Taks_News

09/09 - Woke up at 3:45 AM!!!! and I woke up with a slight cold. My nose was running, I had a slight fever and I was coughing....Not Good!!! So I took some Dayquil and decided to do the race anyways. Besides I just payed $120 to enter this race and it wasn't going to be for donations!!!! The plan in the morning was to leave the house at 4:15, drive seperatlely, drop off my car in LA at the finish line and to take her car to Venice where the race starts. The reason for this is because this is a point to point race and it starts in Venice and ends in LA. They offer transportation from downtown LA to Venice so that you can leave your car in LA and have your car there when you finish the race. The only thing is that they were charging $20 a person for the service. Thats $40 for my sister and myself. No way was I going to pay that especially since I just spent nearly $430 yesterday to enter and prep for this race. So we were driving along headed towards LA kind of zoning out, when I looked to the right and asked my sister "What the heck are you doing in my car!!!???" Her reply was "Huh??...... Oh my Gosh!!!" We were suppose to drive seperately and by the time I realized it, we were just about to exit the freeway, So I speeded home, picked up her car and then raced back to downtown LA. Luckily the parking lot wasn't crowded yet so we were able to make it to Venice in plenty of time.
Well its almost race time and I'm getting the butterflies!! We were walking towards the starting line when we heard the waves crashing down.. the waves were huge!! I thought I'm gonna die!! Well needless to say I fiinished the mile ocean swim in 00:44:08 (hours:minutes:seconds), the 25 mile bike ride from Venice to LA in 1:37:12 and the 6.2 mile run through Stadium Way in 1:13:31. Olympic distance triathlons are races you definitely have to train for. I was hurting so bad. I cramped up like 3 times on the run. My total transition time was 00:16:36 which is super duper slow but I had to go to the bathroom and I was not willing to piss in my shorts like some other die hard racers!! But over all my total time was 3:51:20. I'm happy with it. Next time I'll definitely train for it. Check out the course lay out.

09/08 - Went asian pear picking with my mom, sister, Ed, my moms friend and her daughter. We were in and out of that farm in an hour. Which was a good thing cause my sister and I had to get to the Hyatt Regency Los Angeles before 4 pm to pick up our race packets for the triathlon. The expo was pretty small but a lot of vendors there. This one company was selling Quintana Roo wetsuits for half off. So I decided to save myself $150 and buy it. We were at the expo for nearly 3 hours. By the time we got out of LA it was 5:45. We rushed home and I changed the tires on the Mountain Bike, that I borrowed, to racing slicks. Then we loaded up the bikes and headed out to Venice Beach to drop off the bikes. The deadline for bike drop off was 8 pm and we got there at 7:45...pheewww!! Well when we got to the beach we were standing around for quite a while and it was pretty cold. We then left the beach and went to the market to pick up things for the race. Man what a long day!!! Finally went to sleep at 11:30

09/07 - As of last night I told my sister that I would do the triathlon. I guess theres no turning back now. I've told several people that I was gonna do it, so I'm gonna do it. After work I was suppose to go to the gym to try to get in some swim time but I was held back at work . By the time i left work it was time to meet everyone at the Spaghetti Station for Felicita's farewell party. We sat and dreank for a coule of hours then we went to Keno's to eat dinner. I ate a whole mess load of Spaghetti and bread as my carb loading. Man I was full!!

09/06 - After work I went to the gym and biked 26 miles and immediately jumped on the tredmill and ran for 4 miles. I was suppose to run for 6 miles since thats the lenght of the run portion for the triathlon, but my legs were super tired and I just ran out of energy. I thnk I better start loading my body up with carbs before the race.

09/04 - Went to the gym after work and worked out really hard cause I havn't gone to the gym since last tuesday cause I've been going to the range practically every night. When I get home, my sister tells me that her co-worker got injured and couldn't do the LA Triathlon so she wanted to know if I would take his place. I haven't really trained for it and it was only in a couple of days so I told her I would let her know the next day cause I haven't swam in ages. Thats the only part I was really worried about.

09/03 - Ate breakfast at Burger Town with Hans and Tanya and then went straight to the golf course. Hans and I met up with Chang and James at the course. Today I decided to just play and have a good time and not worry about my swing like Hans had said. I typically never do that well on this course anyways so I decided to just roll with the punches. Well, let me tell ya, I didn't do that Shabby. My driver was terrible so most of the time I just layed up with a 3 iron. and my balls werre fading slightly left but I had forgotten that when I was playing better golf a few years back, that was how my ball came down. I wasn't use to it anymore and didn't adjust my aiming accordingly. But I happy to say I didn't shank or flop 1 shot. Over all I shot a 88. Not bad for that course and I finally broke the 90's at this course. I'm content again. Thanks Hans!!! After golf Hans and I went to Fry's to look for some memory and took buy some supplies that I needed for work.

09/02 - Went to Tanya's house to celebrate her dads birthday and Labor day. Alot of her family members were there. Very diverse... We played different board games with her nieces majority of the day. Later in the afternoon, Sandy and Shannon came by. We sat outside in the front yard for a while just chit chating. later we went inside the house and I thought the girls how to play let it ride and Pai Gow. tanya was doing good but Sandy was losing all her money. I hope you do better in Vegas Shannon!!! Since Hans and I had golf the next moring, we decided to call the night early.

09/01 - Met up with Hans, Scott and Jason to have breakfast at Burger Town. After that went down to the golf course. I soon as we got there my allergies started to kick in. I ignored them thinking it would go away. Boy was I wrong. I was sooo miserable. I couldn't stop sneezing, my nose was stuffed up, my head felt like someone was stepping on it, I got a bloody nose and to top it all off, I played like krap. I was so mad that on the 18th hole, I told Hans that I wasn't going to play golf for awhile cause I'm in such a bad slump. Then on the 18th hole, my last 2 shots were great. It felt like my old swing and I hit the ball crisp. What happened?? Hans says I thinking way too much about my swing. He says I should just walk up to my ball and just hit it like I use to instead of taking along time with the preperation. When I got home I took about a 3 hour nap and when I woke up, my allergies had worsened soI just stayed home.