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‘Triathlon’ Category

  1. and so it happend

    January 23, 2012 by elenamary

    Blogtitlan, finally, after much planning (I posted about it here), united in real life, or at least as Cindylu has called it (and I’ve stolen) had a Blogotitlán mini reunion. We were missing keyplayers like El Pocho Abogado, Xolo, El Más Chingon and of course the other blogueros.

    We were to meet in San Diego. My dude Juan and I left a snow storm in Columbus just in time before they started canceling flights and off we went to Phoenix (only to later learn Poor Little Tumbleweed had been redirected to Phoenix as well). Arriving in San Diego, we meet up with Poor Little Tumbleweed and rented a cute little mustang convertible. I know it is touristy but it was that or the Crown Vic and that was an oh hells no option. We headed over to our blogtitlan rental house.

    I of course rang the neighbor’s doorbell first but once we found the right house we found, El Oso Pecoso, Cindylu, her fiance Sean and her sister Lori. Later that night HP would arrive with HP junior. Next night more would swing by or stay at the house including GRD, Nathan Gibbs, and Chris.

    On Sunday some of us (Mario, Oso, Cindylu, PoorLittleTumbleweed, Cindylu, Sean, Lori, Nathan AKA Juan, and I) ran the Carlsbad 1/2 or full marathon. GRD came out with banners to cheer us on and never found us. I’ve never had anyone make signs for me for a race. It was sweet. I felt so much unity as I ran along the pacific coast watching the surfers enjoy the waves.

    After the race

    Post Carlsbad Race (missing Poor Little Tumbleweed who ran the full), picture from Cindylu.

    The reunion was a nice. It felt however, as if we were more grown-up then we had been when we had been writing. It hit home hard that I am not as young as I used to be. I can’t explain that feeling but it was always present. That isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy myself. I had fun with crazy little tumbleweeds antics. Or feeling the support of Nathan Gibbs as we ran those first 10 miles of the race together. It was nice to meet the blogueros partners although I wish I could’ve asked them what did they think of their spouse blogging and being part of blogtitlan. The time felt too rushed and as if we couldn’t party too much since we did have the big race coming up. I hope for the next reunion that I can stay an extra day or two after the race, hanging out with blogtitlan. I hope Gus and HP will race too and kick some butt. I hope I go back thinner and more fit (with lots of inspiration from Cindylu). I hope the next reunion is bigger and that I can spend more time hugging my fellow blogueros. To the ones I did get to spend the weekend with, thank you for being my blogtitlan familia.

    My pictures from Blogotitlán mini reunion.
    Cindylu’s pictures from the Blogotitlán mini reunion and Cindylu’s blog post about the reunion and post about the race.
    GRD’s pictures from Blogotitlán mini reunion.
    Oso’s blog post and his pictures.
    Sean’s pictures from Blogotitlán mini reunion and his blog post.

     

    (we are talking of another reunion in Chicago in October for the Chicago Marathon, who is in?)

    Category Latinos, personal, Triathlon | Tags: | 5 Comments

  2. Thanks sporty friends

    November 20, 2011 by elenamary

    Elenamary Bike Race
    My dear friend Norm, and I am paraphrasing here, said  something like “As long as you have either music or sports you will always have friends”.  I think he is right.  I am jealous I don’t have music or as KyJah once told me I have “anti-rhythm”.   I do however have athletics. The more I participate in sports, the more I wonder what people do together if they don’t get together to play sports? As I am training for the 1/2 marathon with blogtitlan and for the upcoming triathlon season, I frequently find myself thinking of all the friends that helped me along the way.

     

    Sarah Elena Beach Costa Rica

    Elenamary and Sarah, Costa Rica

    It started with Sarah.  I was the heaviest I’d  ever been, and I didn’t know where to begin.  Sarah liked running and going to the gym and doing all those things I hated and feared, but I asked her for help and she responded in her normal sugary over-excited way “of course!”   At first I was too embarrassed to even get on the scale.  I didn’t want to know how bad it was.  I got on the scale backwards and asked Sarah to look, and to not tell me but to keep track of my weight weekly.  I only asked that she let me know if the number was going down.  We worked on cardio and weight training.  Sarah set me up with a plan for arms, core, and legs (that I follow to this day). I’d felt uncomfortable in the gym, awkward, I couldn’t think of a situation more malapropos for my existence.  Yet, with Sarah I never felt criticized (despite the fact that I’d long before sworn to never trust a woman whose thighs didn’t touch).  I was surprised how at ease Sarah could put me.  This bouncy blond gyminist  med student whose thighs don’t touch, who can do pull-ups with one arm, who proportionate to body size has boobs way bigger than mine, was so genuinely encouraging that I was going to have to admit she was pretty awesome.  She’d email me how proud of me she was, offer me motivation to go on days when I felt like giving up, work out next to me and correct my positioning while never doing it anyway that felt belittling or insulting.

    Sarah gave me the courage to get more involved in athletics and in it turn,  I have been on sports teams galore as an adult and I am loving it.
    football group shot game 02
    Swim Team shot 2
    Triathlon team

    As I continue to train and still work on improving my body.  I’ve made great friends who have encouraged me and inspired me.  There is Yony who ran my first half-marathon next to me.  It took me almost 3 hours to finish it the first time.  He was so bored with my pace that he tried to make the run an obstacle course by running backwards, jumping up and off of curbs, by zigging and zagging out of obstacles he created. He did stay with me for those long 3 hours and encouraged me to keep going even when it started to rain and we passed my house around the 7th mile marker. Patrick got me to compete in my first triathlon.  Norm got me to compete in my first mountain bike race.  Rocky went with me to a sprint triathlon at the University of Akron and did the run twice so that he could run along side me as I finished.  Solomon coached me in swimming in the dawn hours of the day.   Laura A. got me on a schedule for timed 5k race.  Kae who gave me one-on-one yoga classes.

    Vu who competes with me at the gym in who can get sweatier (he always wins).   Amy who ran with me at Beekman park and would inspire me with her ultra-marathon stories and goals.   Cindylu who writes about her own struggles in weight loss and running that inspires me to not give up.  Jason B. who rode his bike behind me while  I ran and encouraged me to keep my pace up.  Jess and Steph who have done multiple triathlons with me and encouraged me the whole way.  José who become my personal 1/2 ironman trainer and would push me on long bike rides to go even farther.  Laura R. who would play football with me against the men, when no other women would.  Simon who became my gym buddy and helped me find an awesome gym in Haikou which almost gave me enough reason to stay there and keep training.

     

    Laura and ElenamaryThere are a lot of people who’ve helped me become more athletic the last couple years. Not necessairly people who did the sports with me but there are those who gave me advice when I over-trained or  made me playlists or sometimes even made the music I work out to.  Sports have helped me build a great community of friends and I am thankful for it.

    Category personal, Triathlon | Tags: | 2 Comments

  3. filter FTW!

    September 22, 2011 by elenamary

    Last semester I swam pretty much every morning no later than 730AM.  I’d go to the school pool in the morning for laps and in the evening to either the private pool outside of campus or the beach, for a leisure swim with friends.  This semester I’ve been super lazy and didn’t go at all to the school pool.  That and the school pool was kindy sucky.

    I warned my friends about the school pool.  I warned about its lack of a filtering system and their solution being to over-chlorinate and empty the water once a semester (twice in spring semester–but only because of the school swim competition).  As such the water is always super opaque, and has a weird slimey film at the top.  The pool also has  the effect of leaving your eyes, mouth and body with an odd burning sensation from so much chlorine.  This is to say, the pool is not usually pleasant.  However, there is something invigorating about swimming early in the morning with the sun bright and all things still quiet before the students have begun their rush to class.  I love starting my day swimming laps in an outdoor pool.  So, today I did just that, I went to the school pool for the first time this semester.

    I arrived and was surprised to see the pool had a great blue-ness to it. The water looked surprisingly clean.  No filmy layer, no floaties, in fact I could see the floor of the pool, which seemed oddly clean. Hmm, I assumed since it is the beginning of the semester and they did just change the water a couple weeks ago, this must’ve been the reason for its appearance. I put on my googles dove in and started my haphazard training.  It was then I saw something I had never seen before.  The pool had drains and filters, with clean water bubbling out!  Christs sake! They had turned on or fixed or installed, over the summer break, a filtering system!  The school pool now has a filtering system!!!!  I feel like emailing people to gloat.  ”That’s right all you friends from last semester!  I am not swimming in Chinese mucus bohhyahh!”  I am so excited about this that I am not going to miss any swims. You now know where you can find me everyday at six am.

    Here is a link to a blog by my buddy Pete, he has posted some pictures of the school pool. I am in picture number six at the bottom.

    Category China, Triathlon | Tags: | 2 Comments

  4. Ironman China no swim?

    May 10, 2011 by elenamary

    The last couple weeks of my training for Ironman China 70.3 I have left out the the run portion due to a knee injury and have instead been focusing on the swim and bike.  Yesterday, they organizers announced that the swim event has been cancelled and that the race will continue as if there were no swim portion.  This isn’t a triathlon.  I am going to cross  still not having completed my first 70.3. I guess I could call myself a 68.4?

    Part of me still wants to compete because there are so few races here in China, in fact this is pretty much it in terms of triathlons.  Then again this isn’t a triathlon.  This is heartbreaking.  I wanted that intensity of emotions before the swim began, I wanted to feel the “human blender” of the swim, I wanted to drift into thought about the day that laid ahead while I swam, I wanted to feel my feet touch the ground and my body lift up out of the water as I moved into the transition area.

    I don’t know what to do.  Do I still go?  I am unmotivated, heartbroken, and conflicted. Suggestions?

    Category China, personal, Triathlon | Tags: | No Comments

  5. mountain biking

    February 18, 2011 by elenamary

    I signed up for my first ever mountain bike race.  In fact, this will be the first time, I’ve ever been mountain biking.  What have I gotten myself into?  As soon as I got home from signing up at the bike shop, I emailed my buddy John McPocho, who offered this advice:

    “Best piece of advice I can give you is to thrust your booty-weight towards the rear as you go downhill, so as to not tumble forward over the handlebars.”

    Great!   I can picture myself now, going down a hill, more rapidly than I can control the bike with my butt hanging way behind the seat, just barely hitting the tire.  The seat, just waiting to nail me in the crotch.  The seat won’t get a chance to nail me though because I’ll lose control and fall on the tire, and then bump my head into a tree.

    I’d like to tell you about the location of the bike race, but I have little idea.  I know the race will take place about two hours south of Haikou and that for the amateurs it is only an 8km race.  I know that the bike shop is providing transportation and accommodations. I am renting a mountain bike from the shop.  I know the city that is hosting the race is offering 200 Renminbi to all participants.  Also in attendance will be a triathlete friend of mine and a new friend and avid cyclist I made here in Haikou.  That is all I know. It is exciting and kinda scary…but more exciting than anything.

    Oh and when I went the website to try and get more information on the race, I came across this picture, of my brother with the heading “但是，老虎也有打瞌睡的时候” (I don’t know what it means and I don’t trust google to translate.)

    Category China, personal, Triathlon | Tags: | 1 Comment

  6. Training

    February 7, 2011 by elenamary

    It was weird when we found each other in blogotitlan, we were about the same age (all in our early-to-mid twenties), in fact Cindylu, El Oso and I, are no more than 2 months apart in age.   It is weird how we go through somewhat similar milestones, and Cindylu has inadverantely helped me through one of my own.

    Four weeks ago, I had written out a training plan for myself for the Half-Ironman in Switzerland in June.  I had just gotten back from visiting my brother in China and figured at the end of the triathlon season in Ohio (Early September) I’d head back out to China where it was warm and I could continue my training.  I love Ohio during the spring and summer.  Triathlon club, biking with friends to the quarry to swim, running after the sun has set with the cool summer breeze, and scheduling a triathlon every other weekend with friends, 5k / 10k fun runs.  It is a blast.

    There I was with my training schedule for the Half-Ironman, I stuck with it for the first week, and then the second week sub-came to the bitter cold of Ohio.  I turned on my electric blanket, my space heater, and spent a week in bed.   I wasn’t living life.   I was a lummox.  I hated it.  So, I decided why stick out the rest of the winter here in Ohio?  Why not go to China now?  Forget Switzerland and do the 70.3 Ironman in Beijing.  So I did.  I turned in my two week notice to work.  Booked two plane tickets the first to Mexico to visit my Grandparents, with a following trip a week out to China.  After a week of not exercising of not swimming, biking or running, I felt awful.  I got to Mexico and the sun was nice, but I still had not motivation to train.  Then I arrived a China.  I tried to train but was having mental blocks.  I felt, slow, fat, clumsy.  This wasn’t my body—but it was.   Not only had I not been following my training schedule, I was at a worse place then I was before I started it.

    Then the day before yesterday, with almost a month of not training, I read Cindylu’s blog entry about Finding Balance.  Despite having watched all kinds of Ted Talks on running and motivation, and reading training books, it was surprisingly Cindy who motivated me to move past my own mental blocks.   I finally went out and did a 10k run. It was slower than I have done in a long time, but I did it and still felt like I could keep going.  It is good to know we are all weak at some point.  That we aren’t alone in our struggles.

    I’ll have to write another entry about why I ever started  losing weight (help from friends), training (my brother), and all the obstacles I really hate.  But for now I am just glad I had blogotitlan to motivate me once more.

    Category China, personal, Triathlon | Tags: | No Comments