hired me as a coop student. I know the people, and they know me. It is a very tight knit group of people in the industry of marine structures. I think I’m starting to like it. Keep a secret for me and don’t tell this to my bosses tho. =)



Thanksgiving Weekend Update

It’s Canadian thanksgiving over here, and I just wanted express how thankful I am to have great friends and family providing me with continuous support and encouragement for a Boston Qualifier. They have taught me, that it’s all right to tune out those little voices inside my head that say I CAN'T.

A taste for what to come.

This is what some had to say leading up to the Victoria Marathon this weekend.

Little WinSistorm showed off her mad Swedish written skills for an assignment and then had to memorize everything word for word:

Hej Lena! Det här är Winston, min bror. Han talar engelska och kantonesiska. Han är från Kanada. Han föddes den 24 Februari. Han är ingenjör. Han utexaminerades från UBC. Han är mycket atletisk. Han älskar att simma, cykla och springa. Deltar han i triathlon regelbundet. Hans dröm är att tävla i Boston Marathon och slutföra Ironman.

Mere minutes before the start on race morning, Andrew Wight said this in regards to qualifying for Boston:

You`ll qualify. You’re not just anybody, you are Winston Guo (pronounced Guwal).

Liam Harrap kindly pointed out to me during a training run this past week:

You`re not coming back from Victoria until you qualify.

Aye yes luckily thankfully I did not disappoint, did I mention I QUALIFIED for BOSTON!?! I’m beyond overjoyed. More to come in my official race report. =)

One year later...

...flashback to One more year.

Disclaimer: Spoiler Alert - Secrets revealed!!! I'll recommend you just skip this post if global domination is not your kind of thing. It's quite boring, anyways. ;)




Dear Blog,

I realized sharing many of my life experiences are fresher on the blog and I now only have to waste half as much time repeating exciting/boring/sad/angry/hungry/superheroes stories via MSN (don't laff, I'm asian =P) over and over and over and over again to all my bffs best buds. Thank you!

Source: http://www.imageviper.com/displayimage/136484/0/worlddomination.jpg

Everybody needs a little corner of the world to call their own; your blog page on the worldwide web is no exception!

How to become one step closer to global domination, STEP No. 1: Start your own blog! Yes yes yes, you may be wondering what on EARTH are all these friggin' STEPS of late!

This is basically (besides being a complete DORK) a series of steps towards becoming closer to global domination status and it shall be my secret life mission. We’ll keep this between my loyal followers and me! On the record, my real life mission is to earn an honest living... (...not sure if it is going very well, a work in progress T.T).

Happy one year anniversary (albeit close +/- 72hrs)!

Nuff said, peace. =)
Winston

PS: I noticed many new blog bandwagon jumpers recently, which is just super cool to see! Derrick, Eddy, and Spazzz!
Keep up the awesome work!

OERW

Operation Enter Real World.

My triathlon season is officially done for the year, and Banff was such an incredible experience to cap off my 2010 breakthrough year. Stayed tuned for Banff Race Report!

Banff was the perfect escape from the norms of city life.

Now, I can focus more on job hunting, otherwise every near future family dinner gatherings will become quite awkward once they realize my goal is global domination. I also haven’t forgotten that marathon creeping up in Victoria. Boston Qualifier is patiently waiting for me to figure out how to get my sorry act together.

I need to steer off some resumes and cover letters in the meantime. Wish me luck! =)

Hint hint! =D