Marc and Marilyn and Andrew!

So we had our Halloween party today and some people actually dressed up.  To make things more fun, our sister company had a “real” party that included a photobooth and pumpkin carving contests.  Check out the fun pictures.

We’ve been blessed with a baby!!!

I know, I know… I’ve been lagging on posting. Been tired and busy (my exam was yesterday) leaving me little to no time to dedicate to our blog. But I’m feeling a whole lot better and now that my exam is over  I can be a blog monster.

So yesterday I found myself laughing til my tummy ached , and I just had to share.

1. So if you’ve seen Marc lately, you’ll notice he’s rocking a new hair do. He’s been growing out his hair since our honeymoon with the plan to shave it for his Half Ironman November 8th. He’s pretty adamant about not doing anything with his new do. No gel, no comb, not even a quick trip to the barber shop to get a little clean up around the ears. Marc thinks he can still have low maintenance hair care, much like his shaven days, with the fro he’s currently growing. To be fair, he MAY let me get it styled, but he’s still shaving it for the race. So yesterday his mom mentioned that when Marc was in high school he used pantyhose to help keep his hair down. OMG! I knew it! Marc and I have been going back and forth about using something to help his chiapet-esque hair lay down. He of course denies ever doing it. I think its a repressed memory. So when we go back to the house we asked Courteney and his dad if he used to wear a “hose” to keep his hair down. And his dad says…

“Yes, you used to wear a bonnet”

HAHAHAHAA! A Bonnet!! OMG! Just thinking about it now makes me giggle with the thought of a bonnet on Marc’s head. Seriously, tummy aching laughter.

2. With all this hair talk Courteney asked if Marc was going to do a mohawk this time since his hair was long enough for substantial height. He says might, but that he’s done it before. And Courteney says…

“Yah, but it just looked like it was shaved unevenly.”

HAHAHAHAA.

Ok, so upon reading this blog back… it’s clearly a “you had to be there moment” but man oh man… it was a great moment.

Here were the drills that Fory made me do during the swim clinic:

1. Superman glide to practice kicking near the surface.

2. One-hand pull drill

3. Tap hands when in front

4. Swim with feet tied together

5. Glide with focus on keeping front arm up

6. Swim with fists

Now I just need to remember to do these drills

We co-celebrated Lia’s (my god-daughter) 4th birthday with AJ’s birthday at Max’s in Glendale.  I’ve never actually eaten there before and it was actually pretty good food.  You can’t really go wrong with Filipino food.  Lia was very hesitant to hug me and I find out today it was because she thought I looked scary   I think it’s the hair lol.

CJ (he looks sooo cute) with JC

Lia with Jen

Birthday celebrants

Lola playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey

After the party, I headed over to Torrance for a swim clinic with Fory, from LATC.  He made me perform drills and it actually worked.  He improved by pool laptime from 35 seconds to 20 seconds and also reduced my stroke count.  He told me I had good upper body form, something that’s very hard to teach to students to keep it up.  He, however, told me my legs sank too much, causing a lot of drag.  We tried several things to counter the sinking legs (he even tied my legs together) but I think even he was perplexed on how to resolve that issue by the end of the hour.  It’s OK though…there was improvement.  I learned drills that I could practice on my own and this is hopefully my first step in FINALLY improving my swim

Later that night, Marilyn and I went to eat at Kabuki and shop for a bit at Nordstrom Rack.  All in all a good day!

It has been a while since I posted…so I figured I’d give a brief catch-up of the weekend.

Friday – We went to a Happy Hour for work at BJ’s at the new Fox Hills Mall.  It was craaaazy packed.  It was also a trip because it feels like you are in 2 different malls when you walk inside.  There is a clear delineation between the old mall vs the new mall.  The best part was discovering a Red Ribbon inside the mall…what?!?!  We don’t have to drive far for Filipino food now

Saturday – This was actually my last long workout before my race.  From now on, all my workouts are short and high-intensity…a 3 week taper to my race.  But this last workout was actually great…I rode for about 5 hours and covered approximately 68 miles.  I went to PV and even did intervals on the switchbacks   I usually ride my granny crank but this time, I left the chain on the middle crank.  Today was the day we also saw Jason Mraz again.  I was a little mad at him for not attending the wedding but I guess I’ll forgive him   We were at the Hollywood Bowl and thankfully brought blankets…it was a tad chilly.  As usual, Jason Mraz rocked it!  A funny thing we did see…these 3 young teenagers acting obnoxious with their dad sitting right besides them.  It was pretty funny.

Sunday – I just swam in the morning and chilled with Marilyn the rest of the day.  She wasn’t feeling well and slept most of the day. 

Monday – It was lame…we both had to work lol

First of all, I’d like to thank Marilyn for being the bestest wifey ever.  She’s a trooper.  She woke up at 4:30AM this morning to go with me to the LA Triathlon to cheer me on.  Don’t get it twisted, watching on the sidelines…having to deal with traffic as she goes from one point of the race to another…finding parking…dealing with crowds…it’s rough!  She’s done all this while feeling under the weather.  Thank you my love!

Then, I would like to thank a total stranger that I met on Venice Beach.  He had turned what was turning to be a horrible day to be an amazing day.  I should not get ahead of myself…I should start at the beginning.

As my obsessive compulsive behavior, I like arriving at the transition area right around when it opens.  I don’t like dealing with crowds and rushing…I’d rather be sitting down, listening to my music and trying to get in a zone.  It just so happened that when Marilyn and I arrived at Venice beach, MSB and Don were also just arriving.  We were all able to hang out until start of the race.

Around 6:45AM, Don and I decided to go warm up in the water (our wave started at 7:35AM).  I don’t even know how to correctly describe the water conditions…let’s just say they were gnarly.  Talking to the lifeguards, they mentioned that we were receiving swells from the typhoons in Asia.  Last year, the waves were pretty big, but at least the sets were not that frequent.  This year, the waves were bigger and the sets were non-stop.  Dolphin-diving under one wave, you would rise up just to get pushed back by the second and third wave back to shore.  In addition, the water was pulling to the south strongly.  We saw the first buoy about a quarter mile into the ocean and waves were still breaking past that.  It was really one of the scariest sights I’ve seen.

So while we were warming up, we kept trying to swim out and was getting nowhere.  I don’t even know how to explain it…I would try my hardest to swim out (albeit I’m not the best of swimmers) but get nowhere, except for where the waves pushed me.  With a little fear in me now, I decided to stop trying to get in and get to the corral since it was close to my wave’s start.

When the pros started their wave, we watched all of them run about 200 yards north of the Start line and get in the water.  The thinking behind it is that since the waves are pulling south, the swimmer must start further north to get to the desired location.  Want to hear another bad sign?  The pros took about 30 minutes to finish the swim…these are PROS!  They usually do the swim in less than 20 minutes.

There were two other waves after the pros before it was my wave’s turn.  When the horn sounded, my wave started running as far north as possible and tried to get in.  Another bad sign…people from the two previous waves were STILL trying to get past the breakers.  I can keep talking about the waves but to keep this short, I spent the next 30 minutes trying to get past the first set.  It was one of the most discouraging feelings in the world.  Within that 30 minutes span, I looked around and saw tons of other people standing in the water just looking at the waves not knowing what to do.  I’ve never seen so many lifeguards around as well.  They had a lifeguard boat out near the buoy that was just being bounced around in the waves and jet skis that were wiping out.

Lifeguards kept telling us to get out and go further north to get past the first sets.  I thought to myself…the further I go north, the more liable I am since there’s NOT as much lifeguards up there lol.  Now I was getting tired from just attempting to get past the set so I walked back to shore to rest.  While I was there, I saw Don and discussed what the heck we were going to do.

We talked to several other triathletes and discovered that officials delayed the subsequent waves after ours to see if the waters would calm down.  That next wave didn’t start again until 30 minutes later and the waves were just as bad, if not worse.  I have to give mad props to all those people that were able to conquer that swim.

At this point, I was really down and bummed out.  I just kept staring at the ocean trying to figure out what to do next.  I didn’t know what to do…could I still finish the race without doing the swim or just call Marilyn (she had already left after watching my wave start).  It felt like I was in a daze of shock or something.  Granted it’s not my A race of the year, but still…tons and tons of training have gone into events such as these.

I happened to be standing next to this older gentleman.  I asked him if his wave had already started.  He said his wave is still delayed.  He asked me if my wave started and I said yes, 30 minutes ago and unfortunately, I can’t get past that first set.  I don’t know what he saw in my face but then he said that he’s been doing triathlons for 20+ years and he’s NEVER seen waves such as those.  He asked me how long I’ve been doing them…I said about 3 years.  He asked me why I do them and I said because they’re fun.  He said since they’re fun, why don’t you finish the rest of the race and enjoy yourself.  It sounded so simple, yet something I need to hear.  Ya, I do triathlons because they are fun as hell.  I shouldn’t feel embarassed or bad about myself for not being able to do a swim better swimmers than me couldn’t do.

I told him he was right and thanked him.  In the midst of my haze clearing up, I had forgotten to get that man’s name.  He is the man I wanted to thank…for clearing up my head and reminding me why I do triathlons.  We’re going to get disqualified for not doing the swim, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do the rest of the race.

So, Don and I went to our transition area, got out of our wetsuits, packed our bags, and got on our bikes.  It took me a while to warm up on the bike (it was FREEZING by the way) but when I did, I felt great.  I saw the cheering squad of Marilyn, Dad Naanos, Tricia and Nugget on Venice and gave me a nice energy boost.  The bike course went down Venice, north on Fairfax and east on Olympic.  For Olympic distance, there was a turn-around to go back on Olympic almost back to Fairfax.  I don’t usually go that fast on the bike but I averaged 18mph for the course.  I was happy that I was going that fast   Marilyn knows I’ve been having the itch to upgrade my bike but as I was passing people on the bike (which is also a first), I kept thinking “It’s the engine, not the bike…b*tches lol.”  I was also marking people and passing them   It’s a fun game that I have never been able to play till today lol.  All those training rides I’ve done HAVE been helping

As for the run, I was able to run with a friend from the Chicken of the Sea swims.  Fortunately, he was around my pace and we paced each other for the whole run.  We averaged around a 10-min mile for the 10k.  It took about a mile to loosen up my legs but once I did, it was pretty good.  It’s been a long time since I felt this good running.  Yes, I still walked part of the hill on Grand, but I ran everything else (something that I haven’t done before as well).  This year’s run was very much improved from last year.  Those bricks also seem to be doing the trick.

I was able to see Marilyn multiple times during the run, which was great since her cheers are the loudest and just makes you want to go even faster.  Another first, I crossed the finish line sprinting WITH a smile on my face.  That is the second rule of triathlons.  Rule 1 is to finish and Rule 2 is to finish with a smile.

So there you have it…the day started out as bad as it probably could have gotten (only thing worse would have been me being saved by the lifeguards), yet finished in amazing fashion.  It kinda worked out because all the time I spent trying to get IN the water was about the same time it would have taken me to actual swim the course in normal conditions.  I had an amazing bike and run and actually finished with a smile.  I talked to several of my friends from the LA Tri club and discovered that some of them also did not do the swim and just did the rest of the race.  I also talked to Tim, my neighbor, because I knew he was doing the swim as part of a relay team.  Tim has completed several Ironmans and he told me that that was the hardest swim he has ever been a part of and he’d rather do an Ironman swim than do that all over.

So that was my amazing day.  Thank you to Marilyn, for being the best wife ever…and thank you to that stranger, for helping me remember that triathlons are fun.

Btw, great job Don!  Helluva first Olympic triathlon my friend.

Oh yeah…here are my times:

Bike – 01:21:11

Run – 01:04:23

Both of them PRs

Silverman, here I come!!!