Mission Bay Tri - 2 Oct 2011

On Sunday, I ran the Mission Bay Sprint Tri, my fourth one to date.  Although the course was super flat, and the swim was point-to-point in a bay, I'm sad to report that my times were a bit slower than usual.  Leonie came down with me and took some pictures during the race.

I'm not in the water yet, but what a great picture!

There I am trying not to drown!

Coming out of the water 

And on to the bike course! 

Finally, running (or jogging more accurately) to the finish! 

And even though it wasn't a great race, I finished 2nd in the female military division (yes, there were only 5 athletes in that category!)!

For everyone's curiosity, as always, here are my results side-by-side:

Bluewater Triathlon - 7 Nov 2010

Swim (.6k) - 13:07 (23:51 min per km)

T1 - 3:31

Bike (15k) - 28:27 (1:54 min per km)

T2: 1:05

Run (4k) - 24:27 (6:07 min per km)

Total Time - 1:10:35

Breath of Life - Jun 26, 2011

Swim (.75k) - 14:28 (19:17 min per km)

T1 - 3:42

Bike (20.4k) - 45:30 (2:14 min per km)

T2 - 1:44

Run (5k) - 25:37 (5:07 min per km)
Total Time - 1:31:00

Hard Corps Sprint Tri – 26 July 2011

Swim (.5k) – 16:45 (33:30 min per km)

T1 – 2:17

Bike (30k) – 1:10:16 (2:13 min per km)

T2 – 00:59

Run (5k) – 27:17 (5:27 min per km)

Total Time – 1:57:34

Mission Bay Tri – 2 Oct 2011

Swim (.5k) – 10:48 (21:36 min per km)

T1 – 2:47

Bike (15k) – 34:24 (2:17 min per km)

T2 – 1:53

Run (5k) – 28:22 (5:40 min per km)

Total Time – 1:18:15

Visitors from the East

Last Thursday, Jen and Hurricane Reagan blew in for a visit.  We had a wonderful visit and got to do a lot of fun things.  On Friday, Jen and I were responsible for putting together a "metal" themed costume for Sean, who was attending a CF party that evening.  Unfortunately, Jen has the only picture of the sweet costume we made (I'm sure she'll put it in her blog).  We found him a $10 leather jacket and an amazing blond mullet wig!

On Saturday morning, Jen went to CF with Sean, and then we went out for a quick breakfast at The Broken Yolk Cafe.  Then we hopped in the car and headed for Santa Monica, where Jen was going to attend an old friend's wedding.  Reagan was a perfect angel that evening.  We went to IHOP for dinner.

After dinner, I gave her a quick bath and then put on her pajamas.  She was pretty worn out from running around all day, and she went to bed without too much fuss.

On Sunday, we took a quick trip to Orange, CA and visited with Dan and Helen, two friends of the Goodale's.  Reagan had a great time running around and playing with lots of things she wasn't supposed to touch!

After we got back to San Diego, we all headed down to Del Mar Dog Beach.  Nessie had a fabulous time, as always, and Reagan managed to not get completely soaked!

Reagan enjoying the California sunshine and ocean breeze! 

Nessie, completely obsessed with her tennis ball, as always.

That's me, trying to get Reagan to use the ball thrower!

On Monday, we took Reagan to the San Diego Safari Park (this was more for Jen and me, than for Reagan).  There are WAY too many pictures to post them all here, but here are some of my favorites.

Reagan and Jen on the carousel 

This baby elephant was born the morning we went to the zoo!!! 

Reagan was far more interested in her stroller than watching the animals! 

This is the tallest giraffe in North America - 19 feet tall!! 

Just a cool looking bird :-) 

That face says, "Please help me escape!" 

Reagan and Mommy coming down the slide! 

And then riding on a rhinoceros!  

A Momma gorilla feeding her baby! 

This poor gorilla was off on his own, and no one was paying him any attention. 

The MEERKAT!!! 

This one looks just like the Petree's old cat, October!

 We walked around Carlsbad a little bit, we drove up and down Hwy 101 until Jen was content, we took Reagan swimming at our community pool, and so much more that I didn't take pictures of.  Some of the pictures are on Jen's camera, so let's hope she doesn't chince out on the blog and posts some of them!

I have more pictures of our final day, but I'll save those for tomorrow's post.  I dropped them at the airport about 6 hours ago and I already miss having them here!  

The Art of Writing

Over the years and the explosion of new technology (internet, cell phones, texting, e-mail, etc), the art of writing is dying.  Luckily, I have some proof that at one time it was the truest, best form of communication.  I have a copy of a few of the letters that my dad wrote to my mom when they were still dating.  Keeping in mind that English was my father's second language, I present to you a few letters (completely unedited) sent by my dad to my mom:

December 21, 1972

My dearest one,
        Thank you for the call from Washington D.C. last night. I was very worried about you and was very unhappy because I couldn't be with you there to give any comfort to my dearest one. After you were on the plane (UA 736), I was staring the big metal bird without knowing where you sat, and suddenly I became breathless for a while because of loneliness and unhappiness due to our separation, and big tear drops were coming down from my small eyes and were unable to control. I could bet (10 to 1) I would flood the airport if I didn't stop crying. But I cried time after time on the way home. I miss you very much, more than anyone can possibly imagine. From the minute you left my arms, I felt this emptiness in my heart which never happen before in my thirty-two years, and I know you are the only person in the whole-wide-world able to refill my empty hearth with joy and happiness because you LOVES me and I LOVES you.  I have just talked with your sister Janet. She told me that it is the greatest thing for us to going to be married, I hope everyone feels that way for us.  Jacquie, I love you and I miss you. I told you already several times why I haven't married to anyone. Since I came to the U.S. I have set certain goals and rules and standards in my life. I told myself that I would marry if and only if I achieve certain things: (1) I will not before I finish my educational goal, (2) I will not unless I have regain my health to perfectly normal, (3) I will not until I am financially stable and am able to take care of my family (you knew already these). Then I said to myself that I would marry a woman who must be strong (mentally & physically), and you are; who must be intelligent and smart, and you are; who must be trustworthy, and you are; who must be lovable, and you certainly are; who must possess charming personality, and you do; who must know how to search for happy life for future, and you know how;...many more...finally and most important consideration - who must be the only person to whom I can depend on rest of my life, from whom I can learn joy of living together, with whom I can find happiness in life, into whom I am the only man in her heart rest of her life, and you have already given me some, promised some, and I know you are the only woman who can give me more as years go by. When I went with you to the Rubenstein Concert (our first date) one month after I asked you for a date, my ESP worked wild, and I knew you are the woman. That is why I asked you to marry me. I know there are many possible problems, one is getting your parents blessing. They may not accept me, because of several reasons (health, race, religion, etc). Even though I love you very, very much, and I want to marry you, without your parents blessing I will not marry you. Because if I marry you without their blessing, your parents and you will be unhappy from the date you and I are looking for our future happiness, then the life around us becomes unhappy and I do not want that. I hope, hope your parents would give us the blessing we want so I can marry you and you and I can find our happiness for rest of our life together. I love you, Jacquie. I love you more and more as days go by. Even though I am having the most miserable and unhappy hours and days of my life, I love you, and I hope you have good time with your family. I will write you again and will cal you.

Take care of yourself and say "Hello" to your family for me.

Love, Jai

December 23, 1972

My dearest Jacquie,
        I just called you, but you were not at home, and your brother answered phone and said, "She isn't here, bye-."  Then he hung up the phone before I could ask where did you go.  I feel tired, very tired. I am tired, because I have waited your letter all day and I haven't got, and you were not home to answer me. I know you are busy shopping, etc. I though of you all day long and I thought and dreamed how happy I would be if you were beside me and loving me. I miss you more and more as days go by slowly. Only three days has gone, but it was like three long years. I miss you, I miss you, Jacquie, please hurry back to me.

      What a lovely voice you have!  What a sweet sound it was!  I could sit by you listening your voice forever as sound coming from somewhere I have never been and I always want to go. I love you, I love your voice, I love your face, I love everything of you. After you called me, I went to bed right away, so I could see you in my dreams.

6 a.m. December 24, 1972

Good morning, Jacquie,

      Did you have good-night-sleep? I dreamed of you all night long, mostly I was talking with you, your lovely face and two below which I love very much (yeah, pretty sure this is an X-rated reference...). I got up six this morning and hoped, but....I am going to Van Demark's for Christmas Eve dinner tonight. I hope I will be back before your call. You know, it makes me happy to think that you love me and I will talk tonight. I love you, I love you more and more as seconds tick away. Do you know how much I love you? I love you so much that my love to you will not stop even Mt. Everest moves and Mississippi river flows its direction. As I told you last night, I didn't have good time at Krafts. After one drink I felt very lonesome even though there were over thirty people, and after second drink, I knew I shouldn't be there without you. So I came home and cried for a while to calm down myself.

     I love you, I miss you.

     Take care of yourself,

                                                    Yours forever,

                                                     Jai

                                                              

Stairway to Heaven 15k

This morning, Sean and I ventured down to Fortuna Mountain to run the Stairway to Heaven 15k, which is part of the Dirt Devil Racing four-part series.  It turned out to be a VERY tough course, as you will be able to tell from the pictures below.  The trails were fairly technical in certain parts and the hills were unbelievably tough.  

A picture of Fortuna Mountain - though we obviously didn't run all of it, this gives you an idea of the type of terrain we were facing!

This was the "Stairway to Heaven" part - a very steep set of railroad ties that had been made into steps to get up the mountain!

Official results have not been posted yet and neither have the actual race photos, so I'll post those later.  But according to our GPS times, Sean finished in 1:59:33 and I finished in 1:59:55.  

Hard Corps Sprint Triathlon

On 6 August, Leonie and I headed up to Camp Pendleton to run the Sprint Triathlon that is part of the larger Pendleton Hard Corps race series.  I didn't take a camera with me, but here are some of the pictures that I got from the site.  Leonie finished 3rd overall for the females in 1:22:41!!!!

Bluewater Triathlon - 7 Nov 2010
Swim (.6k) - 13:07 (23:51 min per km)

T1 - 3:31

Bike (15k) - 28:27 (1:54 min per km)

T2: 1:05

Run (4k) - 24:27 (6:07 min per km)

Total Time - 1:10:35

Breath of Life - 26 Jun 2011

Swim (.75k) - 14:28 (19:17 min per km)

T1 - 3:42

Bike (20.4k) - 45:30 (2:14 min per km)

T2 - 1:44

Run (5k) - 25:37 (5:07 min per km)

Total Time - 1:31:00

Hard Corps Sprint Tri – 26 July 2011

Swim (.5k) – 16:45 (33:30 min per km)

T1 – 2:17

Bike (30k) – 1:10:16 (2:13 min per km)

T2 – 00:59

Run (5k) – 27:17 (5:27 min per km)

Total Time – 1:57:34

Happy 1st Birthday Reagan!!!

Well, I'm late on getting this out (as usual), but I still wanted to post it!  It's so hard to believe that my little niece, Reagan, is already one!  Though she did come out roughly the size of a 2 month old, she has grown so much this past year, as has her wonderful mother Jen.  I hate that we are stationed so far away, as I know we are missing a lot of your new "tricks"!  Luckily, Jen keeps us in the loop with her handy videos and the wonderful blog.

Though not to take anything away from Reagan's special day (which was yesterday), I've been even more excited to watch Jen grow into an amazing mother.

Jen,
    When I used to watch you with your Marines, I would think to myself, "She's found her niche.  This is what she is meant to do, and she's damn good at it.  I hope that I can be as good of a Marine as she is."  And over this past year, I've seen you become a mother and it has been a joy.  I know that mom would have be so proud of you.
    You are able to take everything in stride, laugh through it all.  You have an amazing network of friends and family who provide support to you and whose day you brighten with entertaining stories about Reagan.  Not to mention that you look absolutely amazing!  Your dedication to staying in shape and being so active with Reagan is awesome.
     I wish mom and dad could see you in action with your little girl - it is something to behold.  And now that I've seen it, I can say that motherhood is what you were meant to do - you are an incredible mother.  The Marine Corps definitely lost out when you decided to do something else, but the world has gained a new mother and a beautiful little girl who make this place brighter!

We love you,
Jess and Sean

My beautiful Bike

The long awaited post about my new bike!!!  I haven't taken any pictures of me on the bike yet, but here it is - the Quintana Roo Lucero!  Isn't she beautiful?  She fits me like a glove and makes me feel faster (even if I'm not in reality, haha).  Maybe this weekend I will get out and have Sean take some pictures of me riding.  

Sidewinder 10k

Last weekend, Sean and I headed down to run in the second race of the Dirt Devil Racing Series, the Sidewinder 10k.  The weather was absolutely perfect and the course was great.  These are all trail runs and there are some pretty amazing runners out there.

Sean looking strong on the trails!  

Ignore the words across the picture...I'm too cheap to pay for it, so I just did screen captures :-)

Finisher photos!  Does anyone else get a burst of energy when the end is in sight?

The next race is the Stairway 15k and will be 14 August.  The total series is completing a 5k, 10k, 15k, and half marathon.  The group that coordinates the races is great and they do a fantastic job of making the courses challenging and fun!

Restoring Faith in Humanity

For the most part I think that most people want to do good and very few people are truly evil.  Today, I saw that humanity firsthand and I was again reassured that I have the right views of people.

During a bike ride from Carlsbad up to Oceanside with Leonie, I was having trouble with my ability to unclip at stop signs.  The first time I fell, it was legitimately my fault - I failed to judge how long we'd be at the stop sign (I thought we'd be able to breeze through with a quick pause), and when another truck was coming, I just sort of tipped over to the left for a very ungraceful landing!  I got back up and we kept going, but I didn't check to make sure my shoes and pedals were okay.  As we went through Oceanside, there were several stop signs and when we got to an intersection where I needed to unclip, I tried desperately to get out of my pedals, but something was stuck!  Again, I tipped over to the left, but my foot was still stuck! (Turned out that my pedal clip had actually lost a bolt and cracked!)

I had the misfortune of falling in FRONT of a truck whose driver may or may not have seen me go down.  With my head just a few feet from his front right tire, I was in a pretty bad position.  Suddenly, this older gentleman came running up, shouting at the driver and passenger in the truck that there was a rider down and not to move forward...pretty much saving me from getting my head crushed!

After I finally got my shoe unclipped and off to the side of the road, I realized that the gentleman who had gotten the attention of the driver was homeless.  He had some possessions in a plastic grocery bag, which included some juice, a book about God's love, a blanket and maybe a few other things.  I would be willing to bet that he had some mental disorder, but all the same, he did everything he could to help.  First he asked me if I wanted any juice, because I may need to keep up my blood sugar.  Then, when he saw that I was bleeding, he pulled out his blanket and offered to wipe up my knee!  He tried to give Leonie and me his book so that we could pass along the message, but we politely declined it.

I don't need any book to pass along his message though - be kind to others.  If you can help someone in need, do so.  The smallest act of kindness goes a long way.

His willingness and eagerness to help and to possibly share with me the few possessions he has in this world amazes me!  Though my faith in humanity wasn't ever really waning, I'd say that this morning's encounter helped reaffirm it!

East Coast Travels Part 1

On 29 June, Sean and I packed up and flew to Raleigh on leave, where we linked up with Jen and Reagan.  We immediately hopped into the car and drove up to South Boston for a lovely visit with Sean's mom, Dody, and her husband, Garland.  They have an absolutely gorgeous cabin up there and have made some amazing renovations to it in the past year, which we were excited to see!

First I got to see my awesome (and apparently very sleepy) niece, Reagan!

Dody giving Reagan some love!

Garland trying to get Reagan to drink her bedtime milk!

We can't forget the four-legged beasts - Pepper and Rufus...I mean Fargo :-)

Sean had us out there everyday doing some sort of interesting workout...

Great form, Jen!

On Friday night we went to the South Boston Speedway and Reagan had a big time!   

We finished off the night with an awesome display of fireworks!

We had a wonderful trip and it was great to see Dody, Garland, Pepper, and Fargo!  Thanks for everything!

Breath of Life Triathlon - Ventura, CA

     This weekend, Leonie and I headed up to Ventura, CA for a triathlon.  Leonie was running the Olympic distance and I was doing the Sprint.  The weather was absolutely perfect (perhaps a bit chilly early in the morning, but warmed up by the time we started).  

Leonie and I pre-race

Getting her gear set-up

Final adjustments before heading into the water

And they're off!!!  This is the 34 and under Olympic distance group.

     Leonie took 2nd Place overall for females (that's 2nd out of 119 females!) and 1st Place in her age group!!!  She's pretty much a stud :-)!  I finished 7th out of 25 in my age group and 42nd out of 128 females overall in the Sprint distance.  

Hopefully the website will post pictures soon, but for now, the above photos are all I've got.  

For those that remember, I ran my first sprint triathlon back in November and below you can see how I did when you compare the races...though it's difficult because the distances didn't match up exactly.  

Bluewater Triathlon - 7 Nov 2010

Swim (.6k) - 13:07 (23:51 min per km)

T1 - 3:31

Bike (15k) - 28:27 (1:54 min per km)

T2: 1:05

Run (4k) - 24:27 (6:07 min per km)

Total Time - 1:10:35

Breath of Life - Jun 26, 2011

Swim (.75k) - 14:28 (19:17 min per km)

T1 - 3:42

Bike (20.4k) - 45:30 (2:14 min per km)

T2 - 1:44

Run (5k) - 25:37 (5:07 min per km)

Total Time - 1:31:00

So, better on the swim and run and worse on the transitions and the bike.  Guess I know what I need to work on now!