Blog: Entries Tagged With 'fitness'

We last visited the Bay Area in October for me to say goodbye to my coworkers and for us to see friends and family. We thoroughly enjoyed our time up there, but we thought it would be longer before we visited again. However, last week we found ourselves visiting again.

The main reason was to go to my uncle and aunt's place to retrieve our guitar and keyboard, which they had graciously let us store there during our move. Priscilla needed those to practice since we're starting to help out with worship at our church, with Good Friday being our first time serving in this way. We always had a feeling that we would reprise our roles playing piano (her) and drums (me) for worship after joining a new church.

So the previous Friday, after our morning gym session, we drove up the 101, stopping at our new halfway spot in Atascadero for a short break. We got to Mountain View in the afternoon and I joined up with Frank to go running. We ended up running 8 miles on the Stevens Creek Trail like old times.

We stayed up in the Bay for four days, which gave us plenty of time to see people and get stuff done. We stayed two nights with the Chans, having breakfast with them on Saturday, then two nights with the Leongs, having breakfast with them on Tuesday. We also caught up with the Yehs for a late-night hangout, did lunch with Albert and Ruth, dinners with both pairs of my uncles and aunts, and dinner with Tracy at Google. Plus talking to a lot of people at church for 3.5 hours until our voices were sore. Whew. Thankful for all the people we've gotten to know and their generosity in letting us crash at their houses (several families had previously offered).

We also had time to get the prongs on Priscilla's ring adjusted at Shane Co, and also hike Mission Peak on Monday. Hiking Mission Peak once a year has been our annual tradition, so we (I) thought it would be cool to do it again this year during our trip. Will we keep up this tradition going forward? I guess we'll see. Priscilla is as thrilled about it as I am about traveling in general.

We've also been busy helping parents, both remotely and in person. The cadence for now is to visit Priscilla's parents about once a month, and we saw them yesterday and fixed a lot of things around the condo.

Her dad's dementia is getting progressively worse, and during the last visit we helped them fill out and get notarized a Durable Power of Attorney and Advance Health Care Directive for each of them. We also bought her dad a medical ID bracelet which he lost within a day. We also ordered a bracelet with a tracker that's difficult to remove, so hopefully that will be better. There's the doorknob cover to prevent him from wandering that I mentioned in a previous post, and yesterday I installed a keyed lock for her mom's bedroom to help prevent her dad from going in there and taking things. He's also been breaking things around the condo because he can't figure out how they work. He seems to have clarity less than half the time, and usually when he talks, his communication is all over the place and nobody knows what he's trying to say. It's sad seeing him decline and not be able to do a lot of the things that he used to, but I have to remind myself that this happens to just about everyone as they age - whether it's our bodies or our minds breaking down. I myself have been having a lot more aches and pains in the last few months, so I'm getting to experience things through a new perspective.

Things are the most difficult for Priscilla's mom, of course. She feels like she's being driven crazy daily due to his actions and him frequently talking about seeing/hearing people in the condo. Priscilla and I have it easy, relatively speaking, though I'm sure that will slowly change as we start helping them more. We have to remember that we're here to love and support them, and this is what we signed up for when we decided to move back down.

I've been thinking a lot about purpose lately. It's now been four months since I left my job with Pure, and being free of a job has afforded me time to actually do things like think.

But kidding aside, in some senses I've been busier than ever. I've definitely had my hands full with fixing things around the house, doing things for parents, working out, researching health, relearning science concepts, and fellowshipping with people at church and in our small group.

I reckon that most of us won't find our "grand purpose" in lofty ideals like changing the world or becoming the top ranked in something. But, to loosely paraphrase Theodore Roosevelt, we can all do a bit of good where we are, with what we have.

To say that life is more about finding purpose in the day-to-day rather than living out some "grand purpose" is helpful. But, for followers of Christ, I think that doesn't capture the whole picture. We are called to a higher purpose, and that is to glorify God and find joy in doing so. Our purpose should be the one that He has set for us. Nothing more, and nothing less.

So we continue to live each day - learning, laughing, and loving. Finding small doses of purpose in enjoying life and helping others do the same. All the while, allowing Christ to work in us and wanting the same for others. That, I submit, is our grand, glorious purpose.

It doesn't feel like it to me, but it's now been over six months since Priscilla and I moved back to SoCal, and over three months since I left my job with Pure. Where does the time go?

This has been an eventful time for sure. We've seen my parents on 11 occasions, her parents on 5, and Aaron and his family on 8. The most recent time was just last Sunday when we saw my family to celebrate our nephew's 5th birthday. Wow, he's 5 already?? Time really does fly.

Back in August, we signed up for lifetime memberships at our local gym. We go 1-2 times per week, depending on Priscilla's schedule. I'm usually lifting while she goes to the Pilates/yoga and Zumba classes, though I might be going to Pilates/yoga with her more often (I've already gone once) since my back has been acting up and I need to strengthen my core. Gary from our church usually joins me at the gym biweekly since he gets every other Friday off from work.

We've committed to the church in Thousand Oaks that I previously mentioned, and we submitted membership applications in November. We're still waiting to be approved, as applications are supposed to be reviewed at the next elder meeting, but this is just a formality and we're already somewhat involved in church life. We visited four fellowship groups and ultimately joined one that has people similar to us in life stage. There are usually 8-10 people in the group and we meet weekly, with one week per month set aside for an outing to a restaurant (we haven't always gone to those). We value the discussions and getting to know people in the group.

Despite not having a job right now, I feel as busy as ever. Since 2013, I've been using a spreadsheet to track my notable daily activities, but last October I started also using Google Sheets to track a breakdown of my activities in five categories: Mind, Body, Spirit, Others (i.e. other people), and House. I don't always do something in each category every day, but it's a good goal to have. When I feel like time has gone by without much to show for it, I can look back at the sheet and remember that I did do meaningful things, even though each of them might've been fairly small. I've learned that life is less defined by grand acts and more by small but cumulative actions. I gave the sheet the title "The Next Right Thing," the name of a song from Frozen 2 - not a very memorable movie, but the song has a powerful message about just putting one foot in front of the other, especially when things are hard.

We've spent a good amount of time with family and friends (both new and old). We've met most of our immediate neighbors, though our relationships haven't developed past the quick hello on the street yet. We've gotten half of the house set up the way we want; the gym and master bedroom still need to be done. I've been brushing up on various topics like chemistry and biology, and every time I learn something, I put it on the sheet and highlight it for easy reference. Fitness has been okay, but there's still a lot of room for improvement and I still have my near-term goals that I want to hit. I haven't quite found my "grand purpose" and perhaps I never will, but I've been getting little doses of purpose in daily life. Maybe that's enough.

We also had a memorable time in November when evacuating due to the Mountain Fire (as I talked about in a previous post), and this month there have been a lot of wind-driven fires in SoCal, most notably the hugely destructive Palisades Fire and Eaton Fire in LA. Challenging times ahead.

Speaking of challenging times, Priscilla's dad's dementia has been slowly getting worse. He seems somewhat okay during the day, but past the evening his clarity diminishes and he gets more confused - this apparently is known as sundowning. Priscilla's mom asked us to buy a door knob cover so that he can't leave the condo late at night; he had already wandered out twice. Two weeks ago, we stayed three nights at their place to help them with various things, and it was somewhat challenging. We're going to stay with them one night next week in order to help them with more things, including driving them to a doctor's appointment 45 minutes from their place. A sign of things to come, but this is what we knew we'd have to deal with when we decided to move down.

Overall, we're glad that we moved down and still glad that we settled down in Camarillo, even though it's an hour drive, give or take, to get to parents. It's nice to have a little bit of separation, and we like our house, neighborhood, and city. Retaining a bit of comfort will be critical when we find ourselves helping parents more. But we'll deal with that as it comes, one day at a time. Doing the next right thing.

This past Sunday, I got to do the Monterey Spartan Sprint at Toro Park with 4 other guys from RBF: Joe, Wilson, Kelvin, and Frank. It was the first time doing a Spartan Race for all of them. I really enjoyed the camaraderie of doing the race with a group. During the race, we repeated the infrequently used joke that RBF stands for "Really Buff Friends" - somewhat fitting given that we've been training together (well, sporadically at least in my case).

A few of the ladies from our church did this race last year (go them!), so this year was the guys' turn. I haven't been training as much this year, definitely not as much as I was two years ago when I did a Spartan Trifecta with Dan, and I had gotten injured at the gym earlier in the week due to overstressing the joints. So I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to do some of the obstacles, but I ended up having no pain on race day and was able to complete all the obstacles successfully except for the spear throw. During practice in the morning, I stuck the spear 3 out of 5 times, but I just couldn't get it during the race.

Overall, the race seemed less difficult compared to what I've done before. The men's sandbags were definitely 60 lbs since that's what it said on the bags, but the gravel buckets for the Bucket Carry felt around that weight or slightly lighter, which is odd because I thought they were supposed to be 80 lbs. And my bag for the Hercules Hoist felt noticeable lighter than I remember it being before. Or maybe they had heavier weights for the Super (10k) but reduced them for the next day's Sprint (5k)? Some of these impressions are probably subjective, but what was definitely true was that all of the major obstacles had penalty loops (where you run a short distance) instead of burpees for failing obstacles. Kind of takes some of the challenge and the uniqueness away, IMO. But I can appreciate that Spartan wants to make the race more appealing to more people, and the Sprint in particular tends to be the first Spartan experience that first-timers have.

Everyone in our group failed at least one obstacle, but we all did great overall. And the training paid off - for instance, thanks to our practice with the rope that Joe bought, everyone was a pro on the Rope Climb!

After the race, we hit up The Butter House in Seaside for brunch. Everyone else headed back home afterwards in order to be able to make it to Sunday Evening Fellowship, but Priscilla and I drove over to Monterey so that we could walk around the area one more time before our upcoming move. We walked almost 7 miles between Old Fisherman's Wharf, Cannery Row, and Lovers Point. The weather was perfect and we got to see sea lions, harbor seals, otters, and got to relax and enjoy views of the ocean.

The weekend was nice - spending time with people, conquering the race together, and seeing some sights like in years past. What a great way to spend one of our last few weekends before we move.

Call it... February frenzy and March madness?

Over the past couple months, it feels like I've done a lot and also not done a lot at the same time. Where does the time go?

After my large project wrapped up in November, my workload at work has been manageable. The first week of February, our business unit started requiring employees to come into the office four days a week. I'm typically a lot less productive in the office - there are so many distractions in the form of meetings, people asking for help, having to walk around to use the bathroom or get food, and overall just not having long blocks of focused time. Last week, I was so behind on interrupts that I decided to just take a WFH day so that I could focus, and I was able to close/dispatch 50 tickets in our triage queue. Granted, I ended up working some extra hours that day, but there's no way that I could achieve that level of focus in the office. Leadership really needs to understand that everybody works differently and that people, and thus the company, benefit from flexibility.

Since I have to be in the office, I make time to go running with Frank almost every week. We ran together sporadically before the pandemic, but starting at the beginning of 2023, we've been running together after work one or sometimes even two times a week, with each run averaging around 5 miles. It's a good way to stay accountable, though he already runs most days each week, unlike me.

Two Saturdays ago, I participated in the annual RealOptions Walk for Life 5k race. Our church participates every year, though most people do the walk instead of run. Thanks to the generosity of our church, our team raised over $19,500 to support the work of RealOptions. This was my fourth year doing the 5k and I ended up getting 1st place out of 65 runners this year, though my time of 21:34 was slightly worse than my time of 21:31 from last year. It just depends on who shows up - when I first participated in 2018, there were 8 people with a time under 20 minutes! I had been hoping to get a time under 21 minutes, and my personal goal is to be able to run a sub-20 minute 5k, so I have a long way to go.

The day after, Priscilla and I sang in the combined choir during the combined service at church. We had 6 people total from the English congregation joining the regular choir members from the Chinese congregation. I think this was a record turnout from the English side! We sang an arrangement of "Then Sings My Soul" by Mary McDonald, which is a little different from the traditional hymn. It was actually kind of fun, and it was awesome hearing how the four vocal parts came together in a beautiful composition. I was actually the one who suggested joining, as Priscilla was thinking that I wouldn't want to do it. I guess I'd be okay with doing something like this again - but not on a regular basis, Priscilla!

On the home improvement side, I've been working on replacing the old blinds in the spa room and gym room. I ordered some basic blinds (still not cheap at $230) from blinds.com and I've had to find bits of time on random evenings to get the brackets installed. One of the windows is not totally square and so one of the brackets isn't flush with the other one. Since the design of these blinds makes it so that they just sit inside the brackets without being tightened down, the entire assembly wobbles when pulling on the lift cord. I'm trying to see if I can get something to act as a shim to sit inside the bracket so that the headrail doesn't have as much room to move vertically.

We're leaving for Japan tomorrow and need to spend today packing and getting things ready. After we get back, we'll try to find a real estate agent to get information on selling our house. We're thinking of listing with Redfin due to the lower commissions. There are still a lot of things we need to fix including reglazing the showers, replacing a toilet, painting (definitely exterior and maybe interior as well), cleaning grout, cleaning patios and walkways, landscaping, finishing the drip irrigation, and more. So we might not even list our house until May or June. We just have to take it one day at a time.

Having done three Spartan races last year, I thought it would be a while before I felt the need to scratch the obstacle course racing itch again. But then a local SoCal race called Grit OCR piqued my interest, and I ended up signing up just four months after I completed my last Spartan. It was also a nice excuse to go down to LA to see family. This past Saturday, the event finally kicked off at its signature location at East Walker Ranch in Santa Clarita.

Since this is a local race, the obstacles aren't as elaborate as Spartan. Instead, they comprise smaller obstacles and more heavy carries, the latter which I had a hard time with and definitely didn't train enough for. I did the Spartan Trifecta last year and I do some dumbbells once a week. Should be sufficient, right? Hah.

Saturday was the hottest day of the week, with temperatures getting into the mid 90s. It was probably 80-90 during my run. Because of the heat, the race organizers were letting people start in earlier waves. I was in the 9am wave but joined the 8:45 wave, though they started late and we all headed out the gate at 8:58.

The first obstacle was a series of heavy cargo nets to crawl under, just to start tiring us out from the get-go. Then an 8 foot wall to climb over, with two more appearing later on the course.

There were some pretty challenging heavy carries on the course. Like carrying a 60 lb sandbag up and down the side of a hill. Pushing a heavy wheelbarrow to tax the arms. Cinder blocks attached to a bar weighing 90 lbs (I opted for the 70 lb version since I had trouble keeping the 90 lb one stable), carried on your shoulders for 300 meters. A farmer's carry with 45 lb water canisters. I had to take lots of breaks during most of those.

I did better on obstacles like the rope climb and slingshot. At the latter, I was able to hit the target on my first attempt, thanks to watching a tutorial on YouTube the morning of. The ruck obstacle was made easier due to all the packs being 15 lbs or so, instead of us having to choose between 20 and 30 lb packs. And one of the obstacles involved solving a tangram puzzle, because mental grit is just as important as physical grit.

My 8.5 mile Claw course differed from the 5.5 mile Fang course by just a 3 mile loop where we had to carry a raw egg without letting it break. The name of that obstacle was "Most Expensive Obstacle." I had no idea what this would be ahead of time, but the pun hit me as soon as I was given the egg to carry. Egg-spensive indeed. For one, the privilege of running this 3 mile loop cost an extra $10 over the price of the Fang!

I still have no idea what the Dragon's Spine obstacle is, as it was listed on the map but didn't appear on the course. And I saw the wooden boxes for Flip This House but it looked like that obstacle wasn't in operation.

The last two obstacles were raising a kettlebell on a rope by turning a spindle with your hands (very taxing on the forearms), followed immediately by the multi-rig with alternating rings and banana-shaped grips, where you have to climb a rope just to get to the first ring. Of course, your arms are completely dead by this point. I probably watched people attempt (or skip) the multi-rig for a good 20 minutes, and the only people who completed it were those in the competitive wave.

In some ways, this event felt harder than the two Spartan Supers that I've done. My final time was 3:06:18, placing 118 out of 219 people in the open wave for the Claw. The Fang had more participants, with 323 people in the open wave. My time wasn't great, though it could've been better had I skipped obstacles or used footholds on walls like I saw others doing. Grit has no penalty for failing/skipping obstacles. But I took time to recover at lots of obstacles, particularly the multi-rig (ironically, the only one I wasn't able to complete) in order to be able to do them right. So my ranking doesn't mean much, but I know I could've done better with better preparation.

The rest of the trip was pretty productive as well. We flew down on Thursday and went with Priscilla's parents to the DMV that day to transfer the title for their Honda Civic to us. They wanted to downsize to one car and very generously gave us their spare car. It's newer and in better condition than our other two cars. We'll be getting rid of Priscilla's Corolla since it needs a new catalytic converter and won't pass a smog inspection, but Aaron wants it for when Lauren's parents will be living with them, and he's planning to get it fixed up.

My parents made us lots of food and gave us a lot to bring back as usual. On Sunday, we went to church at New Life and then got lunch with Gina, Weber and Crescentia at the Galleria food court afterwards. We finally drove back home on Monday. Other than Grit, it was a pretty ordinary visit, but it was all time well spent.

Every year, our church participates in the RealOptions Walk for Life. It's a great way to raise money to support a faith-based pregnancy resource center, and to push one another to exercise!

The event is held annually at Martial Cottle Park in San Jose, and participants can either walk 2.4 miles or run a 5k. In addition to this year, I've participated in 2018 and 2020. Naturally, I sign up for the run. Priscilla prefers to walk with church friends. We had 15 registrations from our church this year, with 10 of those being families. Our church has gotten big, and we had a large turnout today. A lot of the kids are starting to get to the age where they're able to run a 5k, and we have some fast kids!

The primary goal of the Walk for Life is to fundraise for RealOptions. With over $16,000 raised, our church placed 3rd out of all groups signed up for the event. I don't like asking people for money, so Priscilla and I just donated $400 to ourselves (and more to others). But we set a goal of $1,000, recalling that in the past, there were people at church who wanted to support participants. We didn't ask anyone for donations, but 7 people donated to us! Most of the donations were made anonymously, but they were almost certainly from people at church, as the link to join/support our group has been in the church bulletin for the past few weeks. Our last donor gave $25 after the event and brought us to our exact $1,000 goal! Everyone else in our group got at least several donations, and most people got to their fundraising goal. We have a lot of generous people at church.

My training hasn't been ideal. The past several months have felt colder than usual, and there have been so many rainy days, many of them with heavy and prolonged rain. Atmospheric rivers have been dumping so much rain on us that half the state is no longer in a drought. So it's been hard to get outside and run, though that's partly just me making excuses.

During my last training run, I ran a 5k at a 7:01 pace at max effort. I always have a tendency to start too fast, especially when I'm with people and they sprint out of the gate. So for today's race, I knew that I had to start intentionally slower and gradually increase my pace so that I could save some fuel for the latter half. I started almost at the front of the group (64 runners in all), but quickly had 15 or so people sprint past me, many of whom were kids. But one by one, I started passing people as I maintained a mostly constant pace while people started slowing down. 0.5 miles in, I saw one guy stopped on the side of the path catching his breath - he definitely went all in way too soon!

There was one guy who stayed in the lead the whole time, way up ahead, and I knew I had no chance of catching up to him. Trailing him by a fair distance was a pack of three or so guys who seemed to be trying to keep up with each other. I knew I wouldn't be able to catch up to them while maintaining that pace for the whole race, so I let them get a little ahead while making sure I never lost sight of them. Towards the 2 or 2.5 mile point, I increased my pace a bit more and was able to pass two of the guys, who might've also been slowing down. I then hustled to catch up to the third guy, but we both full on sprinted at the end and I crossed the finish line a fraction of a second behind him. Interestingly, though I came in 3rd place by gun time, I came in 2nd place by chip time, and the final results were based on chip time. My official time was 21:31, putting my pace at 6:56. My times in 2018 and 2020 were 23:17 and 21:38, respectively, so it seems like I've improved. The winning time today was 21:09. It really depends on who shows up - in 2018, there were 8 runners with a time under 20 minutes, with the winning time being 18:06!

I guess I do like the competition of racing, but even more, I value self-improvement. I recently read an article about a "totally average runner," close to me in age, who trained until he was able to run a 5-minute mile. That's become a goal of mine, as the necessary progression seems like a worthwhile investment to pursue. It sounds crazy and I know there will be a ton of work involved, but I'm not getting any younger, and late is better than never.

And hopefully all the training will help me get an even better 5k time next year. Anyway, I'm glad that today we were able to have fun and support a good cause. But the work, for all of us, is never done.

Yesterday, Daniel and I did the Monterey Spartan Super at Toro Park in Salinas. I did this course last year as well, and it was all the same obstacles in mostly the same order, with the following exceptions:

* The 4' Walls on the map didn't appear on the course. Instead, there was a 5' wall that people had to get over to get into the race corral.
* The longer 45lb sandbags were replaced with 60lb disc-shaped bags at the Sandbag Carry.
* The Bucket Carry was longer this time. After ascending a small hill, it looked like you were headed back down to the start, like how it was last year. Instead, you then rounded a corner and had to do another uphill segment. Surprise, suckas!
* The bags at Hercules Hoist looked a little bigger this year. The volunteer said that they were 100lbs this year. It was 90lbs last year.

I went into the race not at full strength. Five days earlier on Memorial Day, I did the Murph Challenge (1 mile run, 100 pullups, 200 pushups, 300 squats, 1 mile run) with Daniel and two other church guys. We didn't use a weighted vest, and we partitioned the exercises into 20 sets of 5 pullups, 10 pushups and 15 squats, but still it was brutal and I was sore for the next fews days. I was still just slightly sore going into Spartan, so I'm pretty sure that I wasn't fully recovered.

On Olympus, only four obstacles in, I didn't have the strength to keep myself on the wall properly. So I ended up supporting myself using my knee and kind of dragged myself across the wall. On Hercules Hoist, most of the guys seemed to be having trouble. I was able to use my bodyweight to get the bag most of the way up, but then my grip was shot and I had to pull my body further back while holding onto the rope for dear life in order to get the last couple inches. I wasn't sure if I got the bag all the way up or if I had a couple inches left to go, but the rope wasn't budging any further - so either I got it, or I had reached the point where pulling my body back was no longer effective. My forearms were pretty taxed as a result, and I had to bail on the next obstacle, Multi-Rig, one ring short of the bell. And that's one of the easier obstacles - ugh! But at least I successfully stuck the spear at the Spear Throw - the first time ever, which I was elated about. The "spear throw" (broom handle with a tennis ball on the end) training we've been doing at the park has paid off, and it was helpful that we got to the event early and I was able to throw a spear a few times at the practice zone.

I did notice that the carries felt easier than last year. The bucket carry was tiring but manageable, even though it was longer this year. Same for the sandbag carry. Had I been carrying last year's 45lb sandbag, I'm sure I would've owned it. I can see how training and multiple Spartans have paid off in small ways.

So my official time was 2:47:29 which put me in the 30th percentile, placing 1006/3364 overall, 818/2262 for males, and 146/353 for my age group. Not terrible, but I know I could've done better. Next time, for one, no hard workouts at least a week before a race.

Will there be a next time, though? With this race done, I've completed a Spartan Trifecta and feel like I've checked off a big milestone on my bucket list. I do enjoy the races and they give me a reason to train. But I have other goals that I want to train for, like being able to do a Murph faster (my previous time was around 75 minutes), being able to run a sub 6-minute mile and better, and building strength and getting back up to my ideal weight. Maybe I can come back to the races someday when I'm faster and stronger, but for now, there's so much else I can do.

So the rest of the trip was jam-packed with activities. On Friday, Priscilla and I drove down to Monterey and visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium (using our friends' guest pass) and watched the penguin and sea otter feedings, then walked over to Fisherman's Wharf and met up with Daniel and his family for dinner at Grotto Fish Market. On Saturday, Priscilla went with Daniel's family to breakfast and the Monterey County Youth Museum while he and I were racing. After the race, we all had lunch together at Pacific Bowls and Rolls (pretty decent poke bowl portions) in Downtown Monterey. Then in the afternoon, we all went down to Carmel Beach and watched the kids play in the sand and run from waves. Daniel's neighbors and their kid, who were also in town, joined us there and we all went to dinner at Flaherty's Seafood Grill & Oyster Bar (decent fare, a little pricey but reasonable for Carmel prices). Priscilla and I spent a little under $200 over the course of 4 consecutive meals, which is a bit more than we typically spend on food when traveling. We usually like to pack food and, when we do eat out, we tend towards the cheaper places. But eating out is a normative vehicle for spending time with people, and it was nice hanging out with people for most of the weekend.

Today, Priscilla and I just walked around El Estero Park (close to our motel) before heading home. We were pretty tired after the long weekend and got a quick lunch and took a nap shortly after. Traveling and activities certainly have their place, but at the end of the day for us, there's no place like home.

A mere six weeks after Daniel and I ran our Spartan Sprint down in SoCal, it was time for our San Luis Obispo Spartan Beast. We were not fully prepared and we got our butts handed to us in different ways. But it was a lot of fun.

On Friday, Priscilla and I drove down to Atascadero and met Daniel and his family at the Airbnb that we'd rented. The house was pretty spacious and had a lot of amenities. Their kids in particular liked the toys and the trampoline. After we got settled, we drove down to San Luis Obispo 25 minutes away. We walked around the downtown area and had dinner at Firestone Grill (I had tri-tip and it was delicious) and got ice cream from McConnell's. The downtown attractions that we saw - Bubblegum Alley, SLO Museum of Art, and the walkways around the creek - were all pretty short. It seemed like a laid-back town and everyone we interacted with was really nice.

While Daniel and I were running on Saturday, Priscilla joined the rest of Daniel's family in visiting Avila Valley Barn and more sights in SLO. They got a pie from the farm that had really good crust (I didn't care so much for the filling). And on Sunday, we drove over to Morro Bay and did a short kayak trip after Daniel and I decided that we weren't sore enough from the race. We kayaked to and walked around the sandbar close to Morro Rock, a place that Priscilla and I visited with friends 10 years ago. Afterwards, we got lunch at Giovanni's Fish Market; Priscilla and I got a clam chowder bread bowl and fish and chips (fries). The fries were amazing - very crispy; everything else was decent but nothing to write home about. After we said our goodbyes, it was time to head home.

Alright, back to the Spartan Beast. In the spirit of self-improvement, here as always are my notes about the course.

Over Walls (4' Walls): Easy warmup.

Inverted Wall: Easy, with the usual gap between the rungs and the wall providing a good place to grip.

Monkey Bars: Used the hand to hand technique as usual.

Barbed Wire Crawl: Part of it was grassy, so I was able to roll without getting too dirty.

7' and 6' Walls: Easy with the heel hook technique, though I found that I'm able to swing my right leg higher than I can my left. Or maybe that's just what I'm used to.

Hurdles: These were on a slight slope, adding an extra challenge. I got over these clumsily but twisted my left shoulder (it was fine after a few minutes).

Tube Crawl: Exactly as it sounds. Might've been the easiest obstacle I've ever done. The tubes were completely dry, but maybe in some venues they're filled with muddy water?

Armer: Possibly the same weight stone as with Atlas Carry, but the handle made this easier.

Tyrolean Traverse: My initial plan to do an upside-down crawl along the rope immediately went out the window when I found that I couldn't keep the other leg on the rope when lifting one leg off. So instead, I kept my legs locked around the rope and pulled myself along using my arms. The high socks I had on protected my legs from rope burn, but this motion was pretty rough on my hands.

8' Wall: Was able to jump up and grab the edge with an inch of clearance, so I didn't need to do a running jump and kick off against the wall.

Pipe Lair, Helix, Z Wall: All straightforward.

Olympus: Used mostly the holes and used a reach across technique when possible, making short work of this obstacle. Definitely a lot easier than when I did this for the first time during last year's Super.

The Box: A lot of people were having trouble with the ropes, but I ignored the rope and just jumped and hoisted my way onto the platform without much effort. The benefits of being light.

Spear Throw: Failed again when the spear went to the left of the target. I took two retries since it wasn't too busy, and I managed to stick it on the final attempt. Each time, I threw a mostly decent arc, so the "spear" training (with a tennis ball on the end of a broom handle) I've been doing with Daniel has been paying off. I just need to adjust the aim. I still did my 30 burpees since you're really only allowed one try.

Atlas Carry: Was able to lift the stone using a sumo deadlift, so I didn't need to roll it onto my knee like before.

Multi-Rig: Rings, horizontal bar, then ropes with no ball on the end. I thought I'd have trouble with the ropes, but I was able to maneuver from one rope to the next without sliding down. Guess the grip training has been paying off.

Bucket Carry: The bucket felt noticeably lighter compared to the one on the Sprint. Could just be variations in how much the volunteers fill them.

Beater: This was on mile 11 and my calf was starting to cramp. When I jumped up to grab the bar, a paralyzing pain shot through my calf. I had to rest for 10 minutes before I could do the obstacle. This sucked because this obstacle is pretty much all upper-body. I saw a couple others suffering from calf cramps here as well.

Bender: The cramps didn't deter me too much from swinging my feet up to help me get over this obstacle.

Stairway to Sparta: When I did this during my Super, the obstacle involved jumping and grabbing the top of a slanted wall and pulling yourself up. Pretty basic. But on the Beast, there was that (smooth) wall panel, plus another wall panel above it with climbing holds. So you basically had to jump up, grab the holds with your hands, pull yourself up and grab a higher hold, and then you'd be high enough to get your foot onto one of the holds. There was a volunteer there who gave most people a boost, but I wanted to do it on my own (as Spartan races are technically supposed to be done). I had a couple failed tries at grabbing the holds without falling, but I was finally able to do it and get my foot high enough to allow me to climb the rest of the way up. In terms of absolute difficulty, I'd say this was the hardest obstacle on the course.

Rope Climb: My hands were pretty roughed up by now, but using the S-hook took me to the top without too much trouble. My fingers held up without bleeding, unlike last time.

Twister: Going backwards made this quick, but my hands were starting to feel it by this point.

Plate Drag: I initially picked a bad lane where halfway down, the sled got stuck behind a mound of dirt. At least it wasn't just me - the next guy also had trouble with that lane. With my grip strength suffering, I had to borrow Daniel's gloves and pick a flatter lane to complete this obstacle.

Sandbag Carry, Vertical Cargo Plus, Slip Wall: Not too bad. On Slip Wall, we had to run up the ramp a little more than I remember doing on the Super, but the lack of a Dunk Wall this time kept things dry.

Hercules Hoist: My hands were completely raw by this point and my grip strength was gone. I tried twice, but not even the gloves helped me pull the bag all the way up. 30 burpees.

A-Frame Cargo: An easy obstacle to end with, with the finish line straight ahead. Boy was I glad to be done!

Aid station placement was excellent and I didn't need to drink water at every station. Much/most of the course consisted of uneven ground, and I rolled my right ankle around the halfway point, leading to pain whenever I landed at an angle on that foot. After that, I had to run a little slower in order to keep the ankle stable. But Daniel started cramping a lot in the last couple miles, so we both needed to slow down. The first 10 miles were all easier obstacles, and the last 3 miles contained the harder ones. With our injuries, the race got exponentially harder at the end!

My final time was 4:20:32, putting me in the 33rd percentile, placing 605/1857 overall, 496/1233 for men, and 109/266 in my age group. I didn't do badly, though I should've been able to do better. I'm glad that the training that I've been doing has shown some results, and I think I can go gloveless on a Super, but for a Beast, I seem to need that extra advantage from gloves since so many of the obstacles are hard on the hands. Once I do the Super in June, I'll be done with the Trifecta. I do enjoy the races, but I think I've gotten my Spartan fix and don't feel like I need to sign up for more anytime soon. I'm not that competitive, and the cost and overhead of the races are a bit much.

I'm glad that the hardest race is done with and I'm glad that we got to spend time with our friends and their kids. It was a tiring weekend and my arms and legs are quite sore now, but it was time well spent.

Well, it hadn't even been a month since we were last in LA, but Priscilla and I found ourselves down there again for my Spartan Sprint.

I signed up for the Spartan Trifecta for this year, and this past weekend the Super and Sprint were held at Glen Helen Regional Park in San Bernardino this past Saturday and Sunday, respectively. I ran with Daniel, my buddy from church with whom I'll be doing two more races this year.

This was my third Spartan Race, so I was pretty familiar with the obstacles by now. Last year's Super in Monterey was my first race, and I took it slow since I didn't know what to expect. But this time around, I wanted to get a good time, and since the Sprint is the easiest event in the Trifecta, I wanted to see if I could do some of the obstacles in a more challenging way.

Because this was a park, there were some limitations on course design. The route was essentially flat. Lots of obstacles were clustered in the same area, meaning minimal time in between some obstacles for the arms to get a rest.

So, as usual, here are the obstacles that were on the course and my personal notes.

Over Walls (4' Walls): Easy warmup.

Hurdles: These were set noticeably higher than at my Monterey Super. I got over these but lacked finesse.

6' Wall: Wanted to see if I could do a muscle up over the wall and was able to, but again without finesse. Heel hook is the proven better technique for me to conserve strength.

Inverted Wall: Pretty easy; this one had the extra grabbing room between the rungs and the wall that Monterey had. I managed to not bang my ankle on the way down this time.

Vertical Cargo: The SoCal Super had the platform in front of the cargo net that you have to hoist yourself onto. The Sprint had the platform removed.

Spear Throw: Despite watching many YouTube videos, I failed this as I didn't throw hard enough or straight enough. I really need to find a way to start practicing.

Helix, Z-Wall, and A-Frame Cargo: Pretty straightforward. On the former two, it helped that I'm light.

Atlas Carry: A little difficult since my arms were tired by this point.

Monkey Bars: Pretty much right after Atlas Carry. I'd wanted to try the hand over hand technique but my arms were feeling it, so I stuck with hand to hand and that made the obstacle pretty doable.

Plate Drag: No plank to brace my feet onto. Seemed like I took longer with this than most people.

Bucket Carry: Tried to balance the bucket on my shoulders but that tired out my arms, so I alternated between that and carrying it in front of me.

Dunk Wall: Should probably pinch my nose before I go under the water next time. I was blowing a lot of dirt out of my nose after the race and that was likely because of this obstacle.

Slip Wall: Thought I would have trouble with this since it was right after we got drenched in Dunk Wall, but I was able to get up the incline and over the top with no issues.

Barbed Wire Crawl: Straightforward, though I could've saved some time if I had rolled like Daniel did.

Sandbag Carry: The bags weren't that heavy. They were long and not filled in the middle.

Multi-Rig: The SoCal Super had a horizontal bar in the middle, but the Sprint had just rings. I was able to use a hand to hand (sideways traverse) technique without too much effort, but hand over hand is better for conserving strength (though it takes longer).

Hercules Hoist: Had to use my whole body weight as usual.

Rope Climb: The rope was a little wet and my shoes were probably still wet, so I couldn't get a good grip with my feet despite using the S-hook. My feet were definitely sliding near the top, so I powered my way up using more arm strength. This taxed my hands, and afterwards I found both middle fingers bleeding where the skin next to the nail had broken. Maybe I grip hardest with the middle finger on each hand?

Anyway, we ran together and pushed ourselves hard (well, Daniel was better at the obstacles and I was holding him back a little). When I took my time with last year's Super, the obstacles felt more manageable (though still not easy). But since we didn't rest all that much during this race, and because of multiple back-to-back obstacles, the obstacles felt noticeably harder. My final time was 52:27 which put me in the 17th percentile, placing 548/3230 overall, 475/2019 for males, and 77/326 for my age group. Not a terrific time, but not a terrible time. With our SLO Beast just 5 weeks away, I'm going to have to train better so that the obstacles don't get the better of me!

Outside of the event, we had a good time in LA seeing my parents and Priscilla's parents. That time was pretty low-key and mostly involved eating together. Aaron and Lauren's family visited the first night, and our niece was really quiet this time, though she finally started opening up to me when we played Candy Land with her. It's a game of pure chance, but Aaron won a couple times in a row and she was getting frustrated, so during the next couple games, Aaron kept peeking at the deck in his hand and rearranged cards when she wasn't looking so that she'd get the good cards. It was pretty funny.

And unlike last month, traffic from NorCal to SoCal and back wasn't bad. Visiting LA seems more bearable when the drive is "only" 5 hours!

This past Saturday I did the Spartan Stadion at Oracle Park in San Francisco with a few church people and their friends (10 people total including me). We got our entry for a mere $50 through Foster the City, a nonprofit that works to provide homes for foster children in the Bay Area. Each of us had to raise money for FTC, with the goal to raise $1000 per person.

I don't like asking people for money, but one of the church people graciously posted a message to our Facebook group with each participant's donation link for those who wanted to support the cause. A lot of people donated, though those using the donation link provided by FTC instead of setting up a Facebook fundraiser page (myself included) were unable to see how much money they had raised or even who had donated.

The race was easier than a typical Spartan Sprint, e.g. the penalty for a failed obstacle in a Stadion is only 15 burpees instead of the usual 30. There were other modifications that made the obstacles easier, like the Multi-Rig having just rings (no horizontal bar or dangling ropes), and the Atlas Carry having a 100lb pellet-filled ball instead of a 100lb stone (you get a better grip on the ball). This course was similar to the SF Stadion in 2019, with one of the main differences being that there was no Olympus (I was sad about that) and there was an obstacle I'd never seen before, Rolling Epic (it was probably the easiest obstacle on the course).

I was able to complete all the obstacles except the Spear Throw. I did not throw the spear hard enough and it crash-landed way short of the target. Sigh.

The most difficult obstacles were the Weighted Burpees and the Hercules Hoist. The Weighted Burpees involved a 55lb (less for women) weight that we had to lift over our heads 15 times. I had to start taking breaks after the first few reps. Clearly I need to spend time doing the clean and press at the gym. The Hercules Hoist was doable; I just had to use all my bodyweight and push off the barrier with my leg. And the Monkey Bars were pretty easy; this time I did it in the traditional way with palms facing forwards instead of using the opposing grip method. The opposing grip method made this obstacle a piece of cake during my Spartan Super, but I wanted to see if I could do it in a slightly harder way. The bars on this obstacle are spaced somewhat far apart, so I naturally got my hands to the same rung before reaching for the next rung. But I saw some videos of people reaching for the next rung, one after another, so next time I want to see if I can do that.

I didn't have trouble getting the sandbag on both of my shoulders during the Sandbag Carry this time; either the bag was lighter than what we had at my Super, or the training I've been doing with a 20lb rucksack is paying off. And the Rope Climb wasn't difficult; I stuck to using the S-hook and though my form was terrible, my legs more or less stayed supported the whole way up. I wonder if the rope here was also thicker than the one at the Super.

Some people in our group failed/skipped a few obstacles, and our group split the requisite burpees between each of us. I think that's not officially allowed, but meh. The open wave is whatever you make it, and the goal should be to challenge oneself. It was fun to do some camaraderie burpees, though having to do burpees after the Rope Climb and then do Weighted Burpees right after was not great, haha.

Nobody got major injuries. I didn't have any shoulder issues this time, but my right hip started aching during the latter half of the race, probably because of all the stairs. I've had minor hip issues, particularly on the left side where I think I've had a low level of chronic inflammation, so it was surprising that it was the right side that started acting up. It didn't hurt much and wasn't something to be too concerned about, but something to pay attention to. Getting old is such fun.

Priscilla likes traveling, even if it's for short trips, so we actually went up to SF Friday afternoon. We drove to Millbrae and took BART to SF. While I was doing the race, Priscilla met up with the wife of one of the other group members to hang out. They got to see us do a couple obstacles up close at two different areas located outside of Oracle Park. Beats paying $20 for a festival pass to be a spectator with a mediocre view!

Outside of the event, Priscilla and I saw the Macy's Christmas tree at Union Square, enjoyed downtime at our hotel, and walked along The Embarcadero from Oracle Park up to the Ferry Building, where we got a bite to eat at the farmers market at Ferry Plaza. SF has a lot of nice-looking parts, especially if you zoom out and see the surroundings as a whole. It's not all just the negatives that the news likes to focus on, like the smash-and-grab robberies that happened recently. We felt safe in all the places we went to.

Overall, I'm glad I did the Stadion, though I prefer the higher difficulty mountain type Spartan races. And I wish I had talked to everyone on the team; it felt a bit awkward since I didn't know a few people and we all seemed shy. But I had fun and it seemed like everyone else did too, and I'm glad that we supported a good cause. I'm looking forward to the Trifecta events that I'll be running with Daniel next year!

Call it madness or something else, but it seems that I've been bitten by the Spartan bug. After my Spartan Race in August, I was hooked. And two weeks ago, I did my Spartan Trail Half Marathon at Sanborn County Park.

The trail race was actually run by a company called Pacific Coast Trail Runs and they had a 50k, half marathon, and two 10k courses. I woke up really early (had trouble sleeping due to excitement) and got to the park before 7am, in time to help cheer on the 30 or so people starting the 50k. The half marathon started at 8am and check-in took just 10 minutes or so. I probably would've had enough time to park at the shuttle pickup location in Saratoga and take the shuttle in order to avoid paying the $6 parking fee at Sanborn, but I didn't want to chance it.

The different courses shared much of the same route and I crossed paths with a good number of people, though it didn't feel too crowded most of the time. Most of the trails were single-track, and of course the trails couldn't be closed to non-racers since these are public trails.

The half marathon course was manageable but tough. It was over 3,200 feet of elevation gain, including a steady incline for the first 3 miles. We had to run to a point at the Lake Ranch Reservoir and grab a wristband there before running back. The climbing didn't feel too bad, though I did alternate between running and power hiking and tried to pace myself. I did push myself harder than on a typical trail run, and my official time was 2:48:27, placing 38/104, 32/80 for males and 12/26 for my age group. So basically, slower than the people who run competitively but faster than those who probably don't trail run regularly.

The one thing that messed me up was that I was running in new shoes. I'd bought a pair of Saucony Peregrine 11 trail shoes to replace my Saucony Mad River TR's which were starting to wear out. I felt like all my previous shoes hadn't needed much breaking in, the new shoes felt comfortable enough when I walked around the neighborhood in them, and it was the same brand as my other shoes. So I took the chance of doing the race without having run in them before.

Well, that ended up being a bad decision. A few miles in, the shoes were starting to rub against both ankle bones. The fact that I was wearing thinner, low-cut socks might've also exacerbated things. So my ankles were chafing and hurting, then the sides of my calves started hurting (that's never happened before), then both legs started cramping around 9, and then I had to just power through with occasional stretching. I literally hobbled across the finish line with both calves cramping. Needless to say, my mistake cost me a bit of time and turned what would've otherwise been an enjoyable trail run into somewhat of a slog. But overall, I still enjoyed the event, and finally finishing after all of that felt awesome. As did eating the free Mexican food that we got from a food truck that was set up in the parking lot.

Having now done both a Spartan Race and a Spartan Trail, I would rate the Spartan Race as more enjoyable due to the obstacles. I've since committed to doing a Trifecta next year - my church buddy Daniel and I both purchased the Trifecta Pass and we'll be doing the SLO Beast and Monterey Super together (we're still figuring out what we want to do for the Sprint). Also, Ruth from church shared with me that an organization that she's been promoting, Foster the City, is putting together a team to do the San Francisco Spartan Stadion this December. Registration through the organization is only $50 since they want participants to fundraise. So Daniel and I and a few people from church ended up signing up.

The Stadion seems like it'll be the easiest of the four events that I'll be doing, but it will be a good checkup to see if my training is paying off and if my muscles are holding up. I guess I've had some issues with my right shoulder and my event in August exacerbated it, so I've been having some shoulder pain when working out. I probably have at least a partial tear in the rotator cuff. I've been trying to strengthen the shoulder and go to the gym to do exercises that I don't have the equipment for at home (though I need to be more consistent in going, despite the gym not being that close). And I found that pullups exacerbated the pain, so I'm laying off of those for now. Hopefully with the right exercises, sufficient nutrition and rest, Lord willing, I'll be able to rebuild and take on the obstacles this year, next year and beyond.

Spartan events are pretty pricey, so I'm not really itching to do these all the time. But the events will give me extra motivation to train since I want to do well. The fellowship aspect is nice, too. But I must do all this with the right motivation. Fitness and health are often idols for me, so I have to remember that they are impermanent and that they must glorify, not take the place of, Christ. When (not if) they are taken away, I must be able to say like Job, "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

Yesterday I finally got my wish and did a Spartan Race for the first time.

At the end of 2019, I signed up for a Spartan Trail Race half marathon which was supposed to happen in June of 2020. Then because of COVID, this was pushed back a few months to November. Then last July, it was announced that the entire rest of the 2020 season was cancelled. Those affected received a deferral code to use for a new 2021 event, as well as a bonus code for another event of their choice.

So I used the deferral code for a new Trail Race for September, and the bonus code for the Monterey Spartan Super 10k in August. I wanted to use the bonus code for another Trail Race, but I was unable to make that happen, as registrations for Trail Races vs regular Spartan events are handled by two different platforms, and the bonus code only worked for a regular event. So I chose the Super, as I thought the Sprint would be too easy and the Beast might be a little too challenging to start with. Anyway, based on how things were going with the company and on the global stage, I had little hope that the events would actually happen or that the company would even still remain solvent.

But gradually the situation in the US improved, events reopened, and finally the Monterey Spartan Super and Sprint events kicked off at Toro Park in Salinas yesterday. I didn't really give much thought to the difficulty of Spartan obstacles until a week before the event day; I've done three Tough Mudders and they seemed pretty manageable, so I thought I would be ok. But once reality dawned on me and I started researching Spartan obstacles, I realized that it wasn't going to be a walk in the park.

So for the last few days leading up to the event, I was working on my grip strength at UFC Gym (my Fitness 19 membership got transferred there after they went out of business) and binge-watching YouTube videos on Spartan obstacles. Two days before the event, Spartan released the course map showing all 20 and 27 obstacles on the Sprint and Super courses, respectively. This helped me hone in on exactly what to prepare for. I knew that I wouldn't be able to muscle my way through the obstacles, so I had to conquer them through better technique. I researched every obstacle on the route and picked up some good hacks, otherwise known as techniques for getting through obstacles using less effort (and sometimes more quickly as well). I guess it paid off, because I failed only one obstacle (the Spear Throw) and that involved just a penalty loop, so I ended up doing no burpees! Me being not that heavy undoubtedly helped on a lot of obstacles as well.

Compared to what I've researched, it seemed that the Monterey Super Course was dialed down in difficulty. For instance, mud and water were only present in two obstacles and they were near the end, so most of the obstacles were easier to complete than in venues where people are all muddy when doing them, either due to weather or course design. Going easy on us weak Bay Area people, maybe. ;)

So here are all the obstacles on the course and my personal notes.

Over Walls (4' Walls): Pretty much just a warmup.

6' and 7' Walls: The heel hook technique made these effortless. No 8ft walls like on some other courses. The 8ft walls would probably require a running jump, making them a good deal harder.

Olympus: A lot of people had trouble with staying on the wall. I mostly used the holes and made sure to sit my hips low, which kept me on the wall without too much sliding. Nonetheless, this obstacle was still difficult and was hard on my hands. The chains had the balls attached to the ends, making that part easier for those choosing to use them.

Bender: After grabbing the first bar, I swung my legs up onto the bar as well. This made it easy to reach up and climb the rest of the way.

The Box: A lot of people were having trouble getting up the rope. Despite there being knots on the rope, I couldn't get a good grip with my feet. But somehow I was able to pull myself up the rope, get my hands on the flat part at the top, and hoist my way up without too much effort.

Stairway to Sparta: It wasn't too difficult to hoist my way up and start climbing the rungs. Pretty much all there is to it.

Pipe Lair: This was on the map but didn't appear on the actual course. Grr.

Twister: Doing this facing backwards (as one video suggested doing) made this almost effortless. The obstacle consists of handles arranged in a spiral along two rotating bars, with the bars separated by a truss in the middle of the obstacle. I made sure to pick a lane where the second bar had its first handle oriented downwards in order to make the transition to that section easy.

Beater: Monkey bars with a twist, literally. The bars were spaced somewhat far apart and I didn't know if I'd be able to do them in the traditional way with palms facing forwards. So instead, I did them sideways with my palms facing each other, and this made the obstacle pretty doable.

Inverted Wall: Not too bad. One thing that made this easier was that there was a gap between the rungs and the wall that provided extra room to grab onto the rungs. I've seen videos both where there is and is not a gap, so I guess it's just a matter of how hard the course designers want to make this particular obstacle. On the way down the backside, I got sloppy and banged my ankle. Fortunately, it didn't seem serious and the pain wore off after a few minutes.

Z-Wall: Pretty manageable. Just maintain 3 points of contact and don't rush.

Barbed Wire Crawl: I found myself rolling more often than not, since I was impatient and too lazy to want to crawl. But this did make me dizzy and I still had to wait for the people ahead of me, since there were a lot of people and they were all crawling. I got a lot of burrs stuck in the back of my clothes, so I guess that's one disadvantage to rolling.

Bucket Carry: 80lb bucket for the men. The first section was straight up a hill. This obstacle was more cardio than strength, and I was definitely breathing hard and had to stop to rest a few times. I rested the bucket on a bent knee, as I learned from a video, which made it effortless to support the bucket. I alternated between bear-hugging the bucket and supporting it from underneath.

Hurdles: Pretty easy to get over.

Sandbag Carry: Carrying a sandbag for around 1000ft with a little bit of elevation. The men's sandbags are supposedly "only" 45lbs, but the bag felt fairly heavy to me and I lacked the strength and/or technique to get it over both shoulders, so I clumsily alternated it between shoulders. Not as difficult as the bucket carry, but I was still straining.

Rope Climb: I originally planned to use the J-hook to support my legs, but I had a lot of trouble positioning the rope with my feet when I was in the air, and I failed to make progress after a few starts. A volunteer suggested using the S-hook, and that did the trick. But getting to the top was hard on my hands, and I found the side of one of my fingernails bleeding. The volunteer was nice to give me a wipe and bandaid.

Spear Throw: Despite trying to follow tips from several videos, I failed when the spear tilted backwards after the throw. I tried again since it wasn't that busy, and on the second try, the spear tilted backwards again, though not by as much. This was one of two obstacles that involved a penalty loop instead of burpees, and the loop was very easy and took just a minute.

Hercules Hoist: 90lb weight for the men. I found it difficult to pull the rope down while standing, so I followed others' example of lying on the ground and bracing my feet at the bottom of the gate, and then using the weight of my body to pull the rope. Found another finger bleeding after this. Grip strength needs work!

Multi-Rig: Rings, then a horizontal bar, then rings again. Using the rings was simple enough, and the transition to and from the bar wasn't too bad, though I somehow managed to hit my head during the first transition and dismounted the final ring with pretty bad form. Wish I had a place I could practice rings.

Atlas Carry: 100lb stone for the men. While kneeling with one leg, I rolled the stone onto the other leg. This allowed me to get it in my grasp without too much straining. Carrying the stone the short distance wasn't too bad.

Vertical Cargo: I've seen some heavier guys struggle with this, but I had no trouble jumping and hoisting myself up onto the platform. From there it was just the simple act of climbing up and down the vertical cargo net, maintaining 3 points of contact.

Rolling Mud and Dunk Wall: Pretty straightforward. This was the only mud on the course. I got entirely drenched when dunking my head and body under the Dunk Wall, but this also washed off most of the mud that was on me. It also washed off the blood on my fingers as well as the bandaid. Oops. Sorry, people.

Slip Wall: This was right after Dunk Wall and I was worried that it'd be difficult to get up with wet hands and shoes, so I waited a few minutes. It was pretty manageable after that. Maybe I should've just gone for it right away, since some others seemed to be doing that.

A-Frame Cargo: Just 3 points of contact and don't be hasty - you know the drill by now.

Monkey Bars: Similar/same spacing between bars as with Beater, so I did these sideways as well and that worked just fine.

Helix: The final obstacle. Not too bad; just be methodical and watch your step, especially where it's a little wet and muddy due to other racers' footwear.

And no fire jump before the finish line. Understandable, with California being in an extreme drought and with fires like the Dixie Fire (the largest single wildfire in the state's history) currently raging.

So I finished a Super having to do only a penalty loop and no burpees. Sounds awesome, right? Well, I did take my time (sometimes up to 10 minutes) at most of the major obstacles in order to recover arm/grip strength. I could've gone faster, but I didn't have a concept of how hard the obstacles would be in practice and I didn't want to get fatigued. My official time was 3:12:01, placing 1534/2154 overall, 1224/1577 for males, and 216/273 for my age group. A pretty slow performance, but now I know what to expect. The median time was 2:48:10 for all racers.

Overall, I had a great experience and am glad that I did this. The event was run pretty well. Water and bathroom placement on the course was good, check-in was extremely quick, shuttles were ample, and there were plenty of showers with strong water pressure. The shower water wasn't warm, but it wasn't very cold either. Signage could've been better; the location we were told to park at was actually a few miles up the road from the actual parking lot. I had Priscilla drop me off at the venue but I took a shuttle back, and she almost couldn't find the parking lot because there wasn't too much signage on the road.

So for this trip, we took Friday off and headed down to Monterey. We got there a bit later than planned because of traffic; we should've realized that leaving at 2pm is not sufficient to avoid traffic on the 101, especially on a Friday. Once there, we headed over to the Beach House Restaurant in Pacific Grove for a happy hour dinner. We found that the happy hour menu is only for locals (not sure if it was always like this), but our waiter was nice to give it to us anyway. Dinner with tip was still $60, a bit much for happy hour, but you're paying for the view here.

We walked around Lovers Point and along the Monterey Bay Coastal Trail and walked around Cannery Row before heading back. On the trail was a sea lion lookout where we watched a group of 4 sea lions for 10 minutes. They were on the beach but apparently were waiting for the right time to get back into the ocean. When a wave came in that was high enough for each sea lion to start floating, it floated down the shore towards the ocean until it was able to swim away. Sometimes it took a few rounds of riding a wave ever so slightly down the shore until the sea lion was completely in the water, and until then, being stuck on the beach essentially unable to move. It was quite comical and interesting to witness this behavior.

Afterwards, we just headed over to the Lone Oak Lodge for our Friday night stay. The lodge had useful amenities, looked well-kept, and provided good value overall. We were pleasantly surprised. The rest of our low-key trip just involved getting ready for my race. While I was running, Priscilla went back to the lodge to do her devos until check-out time, then went to the local Safeway to get us food and to the Starbucks in the Safeway where she did some studying until I texted her to pick me up. We just headed back home afterwards.

I really enjoy obstacle course races because they combine things that I enjoy: running, strength, challenging oneself, and finding ways to do things better. I'm a sucker for race medals and headbands as well. I don't particularly care for getting dirty, but I enjoy the elaborate obstacles and the camaraderie at Tough Mudder, and I enjoy the physicality and technical aspects of Spartan Race. I'm trying to drum up some interest among people at church to do a Tough Mudder or Spartan next year. I'm already thinking of doing the Spartan Trifecta next year, and I intend to train more rigorously for it.

So... things to work on for Spartan:
* Grip strength
* Rope climbing technique
* Spear throwing technique
* Cardio

And of course I still have the Spartan Trail Race next month in Saratoga. I'm super excited.

Now that it's fall, I figured I'd better get to writing an update for the rest of summer. A lot has happened since I wrote my last blog entry!

Workwise, the situation has remained unchanged. I'm still working from home, as Pure has directed all non-essential staff to continue to do so for the rest of the year. Priscilla is still working from home only 2-3 days a week.

In late June/early August, I decided that I may never be able to set foot in my gym again and that we should start purchasing gym equipment. We originally wanted to keep our two spare rooms free in case we decided to rent them out again in the future. So we were thinking of having an outdoor gym, which would involve removing two trees in the backyard and installing a canopy and hard flooring with rubber flooring over it. But eventually we decided to convert our larger spare room into a permanent gym room, meaning we'll never rent out that room again, which we decided was acceptable.

So I bought rubber floor tiles and had a glass company install a 8x6' mirror. I also purchased a weight bench and dumbbell rack on Amazon. I wanted dumbbells because they're the most versatile. The problem was that they were sold out everywhere, and the price gouging for used dumbbells on Craigslist was insane. I'd heard of Rogue Fitness and knew that they were well-regarded in the fitness community but also that their stuff had been considered pricey. But unlike most companies, Rogue had seemingly not increased prices during the pandemic, making their gear competitively priced by today's standards. It took a couple weeks, but I was finally able to order 10-50lb dumbbells, and later 60lb dumbbells and a 35lb kettlebell. Orders were naturally quite backed up, so it took 5 weeks for everything to arrive, but it was awesome once it did.

Unfortunately, now I have a problem with weight distribution. The dumbbells plus the rack weigh about 850 pounds, which is a lot to put in one small area given that we have a crawlspace and a foundation that doesn't seem too strong. We don't have major foundation issues, but we have creaking floorboards everywhere, a sagging floor in many spots, and evidence of minor settling all around. I went into the crawlspace and found that we have 4x6 beams with subfloor planks on top. No joists and no plywood, unlike with modern homes. I did a lot of research about foundations and also had a structural engineer come take a look, and he determined through very generic calculations that I can have no more than about 360-400lbs of weight in that area. I loaded up the rack with 375lbs (including the rack's weight of 75lbs), and a couple weeks later, I noticed some thin cracks on that side of the room where the floorboard was starting to pull away from the wall. I'm not sure if the floorboard was like that before, but I didn't want to take chances and exacerbate the problem, so I took the 40lb dumbbells off the rack. Now the lighter dumbbells are on the rack while the heavier ones are distributed around the edges of the room.

I have the rack centered over two beams, though it's slightly wider than the beam span by a few inches on each side. The structural engineer didn't go into the crawlspace as I had hoped he would, but he gave me a suggestion to install one additional pier per beam to support the weight of the rack. I'm having an actual foundation repair company come next week, and they will actually go into the crawlspace and give me a free estimate. Of course, I'm afraid that any work they do will cost a lot.

But the gym room has been an investment that's already been paying off. I had been feeling down due to not being able to go to the gym for 4 months, let alone losing a lot of my previous strength gains. I had the cheap adjustable dumbbells in the shed, but it wasn't the same. It's been awesome physically and mentally to be able to get a real workout again. We also added an exercise ball as well as a custom metal sign hung on the wall to complete our gym setup. Overall, we spent around $4k on the home gym, and Priscilla's parents graciously paid for most of it (they insisted). But perhaps we may have to shell out another $4k for foundation work - who knows.

Not to be left out, Priscilla decided that we should convert the other spare room into her spa room. Our last renter left a twin bed and some small furniture when she moved out. At the start of July, I purchased a Casper Wave Hybrid mattress, hoping that it would help with Priscilla's back pain. Casper was among the many companies having supply issues, and the mattress shipment kept getting delayed and ultimately took 5 weeks to arrive (and probably would've been longer had I not emailed customer support). The new mattress was pretty pricey at $2,360 (though we got a $109 refund due to the delays), but it's been an invaluable investment since it's helped a lot with Priscilla's back pain when all other mattresses we've tried have failed. Since our previous mattress was only 2.5 years old and still in good condition, we didn't want to just toss it. So Priscilla decided to use it as a backrest between the wall and the twin bed, creating a day bed. Thus, her day bed and spa room was born. It seems like we will never have renters again while we are living here. I guess we're at that stage of life now where we are ok with that.

Our other home improvement projects have been focused on the backyard. I had a handyman come and fix some things around the house including repairing some rotted wood behind the shed door hinges. We finished planting green onions in the planter box and also planted 6 tomato plants that Priscilla's coworker gave her. I installed a 3ft fence around the perimeter of the planter box to keep cats from pooping there (and it has worked!). I pressure washed the patio and also surprised Priscilla one night with string lights hung from the patio cover over our patio table. Afterwards, she bought tiki torches and a gas firepit so that we can enjoy our backyard at night in even more style.

However, we haven't been able to spend a lot of time outdoors since August. The second week of August, we saw a record-breaking heat wave. And then on August 16, a rare thunderstorm event caused a long period of dry lightning that sparked hundreds of fires. We were kept awake most of that night by the frequent sound of thunder; I have never heard so much continuous thunder in my life. Over the next few days, over 12,000 lightning strikes were recorded over Northern California, sparking up to 585 wildfires. In an unprecedented fire season, massive wildfires burned across Southern and Northern California, as well as Oregon and Washington, spreading quickly and wide due to hot weather, dry conditions and high winds. The August Complex, which originated as 38 separate fires, soon became the largest fire in recorded California history. Pretty much the entire West Coast was on fire, and firefighters were stretched thin, and it took a few weeks before any real progress was made. I found myself incessantly checking the AQI on PurpleAir and AIRNow, as most of the time the air outside was very smokey and not ideal for going out, let alone for cardio exercise. At times, the air quality in the Bay Area was the worst in the world. A couple days this month, the sky was red and orange all over the Bay Area, making everything look apocalyptic. With all that's been going on, it certainly felt like it.

Across the three states, more than 5.8 million acres have now burned - a combined area larger than New Jersey. Containment on many of the fires is still ongoing, but firefighters have been working relentlessly and under straining conditions. Finally, a couple weeks ago, the Bay Area started seeing healthy AQI levels again. Since Priscilla and I hadn't been able to travel since the start of the pandemic, we had planned a trip to Yosemite from September 26-29. We booked this a week before the start of the fires. Unfortunately, Yosemite air quality has been greatly impacted by the nearby Creek Fire, and there are a couple smaller fires burning inside of Yosemite itself, so the park was closed for about a week prior to our scheduled trip. We decided that we should go down to LA instead, so we drove down last Saturday and stayed until yesterday. Since Priscilla's parents are older and thus more at risk to COVID, we saw them first for two days, followed by my parents for the latter two days. We also got to have dinner with my brother and his family. It was nice to be able to see family again; we hadn't seen them in person since the start of the pandemic.

While the Bay Area has been seeing healthier air than LA as of late, that's now changed thanks to the Glass Fire in Napa and Sonoma which started on Sunday. Air quality all around the bay is now back in the "unhealthy" range. People are getting fire fatigue, and those having to evacuate and go to shelters have the added danger of exposure to the virus in the middle of this pandemic. Things could be worse, but they have not been great. And weather conditions and wildfires are probably just going to get more extreme with time thanks to global warming. In all of this, while the future can look bleak and hopeless, we as Christians must remember that while we are stewards of this world and its resources, that ultimately man is sinful and creation is fallen, and our hope must be in our Creator who will redeem all things.

This past Saturday I did Terrain Race with Tracy at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds in San Jose. This was where Priscilla and I did the Bubble Run last month. I was originally supposed to do Terrain Race with a coworker, but he later had plans to be out of town, so he let me have his registration. I normally wouldn't sign up for an easy event like this, but it cost only $17.09. It was touted as "free," but tacked on were mandatory insurance, a nominal donation to charity, and tax. Still quite a bargain compared to Tough Mudder or Spartan Race.

The pre-race bib pickup was last Friday at Sports Basement in Sunnyvale. It was supposed to be from 10am - 8pm, but I got there around 9:50am to try to beat the crowds. When I picked up our packets for the Bubble Run, there were maybe 200 people in line ahead of me and I waited for over an hour. I was determined to not make the same mistake with Terrain Race. Despite getting there early, there were still 50 or so people ahead of me, and it looked like the line was already moving before the announced start time. A note for the future.

On race day, we were in the first wave which started at 7:30am. This was the only free wave remaining when I signed up; otherwise I would've chosen a later one. So I woke up at 5:30, had a quick breakfast, Tracy came over to my place, and we started driving over at 6:30. We parked on the street nearby in order to avoid the $10 parking fee. We were one of the first cars to park on that street, and I soon found out that there was no additional checkin since we already had our bibs. So we had half an hour to kill before our wave started. The event email said to bring a signed waiver, but nobody was collecting those. And security was so lax that start times were not enforced. Pretty much anybody could just get in the start area and run with any wave!

The course was supposed to be 5k, but it felt a little short and my GPS measured 4.5k. We ended up walking most of the course because Tracy is not a runner. To be fair, I did spring Terrain Race on her at the last minute. She wants to do Spartan Race with some church people in November, so hopefully she'll train for that.

The obstacles on the course included 4ft walls, 6ft walls, giant tire flipping, tire on rope pulling, concrete block on chain dragging, sandbag carry, balance beams, hay bales, pipe crawl, and a cargo net crawl through a pool of mud. The cargo net crawl was the second-to-last obstacle and got everybody really muddy. A video from a couple years ago showed monkey bars and other obstacles that required upper-body strength, so I was saddened to not see any of those on the course.

The event was more enjoyable than not, but I would've liked more challenging obstacles. I don't think I'd do Terrain Race again. Even though it was dirt cheap, it's not worth the overhead of getting dirty. I think I'll stick to Tough Mudder and Spartan Race, though I'm still not planning on doing another Tough Mudder unless somebody else wants me to go with them. Running it solo isn't much fun. I'm glad I at least had a partner in crime to do Terrain Race with.

Yesterday I did my third Tough Mudder, this time in Lake Elsinore. I opted for this one after the March SoCal event was cancelled due to excessive rain and mud (the irony).

So Friday night, we flew down to Santa Ana/Irvine, got our rental car, met up with Raymond at Pokenoya, walked around the Orange County Great Park (we wanted to get on the hot air balloon but it was shut down early due to wind conditions), and drove to our hotel in Lake Elsinore. The hotel was pretty ghetto but we chose it because it was 0.8 miles from the Lake Elsinore Diamond where the event was. So the next day, Priscilla just drove me down the street and dropped me off right at the venue.

After the event (which I'll elaborate on in a bit), we drove back to Irvine and checked into the Hilton by the airport. In the evening, Raymond picked us up and we went to Aaron and Lauren's place to hang out with them. But we didn't see the baby since she'd already gone to sleep. And finally on Sunday, we went to church at the Saddleback Irvine South location (we walked there from our hotel) before flying home. It was a pretty eventful weekend, so we hit the hay early.

So back to the SoCal Tough Mudder. Checkin and bag drop were pretty quick, though that was perhaps because I had an earlier wave time (9:00) and got there at 8:20, so it hadn't gotten too crowded yet. The format was pretty similar to the NorCal event a month ago, though the Full route here didn't involve doing two laps and repeating some obstacles. Unlike my previous two times, I ran this one solo (hard to find people crazy enough to sign up with me, especially if it involves travel). It was definitely more fun with a team, but since I was able to set my own pace, I chose to run most of the way and finished in just over 2.5 hours. But my legs started cramping at mile 8, and I'm not sure if that was due to the tight compression socks that I was wearing. On the positive side, the socks did prevent a lot of (though not all) grit from getting in.

There were 21 obstacles on the Full route. Like with NorCal, the first obstacle was Kiss of Mud 2.0, ensuring that everyone started off with their entire frontside covered with mud. On Hero Carry, I paired up with a big guy and it was challenging carrying him on my back, mostly because his damp legs (from the previous obstacle) kept slipping from my hands. So he started carrying me about 20 feet before the switch point.

Blockness Monster was again a lot of fun, though most people didn't turn around and grab the block on their way down, which reduced throughput by a lot. SoCal had one obstacle I've never done - Tower of Tire, where people had to climb over a wall made of giant tires stacked three layers high. Pretty easy.

Mud Mile 2.0 was easier than it was at NorCal. Most people were able to get over the first two sections without help. The remaining sections required minimal help - just one person giving one hand from above.

Having had experience from a month ago, I breezed through Kong Infinity and Funky Monkey, though my technique still could use work. Cage Crawl was again a bit vexing, but I was doing ok until near the end, when the cage got pretty close to the water and then my face had nowhere to go but under the water. I then started freaking out and pulled myself through as fast as possible while getting water up my nose and down my throat. I can see how this could be a dangerous obstacle - I honestly wonder if anybody's come close to drowning.

On the next obstacle, Just the Tip, I got further than I did at NorCal, making it past the knobs and pegs in the middle. But on the latter half, it was too painful to keep holding onto the wood edge, so I bailed. I actually ended up losing some skin on my palm here. The guy after me completed this obstacle pretty easily, and he said that the trick was to keep the arms hanging loose instead of doing the cat grip that I was doing. In keeping the arms loose, the grip would probably also be relaxed and rely mainly on the tip of the fingers, which explains the name of the obstacle.

Arctic Enema was pretty cold, but I really felt it after getting out. That's when the shock wears off, I guess. And speaking of shocks, Electroshock Therapy was the next obstacle. I tried to carefully weave through the wires but still got hit twice in the back. I crouched to get under some of the wires, and the announcer compared me to a baby bird crouching in a nest and said that somebody should come and put regurgitated food into my mouth. I think this was the same announcer who in 2014 commented about me making sweet love to the mud! At least I didn't crawl through the mud on all fours this time.

Immediately afterwards was the final obstacle, Happy Ending. People were really good about forming human ladders and didn't seem to have the trouble that people were having at NorCal. I was able to get up pretty quickly thanks to some heroes at the bottom. And with that, upon crossing the finish line, my third Tough Mudder was complete.

I had fun, and it was great to see everybody tackling the obstacles and giving it their all. But I'm probably not going to sign up for another one unless somebody asks me to run with them. I don't really enjoy getting dirty, the overhead of getting to the events is a bit much, and the nature of the obstacles lend themselves to completing them with people you know. I do still enjoy the obstacles and the athleticism, and I'd like to try Spartan Race, which is intended to be more individualistic and competitive. But that will have to wait since I have an ankle injury, wrist pain and a GI condition that I'm trying to recover from. My biggest obstacle, apparently, really is myself. But these are hurdles, and hurdles are meant to be conquered.

Warning: minor Tough Mudder spoilers ahead!

Yesterday I ran my second Tough Mudder, this time at the Sonoma Raceway, an hour and 45 minutes from home. I and two others from Pure signed up and were supposed to do it last year, but that event was cancelled due to the Sonoma wildfires. Fortunately, the skies were clear this year for the rescheduled NorCal event.

Our start time was 10:00, but despite pulling into the parking lot an hour early, we ended up going out in the 10:45 wave due to insane wait times, particularly a 45-minute wait to get checked in at Mudder Village. The checkin process was pretty slow and inefficient, and there were not enough helpers. It took another 15-20 minutes to get our bag checked in. At least there were enough porta-potties at the village for there to be no wait there.

Once on the course though, everything was great. There were well-stocked water stations (half with food) every couple miles. The obstacles were excellent and the wait times at each were minimal. And the camaraderie was amazing.

When I did my first TM in 2014, there was only one type of event, which is now called the Full. Now, there's also a Half and a 5k that overlaps with the Full event. It's TM's way of broadening the appeal and reaching those who may not want to do the full distance or set of obstacles (e.g. no Arctic Enema or Electroshock Therapy on the 5k and Half). Our group did the Full (I wouldn't settle for less). There are also harder event types that are held in different locations, but we're not crazy enough to do those, yet.

The format for the Full has changed. It involved doing two laps around: first a 6-mile loop, then a shorter 4-mile loop. Because of this, 4 of the initial obstacles were encountered twice. There were 20 unique obstacles on the Full route.

After an initial jog up and down a hill, the first obstacle was the Kiss of Mud 2.0, where you crawl on your belly under barbed wire through mud. Great way to start things off - with your frontside completely covered in brown!

The Mud Mile 2.0 was a little annoying. You had to slide down into a 6-foot trench filled with muddy water and get help up onto the next section. The way the walls were constructed, you couldn't really get a good grip on the walls yourself. So usually this would involve at least two people helping you from above, below, or both. You had to do around 8 of these. I skinned both my arms pretty good on this obstacle, and it was the sole obstacle our group decided to bypass on lap 2.

Block Ness Monster was the most fun. This involved teamwork but also some basic physics. Most people however did not turn around and grab the block on their way down; it would've allowed more people to get over faster if they did.

Last time, I didn't have much trouble with Cage Crawl, but this time, my head dipped below the water early on and I got water up my nose. I then started getting anxious and ended up swallowing some of the water a couple times (hope it was sanitary). I guess the trick here is to be relaxed and to realize that you have enough room to keep your head above the water without your face rubbing against the cage.

Berlin Walls was easier this time. The three of us were able to get on the step at the bottom and jump up and grab the top of the wall on our own. Last time, I needed help reaching the top. I think the step has been made bigger so that you can have both feet firmly planted on it, which wasn't the case last time.

Happy Ending was by far the obstacle requiring the most teamwork and coordination, and as a result, was the most rewarding. It involves forming a human support structure to allow people to climb up a smooth 40-degree wall. In some videos, you can see ropes or horizontal planks halfway up the wall, which makes it a lot easier to get up. Ours had none of these. So it took a lot of effort to form a chain to get people up, and man were things chaotic. One person would have to stand on a narrow ledge at the base of the wall, then another on his shoulders, then a third on his. A fourth person would be at the bottom supporting the first person's feet, which otherwise were likely to slip and cause the entire human ladder to come crashing down. Finally, the ladder would be long enough for one person at a time to climb up to the reaching arms above. In practice, things were not so orderly. I started out holding a guy's feet, but then they told me to climb up, but the ladder started collapsing before I could get high enough, so then I ended up being part of the ladder for a while. Finally, people gave me the chance to go up again, and when I was standing on top of a 2-person ladder, a guy above who was dangling down, his legs held onto by others, was able to grab my hands to pull me up. Talk about teamwork!

Arctic Enema didn't feel too bad when I first got in, but when I dunked my head under the water was when I really felt the chill. Still, this was pretty manageable.

On Electroshock Therapy, I got shocked in the middle of the back when going through the first or second row of wires. It felt like a rubber band snapping against my skin, but it probably would've been worse if the wire had touched my bare skin. I rolled over the hay bale in the middle and then crawled the rest of the way, so I didn't get shocked again. Next time I'm going to try to force myself to just run through quickly. It seems more mental than anything else.

On Just the Tip, I did fine climbing along the wood edge, but as soon as I tried to grab a round knob halfway through, I didn't have enough grip and bailed. I'd been wearing gloves up to this point, thinking that they would help during the climbing obstacles, but all they did was get muddy and slippery.

So on Funky Monkey and Kong Infinity, I did it without the gloves and got all the way across on both. These were pretty cool - it was nice to see that those obstacles got a big facelift since last time.

Everest 2.0 was the final obstacle. Despite the rounded lip that's been added, most people were able to get up on the first try as they grabbed onto the hands above. I just ran hard towards the wall, and when I felt myself losing speed due to the curve, I made myself run even harder, so I think I may have gotten my hands on the rounded lip, but of course I had nothing to really grab onto, so the people up there pulled me up all the same. Tough Mudder complete!

Special mention to some very awesome people we met on the course. The first was a guy decked out not in athletic wear, but in a suit and tie. He was also wearing a black 25x headband. Respect! We also ran into some guys carrying a large crash pad the size of a twin mattress. They were also doing the Full and would be rewarded with money for charity for getting the thing to the finish line. Really taking that team building to the next level!

At the finish line, I was sad to see that there weren't people crowning Mudders with headbands. I guess it would get too hectic given that each event type has its own headband, but it could still be done. Instead, there was a table with event headbands and all the different Legionnaire headbands that were out for taking on the honor system. There was a staffer there, but she wasn't looking people up on a list. Also, my headband just says "Tough Mudder Full," no longer showing the year. Makes it a little less fun to collect them. The finisher T-shirt (now blue instead of black) does still show the year.

Compared to last time, the showers were not freezing cold and there were changing tents. It was nice to be able to change into fresh clothes immediately after hosing off. I would've liked to change my mud-water-infused underwear, but I didn't have a towel and didn't want to bare it all in the tent I was sharing with several other guys, so I opted to just change my pants and shirt. I changed my socks and shoes when I got back to the car, and having paper towels on hand was very useful to wipe off my feet before putting on fresh socks.

I had a lot of fun and was glad to run with my coworkers. I trained more this time around, but even without that, this event seemed a little easier than the one we did in 2014 (e.g. there's now just one obstacle with electric shocks instead of three). The obstacles are more complex than some of the more basic ones we did before. Tough Mudder definitely seems to have gotten more mainstream and commercial since 2014, but as far as I know, they still rely on volunteers for staffing. Given that the company had over $100 million in revenue in 2016, perhaps it's time to start hiring people to ensure an adequate level of staffing for the larger number of participants it's allowing into its events.

My Tough Mudder adventure will continue next month as I do the SoCal event in Lake Elsinore.

In keeping up with my madness, and for her own health, Priscilla has been setting a fitness goal for the last couple years. Last year it was to do 10,000 steps every day. This year it was to do 40 hikes.

I initially thought that 40 hikes would be difficult to do, but we powered through and were always ahead of schedule. Our last hike was last Friday at Big Basin, and I enjoyed it especially because of the waterfalls, which none of the other places we went to had (unless you count Barton Creek Greenbelt which had small ones).

The places we hiked were:

1. The Dish
2. The Dish
3. Picchetti Ranch
4. The Dish
5. Monte Bello
6. The Dish
7. Los Gatos Creek Trail
8. Monte Bello
9. Los Trancos
10. Castle Rock
11. Fremont Older
12. Los Gatos Creek Trail
13. Mission Peak
14. The Dish
15. Calero County Park
16. Villa Montalvo
17. Muir Woods
18. Wahkeena to Multnomah Falls
19. Stevens Creek County Park
20. Rancho San Antonio
21. Cliffs of Moher (Ireland)
22. Mt Madonna
23. Purisima Creek
24. Coyote Lake
25. Vasona Lake
26. Joseph D Grant
27. Monte Bello
28. Purisima Creek
29. Redwood Christian Park
30. Glen Canyon Park and Twin Peaks
31. Coyote Lake
32. Coyote Lake
33. Saratoga Gap and Upper Stevens Creek
34. Upper Stevens Creek and Long Ridge
35. Barton Creek Greenbelt (Texas)
36. St. Joseph's Hill
37. Griffith Park
38. Castle Rock
39. Topanga State Park
40. Big Basin

Most of the hikes were naturally in the Bay Area. We went to The Dish five times, the most of any place. I don't enjoy that hike as much as other places, but we went there during rainy days (which there were a lot of this year) because it's paved. 7 of the hikes were to fulfill the Pix in Parks Challenge put on by the Santa Clara Department of Parks and Recreation, where the reward was a free shirt. A couple of the hikes were done by Priscilla with other people (not me), but I made up for it because I went to a few places on my own.

Usually on our hikes, we would start together but I would soon go off running on my own, since she likes to go at a relaxed pace while I like to do trail running. I would sometimes run ahead and then run back to tell her which path to take at the next fork. Or if it was a place we were more familiar with, I'd go run a longer route on my own and then try to meet up with her at the end. This allowed us to both get what we felt was a good workout for ourselves, and we only ever lost each other once (at Castle Rock, lesson learned there).

Her goal for 2018 is 10,000 steps again, but I'm sure that we'll still find fun places to go!

Another year has unceremoniously come and gone, and while 2016 was a prodigious year for us in terms of activity, the same cannot be said of my blogging habits.

So for the benefit of posterity (or, more likely, my future self), here are the highlights from 2016.

At the end of April, Priscilla and I went up to SF to celebrate our anniversary. We got free entry to the California Academy of Sciences, de Young and the Exploratorium, courtesy of our friends' Chase Private Client card. We stayed a night at the Grand Hyatt for free, courtesy of Priscilla's credit card rewards. And we rode Uber and Lyft for free due to a signup promotion. Not a bad deal for an anniversary weekend!

At the beginning of June, we went to Carmel to celebrate our birthdays. We hiked Point Lobos and stayed a night at the Hyatt Carmel Highlands, again for free. We spent some time exploring Fisherman's Wharf the next day before returning home.

In mid-June, Sarah got married, so we drove down to LA and got to spend some time with family. Sarah got married at Bel Air Presbyterian Church, which has a really beautiful building and campus. I got carpal tunnel that weekend, presumably triggered by the driving, but that cleared up after a couple weeks of wearing a brace and trying to not type much. The joys of getting old.

Our all-church retreat was at Redwood Christian Park in August. It was about the same as the last time we were there, except Priscilla and I were in a family cabin this time instead of in a suite. We hiked to the cross in the nearby hills, and even got to do rock climbing this time around. The rock climbing was difficult and I didn't see anybody make it to the top of the "medium" difficulty route. Our retreat speaker was Pastor Alton from Berean Mission Church, and his messages encouraged us to live as a steward, a disciple-maker, a child of God, and a pursuer of Christ.

After the retreat, when trying to look for productive things to fill my time with, I came across a fitness mobile game called "Zombies, Run!". Definitely more productive than sinking all my time into an MMORPG. I played it for a month and ultimately quit due to the game always restarting when being run in the background, but during that time I bought some gear for running including bluetooth headphones for listening to music. In October, I bought a heart rate monitor to use with Strava, as well as a yearly subscription of Strava Premium. I really like Strava's Beacon feature, which allows me to share my real-time location data with Priscilla, and the Heatmap, which shows my running and cycling activity as a colored heatmap. I've also been more motivated to rack up running badges on Strava, which are admittedly easier to get than cycling badges. Apparently, badges and points, even if they are virtual, are the key to my heart.

So in trying to maximize my Strava achievements, I've been trying to do more runs and hikes. In 2016, I went on a total of 29 hikes; Priscilla a couple times fewer. My favorite hike this year was Mount Diablo in September. The panoramic views from the top were amazing. I went with Priscilla and Tracy and we did a 15-mile hike, and they were pretty tired most of the way up, but we slogged through it and I later designed die-cast medals for them for making it to the top.

We drove down to LA for both the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Both were a good time of getting together with family and friends. We hiked with Victor and Sally during the Thanksgiving break, and ate with my Van Nuys friends and hung out with Raymond during the Christmas break.

During the Thanksgiving weekend, I bought new phones for myself and Priscilla. I got us both the ZTE Axon 7 Mini which, despite the name, is quite a large phone. This phone is better than our old ones in nearly every way, and we've enjoyed no longer having to deal with the frustrations of having a cheap smartphone.

During the rest of the holiday leading up to and following New Year's, I took the time to get housework done and look for contractors to help overhaul our front yard. I'd like to rip out the neglected plants we have and put in drip irrigation so that I can plant something that will be low-maintenance. With any luck, and a bit of money, we will have a nice looking front yard yet.

I have no doubt that the new year will be exciting and productive in its own capacity, but I'm hoping that it will be equally as restful. There is a saying that in the beginning of your life when you are young, you have energy and time, but no money. Then in the middle of your life, you have money and energy, but no time. Finally, towards the end of your life when you are old, you have time and money, but no energy. Well I'm clearly in the middle of my (anticipated) life, as I wish there were more hours in the day to do everything that needs to be done. I guess what I need is more downtime!

After a couple months of sporadic training, it came time yesterday for Alex, Judy, Daniel, Sandra and me to do our 82 mile Waves to Wine ride with Bike MS!

Participants had the choice between 40, 82 and 104 miles from Daly City to Rohnert Park. In order to be closer to the starting point, Priscilla and I stayed Friday night at a hotel in South San Francisco, while the rest of the team made their way up from South Bay Saturday morning. We met up around 6:45am and rode out at 7:30. The ride lasted 9.5 hours which included 3 hours of breaks. There were 6 rest stops along the way, including one for lunch.

It was awesome that three meals were provided: a light bagel breakfast was served at the start, sandwiches were for lunch (I had turkey), and dinner including pesto penne and chicken was served at the finish. Water, energy snacks (I probably had at least 10 snacks over the course of the day) and porta-potties were abundant at each rest stop. Volunteers scattered along the way were extremely encouraging in cheering riders on and helped keep everyone's energy up.

Our group seemed to be slower than most riders, so over the course of the ride we fell towards the rear of the crowd. This meant the rest stops and ride itself weren't as crowded for us. We made it across the finish line 15 minutes before the 5pm deadline.

So from Daly City, we made our way up along the SF coast and through residential areas, across the Golden Gate Bridge, through Sausalito, then onto Highway 1 (which spanned 46 miles of the total trip) through Point Reyes and Tomales Bay, then finally along rural roads up to the finish line. Priscilla, Christine and Jessica were doing wine tasting in Napa and Sonoma during this time and met us in Rohnert Park after we'd crossed the finish line. Sandra's boyfriend, Daniel's parents and James and Charlotte were also there to give people a lift home.

It was a lot of fun, and over twice the furthest distance that we've done during practices, and I'm glad we all made it. Alex and Daniel separately had falls at low speeds but weren't hurt. Towards the latter half of the ride, they did have trouble keeping up with the girls, though. The girls rock!

Safety felt like a big issue, namely the lack of bike lanes on Highway 1 (which can't really be helped) and having to cross a busy two-lane road with traffic going at highway speeds at the end of the ride unassisted. There were police in SF and Sausalito to help direct traffic; after that I didn't see any police, just volunteers who were doing the same. A couple more volunteers placed at key points to direct traffic would've been appreciated.

The event was challenging, mainly in terms of stamina, but nothing that a steady pace and frequent breaks couldn't conquer. The next big ride, I hope, we can do a century!

So would I do this event again? The ride itself was fun and the event was overall well-coordinated, but it was a bit out of the way and I feel bad that people had to drive two hours from South Bay to pick us up. So... maybe? Perhaps the five of us can do a century ride closer to home - I think we could pull it off with the right determination!

When Aaron and my dad came up last month, Aaron brought up a new road bike I'd asked him to order for me, a white Specialized Roubaix SL4 Elite 105, MSRP $2,600, which he was able to get from the bike shop he worked at for $1,600 including tax.

Since then according to Strava, I've put over 100 miles on it, mainly commuting 8.5 miles each way to work. After moving to our new house, the commute was too tiring to do on my Crosstrail so I'd only done it once, on Bike to Work Day. But with the new road bike, the commute is so much more comfortable. Whereas hitting 20mph on the Crosstrail took quite a bit of effort, on the Roubaix I can do it with relative ease.

I've gone riding with co-workers to Philz twice, and I'm trying to spearhead semi-regular afternoon cycling rides at work. This past weekend I biked with Alex on a good deal of the Stanford Loop, except instead of starting from Stanford, we started from his place in Mountain View and took Foothill Expressway to get to Arastradero Road. The whole ride was 24 miles and my first real ride with hills. Fun!

The next thing to do will probably be upgrading the stock platform pedals; those are the only things that feel cheap on this bike. I swapped the hard saddle with the more comfortable one from my Crosstrail, which helps alleviate the pain on my sit bones from prolonged rides. Once I get used to wearing my new pair of bike shorts (Pearl Izumi from Amazon), I may put the original saddle back. I also feel soreness in the shoulders after prolonged rides; I haven't figured out the cause yet, but a co-worker suggested replacing the stem.

Right now, perhaps due to the new cables stretching, my shifting has gotten sloppy. Interestingly, I've never had this problem with my Crosstrail; it still shifts fine after I've put maybe 1,000 miles on it. Anyway, learning how to adjust the shifting on the Roubaix will be good to add to my repertoire of experience.

Yesterday, a team of five from Pure made our way over to Diablo Grande in Patterson to participate in the exhilarating challenge of Tough Mudder. Our team name: Dirty Puritans. Originally we had 13 people sign up, only to have most of them flake. Their loss!

The event was quite fun, but I would've gotten way more fun out of it had I been with my team the whole time. Sadly, a small injury from last week came back and caused more pain in my knee as the event went on. At mile 3, I told my teammates to go on without me because it hurt to run, and I was holding them up too much. Making it down hills started getting tough, and I had to resort to walking down backwards to avoid landing hard on my knee. My team ended up finishing an hour before I did but was gracious about waiting for me.

A quarter mile in from the start, even before the first obstacle, we had to cross a swampy river. So much for running in dry shoes!

The obstacles on the course were as follows (with three additional obstacles available for Legionnaires only):

1. Glory Blades: A 6ft wall, sloped downward, so once you got over the top, you just had to slide down. I asked for a boost, though I probably could've made it over without one.
2. Warrior Carry: An athletic girl and I took turns carrying each other 100 feet up the hill. Not too bad; she was probably only 110 pounds or so.
3. Cage Crawl: Floating on our backs, we had to make it across a pool of water with a chain-link fence overhead. Somewhat relaxing, but at times it felt like I was short on vertical room.
4. Pitfall: Had to duck under a beam with electrified wires hanging down. There was enough space between wires for me to avoid getting shocked, but one of our team members wasn't so lucky.
5. Killa Gorilla: Had to go up and down the steep face of the hill a couple times. Crouching on all fours like a gorilla helped.
6. Mud Mayhem: Crossing over wet, muddy trenches. Not too much to this obstacle, but it sucked getting lots of little rocks in my shoes.
7. Walk the Plank: Climbed up the face of a 12ft tall platform and jumped into the water below. It helped that there were three lines of people jumping, with a staffer having one person from each line go on the count of 3. Scared of heights? Too bad. Jump, and let gravity do the rest.
8. Arctic Enema: The least favorite of many, but I didn't think this one was that bad. Perhaps the compression shirt and pants I was wearing helped me from feeling too cold. Getting that sudden chill on the way out was probably the worst part.
9. Ladder to Hell: Climbed up a series of rungs spaced about 5 feet apart, then back down the other side. This was pretty easy for me.
10. Funky Monkey: Had to climb up monkey bars first angled going up, then going down. Halfway on the way up, I reached for a bar that wasn't there and plunged into the pool of water below.
11. Balls to the Wall: Had to climb over a tall wall using a rope with knots spaced 6 feet apart. This rope was very slippery and I almost didn't make it up, but when I got enough altitude, I grabbed onto the top of the wall and pulled myself over.
12. Cliffhanger: I don't particularly recall this, but looking at Youtube videos from other events, it looks like this was just going up a steep muddy slope. I sort of recall doing something resembling this. I don't think it was that bad.
13. Devil's Beard: Had to crawl under a long, heavy net, on a downward incline. Would've been easier doing it with more people, but since there were only a couple people running this when I was, it was harder on us to lift the net.
14. Kiss of Mud: Crawling through mud with barbed wire overhead. A great way to get one's frontside completely muddy, and for me to lose my paper bib that I should've attached to my backside, not my frontside.
15. Hold Your Wood: People had the option of carrying an individual block of wood (50 pounds?) or to carry a longer log. I carried a log with two other guys - it was probably a good 150 pounds.
16. Berlin Walls: Two 8ft walls. I had help from members of another team getting over. Meanwhile, two shirtless Chinese guys jumped up, grabbed the top of the wall, and effortlessly lifted themselves over. Dang.
17. Soggy Bottom: Fording another wide muddy river. I learned my lesson from the first one and tried to keep my shoes angled downward so as to not get stuck in the mud as much.
18. Pole Dancer: Using your arms, make your way over a pool of water using two poles that are first angled downward, then upward. I was able to do most of this without landing in the pool on my feet, but at the end I strained my calf reaching out for the edge with my foot. Not good.
19. Quagmire: Just running over a couple mounds of mud with shallow muddy water in the middle.
20. Prairie Dog: Going through a downward tube. Pretty much just slid on my bum as I saw others doing.
21. Everest: A lot of fun, but seemed a little easy. Everybody seemed to make it up in one or two tries. I was able to run up and grab onto the edge of the platform but didn't have a very good grip to pull myself up. The good people at the top helped pull me up.
22. Electroshock Therapy: The emcee from the start was now here at the finish, encouraging people to run through this obstacle and take the shocks, while lots of crowd members were watching in amusement. I took the easy way out and crawled, very slowly, under the wires and got completely muddy from face to toe. The emcee had something funny to say about me taking my sweet time to make love to the mud, and that girls should get my number and give me a call.

The event overall was well-run with lots of volunteers on the course. It was good to see staff at each obstacle and to have six water stations, three of which provided food. I missed my cup of Dos Equis at the end and when I tried to go back for it later, the lady denied me re-entry (despite still having my wristband), which really sucked. At least I got my finisher t-shirt, though.

Overall, I had a blast and just wish that my leg didn't act up so that I could've run with my team. Guess I'll have to do more hill training in preparation for my next Tough Mudder!

On January 1, 2013, Priscilla and I did the unthinkable. We hiked Mission Peak in Fremont! Originally we weren't going to even think about Mission Peak till maybe April, but Priscilla one day was all gung-ho and suggested doing something difficult on New Year's Day. I quickly got some RBF people in on the fun, so there was no way Priscilla could back out!

It ended up being the two of us, Judy and her friend Grace, Joe, and Nicole and her mom Nancy. Apparently a lot of other people had the same idea, because parking was very difficult to find in the small lot and on the nearby residential streets! We finally found a spot 5 minute's walk from the lot.

The 2000 foot ascent over 3 miles took about two hours to complete. It was cold and very windy, especially at the top, which I didn't expect. Judy ended up getting sick afterward, which I felt bad about, but she seemed better the next time we saw her. We had a lot of fun getting to know everybody better, and conquering the peak in celebration of the new year!

That Saturday, four days later, Priscilla and I hit up another preserve: Monte Bello OSP in Los Altos. It was also unexpectedly windy, but only near the top of the canyon. We hiked to the summit of Black Mountain, which turned out to be a bit of a letdown, but overall it was a nice hike with a cool view of the tree-filled canyon.

And this past Saturday, the 12th, Priscilla and I hiked in Picchetti Ranch OSP in Cupertino. Man, we're on a roll! Fearing the worst, Priscilla dressed in multiple layers, only to find that it wasn't too windy or cold here. The hike wasn't too difficult, and Picchetti (which has its own winery by the same name) is relatively small, so we continued on the trail that took us into Stevens Creek County Park. We ended up hiking just over 4 miles - not great, but we were in a hurry to get to...

Game day! My officemate Lisa arranged a game day/night with some friends at one person's house in San Jose. There must've been at least 30 games that different people brought. We had 9 people, so we played different games with people alternating between two groups.

I finally got to play San Juan (which we were supposed to play the last couple game nights, but there were always so many other interesting-looking games). I also played Wise and Otherwise, and four rounds of Boggle at the end of the night after pizza. What a fun day this was, and what an interesting year it's been so far!

What else have we done? I went to my first ever baby shower on the 6th, in celebration of Justin and Vicky's soon-to-be first child! Priscilla and I saw The Lion King at the Orpheum Theatre in SF, we had dinner with my uncle and aunt, and we've both been busy looking for new jobs. I had my second on-site interview in five years (first in two years) and have been studying like mad. Hopefully we'll stay productive and be able to say at the end of 2013 that we had an awesome year of learning, growing and serving.

Priscilla's been needing a bike of her own, so yesterday, being the loving husband that I am, I took her to Walt's Cycle in Sunnyvale to let her pick one out. We decided on a $400 Trek 7000, a 21-speed hybrid. It's got grip shifters and a lower-end Shimano derailleur, which is not unusual for a bike in the lower price range, but it feels solid enough, and Priscilla definitely values comfort over performance. Her model is indeed a comfort bike with its semi-padded seat, step-through frame, angle-adjustable stem and overall upright riding posture. Priscilla wants to bike to work and to the grocery store, so I've been getting accessories on Amazon to put on her bike so that she can haul stuff.

Since our place is small, we can only fit two bikes against the wall. So today we visited my uncle (and of course he cooked more awesome food for us) and returned the Huffy bike he let me borrow four years ago. He says he's going to start riding it (the reason he let me borrow it was because he hadn't ridden it much and it was sitting in the backyard gathering rust), so I told my aunt to hold him to it. Knowing her, she certainly will.

Today was my fifth time at Planet Granite. I went with Amy, Samantha and her co-worker Kevin, and Pavlina and her co-workers Jeanne and Christina. Jeanne went off on her own somewhere, and I was climbing for a while with a regular, Tyler, who knew most of the people in my group. I was tired after completing my first climb, a 5.10a, so I belayed a few times for Tyler and watched in awe as he made even the most difficult climbs look like cake. He was doing one climb right after another, so my muscles didn't get a rest which wasn't so great. I failed the next 5.10b and 5.10a due to fatigue.

After that, our group got mixed up so I was climbing with Samantha, Amy and Kevin at a more leisurely pace. I did a short 5.9 and 5.7 and we ended with most of us doing a 5.10a.

I'm definitely seeing myself improve. I attempted more climbs than last time, finished two 5.10a's instead of one, and my arms don't feel as sore as they did last time. I'll be happy if next time I complete that 5.10b!

San Jose Bike Party was supposed to have a third test ride tonight, but it was cancelled because everything was worked out during the first two rides. The guy who sends out the SJBP emails also blogs regularly about bike events all around the Bay, and through his blog I found out about Modern Ohlone, a ride that happens yearly. They were doing a 20-mile test ride in Sunnyvale tonight, so I figured I'd join and do a ride tonight after all.

I went expecting actual Ohlone people, but the ride was merely named in honor of them, not actually consisting of any. About 17 people showed up, I was able to talk to most of them, and some told me about various rides that are popping up all around the Bay that probably amount to something going on nearly every night.

We had rest areas at Baylands Park, a hill next to the SMART Station that covers what used to be a landfill (nice views though), and atop the parking structure at the Sunnyvale Caltrain Station. There was a lot of pot smoking at each rest area, which is cool if that's peoples' thing, but the smoke bothered me. The ride was also cut several miles short because people were getting tired and wanted to hit up a bar. Again, that's cool, but I'd prefer to ride the whole thing out with minimal stops.

The most awesome set of wheels was a recumbent trike belonging to a guy named Cosmo. He had a windshield attached to it decorated with EL lights, headlight fixtures, a phone mount, and a sound system with amp powered by a 120V battery.

I like the smaller rides more than those with thousands of people. I can get to know everybody when the ride is small, things don't get hectic on the streets, and people are less inclined to ride/act like idiots, because if they do, everybody in the group will know.

Priscilla bought plane tickets to visit me this weekend (again from the previous Southwest sale), and after picking her up early Saturday morning, we joined some church friends at Planet Granite for some fun and strenuous climbing.

It was her second time climbing indoors, the first time being at a place that had a difficult and limited selection. She completed a 5.6 and a 5.8, better than I did my second time. I completed a 5.8, 5.10a and made it halfway up a 5.10b. The last climb was pretty technical and required switching between the side and the front of the wall and strategically using cracks. I couldn't find a handhold halfway up and I was dead tired by then, so I bailed. I will get it next time!

Afterwards a few of us went to Sunny Bowl in Mountain View at my suggestion for some bibimbap. I've been there a few times but it was everybody else's first time; everybody seemed to like their food. The place actually moved a couple doors down into a much larger and nicer-looking space. They added stone pot to the menu and kept the original bibimbap prices the same, but sadly they no longer serve free frozen yogurt for dessert.

Priscilla and I did plenty of home cooking as well. I bought turkey burger patties, salmon and a bunch of other stuff from Sprouts. Saturday night we cooked salmon in the microwave and had salad. The salmon didn't come out too bad. Sunday night we grilled the remaining salmon and turkey burgers with my grill pan. The burgers were tasty and can be a healthier substitute for beef. The salmon came out pretty good- grilling it has the advantage that each side gets cooked while the center remains slightly uncooked.

Priscilla also brought pasta and Soyaki chicken up with her, and we had some when we went to my office to work and work out. We got a lot of studying/work done this weekend. She's studying for her online accounting class, and I figured out the root cause of an intricate problem that I've been working on for four weeks. I'm glad that we can help each other get so much done!

After his May 21 rapture prediction failed, professional nutcase Harold Camping decided that May 21 was actually a silent judgment day, and the real rapture would occur on October 21. Well it turns out he was right. The rapture commenced at 8pm PST, as wheels hit the streets in San Jose Bike Party's 4th anniversary ride.

This month's theme was appropriately named "The Rapture" and riders were encouraged to show up as angels or devils. In honor of the 4th anniversary, there were four start locations: Santana Row (northwest), Berryessa Theaters (northeast), Campbell Community Center (southwest) and Eastridge Mall (southeast), all converging at the first regroup in downtown San Jose. Riders from all corners of San Jose, being raptured up into a great multitude to rule the streets for a night. Genius, if you ask me.

According to the Bike Party website, there were over 4,100 riders in attendance. The first regroup was in the parking lot of the Children's Museum and it was packed full. There were the usual Bay Area food trucks present, amateur fireworks, and a guy putting on a fire dancing show.

Thankfully I didn't see any motorized bicycles this time- those are not fun to ride behind. I did see a couple on razor scooters (they must've gotten tired pretty quickly), as well as a bamboo bike.

Unlike the past two rides I've done, I saw nobody hurt this time, no ambulances, and very little police presence (maybe most of them got raptured). I saw only one police car, and it was just passing through and drove off. Compare that to last time where there were squads of police at some intersections handing out tickets to red light runners. Despite the lack of police presence, I saw only a couple of red light runners this time. I guess people are becoming more behaved, or the troublemakers are active mostly during the summer, as somebody mentioned on the forums.

It was a great ride tonight. Thanks Harold Camping, we wouldn't have had a rapture ride without you!

I decided to take Friday off to drive down to LA for the long weekend. I left at 8:15am and traffic was remarkably smooth the entire way down until I hit San Fernando. I was surprised that traffic was good even through the Buttonwillow area where two lanes narrowed to one due to construction, but apparently there weren't enough cars on the road yet to create a bottleneck.

After I got to LA, Aaron and I went to his bike shop and picked up the Specialized Crosstrail Sport that he ordered for me. The difference between the Crosstrail and my old Huffy is like night and day. I never imagined it'd be possible to climb hills with ease!

The following day, Priscilla and I rode our bikes to and around Lake Balboa. We did a little offroading towards the end and followed a narrow trail through overgrown brush that ended up at nowhere, and unwittingly rode through mud and got huge mud-covered tires.

Priscilla made chicken kabob for lunch and seafood soup for dinner and we juiced a lot of fruits and veggies with her power juicer. She really tries to make me healthy food! We watched Ip Man 2 and Fist of Legend, both excellent films.

On Sunday after church we had lunch with Tom and Amanda at a Vietnamese place that had a delicious chicken and rice dish. Priscilla and I went to Kohl's to use a $10 off $10 coupon I had, and after scouring the store for half an hour failing to find anything cheap, we ended up getting a bag of socks for me that cost $5 plus tax after the coupon, just a dollar less than Walmart sells it for normally.

Afterward, we dropped by Warner Park for an hour to watch CCAC and New Life people play ultimate frisbee. We didn't play since we weren't dressed in athletic clothes.

Dinner was back at my parents' house where they made a ton of food for us, including two kinds of salmon, chicken drumsticks, shrimp kabobs and turkey barley soup. My mom had the soup slow cooking for hours. No wonder it tasted so good.

Finally on Monday, we went hiking in the morning at the creek near my house. We managed to hike for an hour and a half before it got hot. The rest of the day was spent catching up on work and reading. We both took a long nap but were amazingly productive afterward.

Today I drove back to the Bay Area, and traffic was again very smooth. Taking a long vacation definitely helped with that. I'm ready to get back to work, but in the meantime it's 10pm and I could totally fall asleep now.

Kenny and Bao joined me this month for San Jose Bike Party's monthly ride. This month was Post-Apocalyptic August and the route took us 27 miles through San Jose, Santa Clara, Milpitas and back. An estimated 3500 riders were in attendance.

The regroups were fun albeit a bit long. There was jousting at the first regroup between a mountain biker and a BMX'er. Several food trucks followed us between the three regroup locations and were bustling with business from hungry riders. Amongst the rides I saw were a guy towing a tall table with a functional grill mounted on top, a guy riding a monowheel, a unicyclist, and a guy towing a car seat. Somebody even set off small fireworks when we were passing through uninhabited land in Milpitas.

I saw a lot more police this time, which I think helped deter most of the red light runners. SJPD, SCPD and MPD were camping at certain intersections, at the regroup locations and patrolling parts of the ride. Despite that and the organizers' requests to ride safely and courteously, I saw and heard about some stupid behavior by some of the riders. Too many people were also riding with no lights. But fortunately the vast majority of people this time seemed to be riding courteously and following the law.

I was chilling at home around 11:30pm when I heard loud music outside going slowly by, too slow to be from a car. Peering out the window, I watched hundreds of bicycles pass by, some sporting multi-colored LEDs and some towing sound systems, and lots of people sounding like they were having a good time.

A quick Google search told me it was San Jose Bike Party, a ride around South Bay held the third Friday of every month. Tonight was science themed. The last six miles of the route passed by my house. I decided I might as well join and get some exercise and see what the fuss was all about. I caught up with the mass at a regroup in Santa Clara University where I saw probably over a thousand cyclists, and soon we were off to the final destination at Taylor and 9th in San Jose.

The ride was fun, but with so many people it got crazy. A lot of people were naturally clumped at the head of the group, causing problems with traffic flow and creating a Critical Mass mob mentality. People rode in the left lane even when there were cars behind them. People blatantly ran red lights and sometimes didn't even check cross traffic before doing so. I saw two fallen riders, one of whom had paramedics at the scene all around him. I can guess how that happened.

Bike Party is designed to be fun and safe, with calls for safety on their website and volunteers along the ride to make sure things go smoothly. But some people disregard safety and the law, making the rest of us look bad. Hopefully that will improve.

Kenny and I drove down to LA for Independence Day weekend on Friday. On both the drive down and the drive up, we hit heavy traffic around the Buttonwillow area due to the single lane closures caused by construction. Traffic was backed up for what appeared like miles due to two lanes merging down to one in each direction, but we took a detour on local roads and saved probably at least an hour of waiting in stop-and-go traffic.

On Saturday, Priscilla and I made lots of healthy food at her house: ceviche, crab cakes and spaghetti. For dinner her dad made curry chicken, which we had while watching Apollo 13 (since I've never seen it) on VHS (who uses those anymore?). We also worked on writing a letter to our 30-year old selves, lit sparklers to celebrate the holiday, and did some light weight and cardio exercise.

On Sunday we had lunch with a dozen CCAC people at King's Burger, where it was totally packed because a couple other large groups also had the same idea. Then a few people in our group came to my house to play Dominion, and Victor won both games. For dinner, Priscilla's parents joined my family for bbq at my house. My parents made salmon, ribs, drumsticks, beef and potato salad, and Priscilla's parents brought a chicken salad.

This morning Priscilla and I went hiking at 9, which I thought would be early enough to avoid the heat, but apparently not. We came home early and worked out there, then my dad made us lunch, and then it was time for me to go back to the Bay Area.

Finally tonight, Bao, Kenny and I went to see not fireworks, but Super 8 at the AMC Mercado theatre. It was a pretty intense and suspenseful movie, and I enjoyed most of it except the end, which felt a little too perfect and cheesy. The action and special effects were pretty good, and I wouldn't mind seeing it again for mainly that reason. I definitely felt it was worth my $11.

I had a pretty productive weekend. On Saturday I cleaned my room, read through pages and pages of legalese for Raytheon's stock tender offer sent to holders of AST stock, and fixed up a program that I made for a friend that she's been bugging me about.

On Sunday I went biking with housemates for four hours, and we had burritos at a hole in the wall place that has the biggest super burritos I've ever seen, for under $6. I also made a lot of headway into a problem at work and found a quick and clean solution.

There's still so much to be done!

I went ice skating at Downtown San Jose with a few people from church today because we got a Groupon and because I wasn't sore enough from doing rock climbing yesterday.

The Groupon was usable within a span of only a few days, and it had been raining pretty much nonstop the past couple days and forcasted to continue raining, which wasn't cool because the rink is outdoors. But we caught a break this afternoon, and the skies were clear the entire time we were out there.

I ended up staying for three hours and skated till I couldn't skate anymore. Driving back home, it hurt every time I lifted my foot off the pedal. But I'm happy because I totally got my $8 worth of that Groupon!

It was my third visit to Planet Granite today, and my second visit in the last month. I'm getting better- last time I couldn't complete a 5.8 climb, but this time I completed a 5.9, 5.10a and an easier 5.10a. I only did such "high" grades today because my friends goaded me into it. Sometimes peer pressure can be a good thing.

My technique is getting better and I'm learning to use my legs more, so my muscles didn't fatigue as much as they did last time, though they still fatigued plenty. I even passed the belay test so I was able to belay for my friends this time. Belaying is quite exerting in itself!

Right now my hands have rope burn, my knee is slightly banged up and my arms are dead, but I feel awesome!

Today marks my one-year anniversary of starting work at Applied Signal. I can't believe it was one year ago that I left home, moved up to the Bay Area, and became, more or less, independent. Time really flies. Is this what it's like to get old? Pretty soon I'll be in my mid-30's with a mortgage and 2.5 kids, wondering where all that time went.

So what have I done in the past year?

• Moved three times (was in corporate housing for a month, then in an apartment by myself for six months, and now a townhouse with two roommmates).
• Interviewed several software engineering applicants either on the phone or on-site. Became familiar with general interview format and hiring criteria, from the employer's standpoint. Recruited students at two UCLA technical career fairs. It's great to be on the other side of the table now.
• Improved my understanding of software engineering, C++, Linux, shell scripting, and various software development tools.
• Got my security clearance so that I can take on more types of work, yet still not really know the significance of what I'm working on.
• Gained about 15 pounds from lifting weights (I'm not as scrawny as before). Got into biking and recently running.
• Got to know some really great guys through my smallgroup Crossover, and I meet with them roughly bi-weekly. We usually meet over dinner at Google. Saying that I love the food there is an understatement.
• Accumulated in savings this year 5% of the cost of a down-payment on a house. Yeah, it's gonna be a while.
• Had a fair share of ups and downs with the girlfriend, but am cultivating what is mostly a positive relationship. Need to work harder on being God-centered, though.
• Gotten moderately better at cooking. Still a long way to go.
• Met some really cool people through work, church, and then some.
• A bunch of other stuff that I can't recall at the moment (told you I'm getting old).

Yeah. I'm really thankful for what I have. Life's been good.

Looks like I came back in one piece.

I went snowboarding with some CCIC people this past Saturday at Northstar at Tahoe. It was mad fun, though I probably set the record in our group for the most falls, falling every 10 seconds or so. Unknown to me, the slope we were going down was the easy slope, not the bunny slope. I found out on the second run. So I probably could kill the bunny slope now.

Nonetheless, I never thought snowboarding was so cardio-intensive! Every run down the hill left me wiped out. I guess that's how out of shape I am. Better incorporate some more cardio at the gym before I die of a heart attack.

The thing I had trouble with most was turning heel-side. I got around this mostly by turning toe-side until I was horizontal to the slope, then going back down with the opposite foot in front. It's called doing a "falling leaf" apparently. At least I did better than the first time I went, several years ago.

We stayed at the Silver Legacy in nearby Reno that night. Anticipating the huge appetite we would've worked up, Steve took us to buffet at the Eldorado. The selection was pretty big, and I ate a decent amount, but not as much as I had hoped. I can't seem to eat as much at buffets as I could in college. I guess I'm getting old.

My going to the gym only once a week isn't very beneficial, and I can't always rely on Priscilla to get me into the YMCA as a guest. So since I come down to UCLA every weekday in summer to work, and I have a lot of time between when the bus gets here and when my shifts start, it seemed good to sign up for a summer membership to the Wooden Center on campus.

Since I'm not enrolled in classes right now, I had to pay a nominal fee. It was $35 for the membership and $10 for renting a locker so I can properly stow my stuff. Not a bad price at all considering it's for my health and I'll be using the gym almost every day. Time to pump up these guns.. oh yeahhhh!

Today I went with Kiet, Dan, Grant, and Priscilla to Malibu Creek for what I thought would be an afternoon of hiking. Unfortunately the guys' idea of hiking is a little different from mine, and I found us venturing up the stream climbing over huge rocks.

Most of it wasn't that difficult, but at a few points we had to climb along the sides of the canyon with the water right below us. There were holes and niches in the rocks where we could grab onto, but sometimes there was no good place to grip, or there would be room for just a finger. Good thing for all the upper-body training I've been doing.

Fortunately I never fell into the water (too bad for Priscilla, she fell in twice ;p) or cracked my skull. At the end of our grueling trek, we cooled off and swam in a part of the stream that was like a large open pool. There was a tall rock over the pool that you could jump off of and land in 15 feet of water. Too bad the sun was going down and the water was almost freezing. And during the hike Kiet managed to catch a fish using a gummy worm (that is, chewing gum pressed into the likeness of a worm) on a hook, and brought it home in a peanut jar. He said he's going to cook it.

So yeah. I've never done rock climbing before, and I had a blast. I wouldn't mind going again. All the scratches and internal injuries were well worth it. ;)

Yesterday I went with Priscilla and her parents to the YMCA. I gotta hand it to them- they're pretty good at dedicating time to exercise almost every day. I really need to go to the gym more. My arms are really sore after working out.

Today Priscilla and I joined Steve and Shirley for lunch at Thai BBQ. They're going to be mentoring us in our relationship. Priscilla and I also had our first discussion for our study of "Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life."

Tomorrow a bunch of people are getting together for Chi's goodbye party. Aaron planned all of it.

Somehow I need to find time to get done all the homework and studying that I've been putting off...

So I finally got off my lazy behind and went to the gym with David (aka Kung Pao), who was my workout buddy last year. Apparently he hasn't been going since we stopped dorming together. We really should start going regularly again- it's a lot easier to go if you have a partner... or if you have the discipline for it (cough).

David got tired after an hour and went home, but I stayed for half an hour past that. It's funny how it's such a struggle for me to go work out, but once I'm there, time flies and I don't want to leave. When I finally got back to my dorm room I realized that I had left my cell phone at the gym, so I had to run back there again. Well, at least I got my exercise for the day.

I'm definitely going to be sore for a couple days. And I'm supposed to work out with Priscilla on Saturday. Doh!

Oh, busy day. I awoke suddenly around 7:45 in the morning and, being groggy and blurry-eyed, I thought the clock read 1:45 (pm). I exclaimed, "Oh crap! I missed my classes!" as I cursed myself for staying up late to do my math assignment when it caused me to oversleep and miss my chance to turn it in. I ended up falling back asleep until the alarm clock sounded at 9, upon which I realized the truth. Then there was NO way I was missing class..

Tonight I headed down to the track to once again challenge my running stamina. I ended up doing 6 laps (1.5 miles) without slowing down, which is double what I pulled off last time. This running is showing great results, one of which is a decrease in the frequency of being late to class!

I haven't done any significant running since high school, but I'm trying to pick it up again. This past Saturday I found I could run only 1 lap on the track (quarter mile) before getting tired, so I ran and walked alternately for a total of 6 laps.

Tonight I went again and ran 3 laps consecutively, then walked 2, then ran 1, walked 1, ran 1 as fast as I could and took 1 more for cooldown. Now if that isn't major improvement, I don't know what is. ;p

The Math midterm wasn't so bad. In fact, I think I may have aced it. =)

I'm also aiming to get in shape. I went to the gym and lifted weights for an hour and did the bicycle thing for half an hour. I can't lift much right now (I could barely bench-press the bar alone..) but it's a start. I'm definitely going to go more often now. Oh, and I don't remember if I've said this before, but I also eat salad now. ;)