Wildflower Triathlon

A couple of weeks ago I participated in the Avia Wildflower Olympic Distance Triathlon. With a finishing time of 3:05.11, I felt, well, OK after the race, considering I had thrown up once, I couldn't really feel the front of my legs, and I was suffering from minor heat stroke... But, I am a finisher and thats how I roll (Get it? Roll? As in on a bike?)

Here I am coming out of the water. The race was on Lake San Antonio, about five hours north of Los Angeles by Paso Robles. The lake was really nice at something like 68 degrees, it was slightly windy which caused for some chop in the water, but overall the conditions were nice. The USAT regulations for wetsuits says that competitors can wear wetsuits if the water temperature is 78 degrees or lower, and that if the water temp is 84 or above, wetsuits are not permitted (good Lord... swimming in 84 degree water? its like swimming in a bathtub. Gross I hate swimming in water that warm...).

So I'm coming out of the water, and you'll notice I'm on a boat ramp. The ramp is about 200 feet long, and is a fairly steep incline up to the transition area, where you go to get into your bike gear, and later, your running gear. So here I come, chugging up this great big hill, (my heart, mind, is still pounding - you're basically sprinting for the first 5 minutes of the swim to jockey for position, and then the rest you're trying to catch your breath from overexerting yourself while at the same time trying to keep up with the other swimmers around you. Even typing about it is raising my heart rate.) when my stomach basically flips over itself. I needed to find a trash can and immediately, cause that pre-workout drink that I love (its amazing, truly. I use it both when weight training and when doing endurance training... it really helps to get the mind over itself.) just wasn't doing it for me. I dash off to look, thinking to myself, "Deep breaths Chris, deep breaths. You don't want to make a fool out of yourself in front of so many people," and I ran back out of transition to where the porta-potties were, and, you know, the story goes on from there...

Yay go the bike. I had been focusing a lot of my energy on the bike for this race. I'm not the best cyclist, and when I signed up knowing that it was all hills, I realized I needed to focus my energy on my weakest event instead of my strongest (swimming). Surprisingly (I mean I shouldn't have been surprised in hindsight, but I'm telling this from a different tense and that just screws up my story) I felt the strongest on the bike. It was a really fun course, an out-and-back 40k ride over rolling hills that was pretty fast on the downhills and really tough on the uphills. The majority of the other participants who were riding alongside/with/in front of me were cordial, more or less. Those who I passed were less, those who passed me were more... And I got to chat off-and-on with some random dude who I kept playing the bicycle version of leap frog with.

The run was ridiculous. I don't even want to show pictures of what I looked like on the run, but you can see me at the finish line in this picture looking like I had just gotten backhand slapped by a bearded lady holding an ice cream cone and a piece of pizza. For 8 full kilometers of the 10k run, the course is a steady incline of over 200 feet, and its basically on a ridge overlooking the lake so there is no air flow, the sun isn't blocked out by any cloud cover (no, thats not California's style...), and its just HOT. As it were, it also turned out to be a bad hair day (remind me next year that I need to shave my head before this race...)

But I finished. And now I'm done with this post. :)

Past Events

Here are some foh-tohs of some different events I had the opportunity to work on during my time at Bounce. Good memories!!!

Rolex Awards for Enterprise

Location: Dubai, UAE

We converted a massive convention center on the Mina a'Salam Resort in Dubai into a gala dinner for 500 VIPs.

Entertainment Tonight Emmy Awards After Party

Location: Vibiana Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles

Grammy Celebration Concert Tour

Locations: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Miami, NYC

Kelly Clarkson at the Boston stop on the Grammy Celebration Concert Tour. Lady Gaga also performed, but this picture is rad.

MOCA

Just some pics from MOCA's 30th Anniversary Celebration. We built an 80' x 220' tent and closed Grand Ave in downtown Los Angeles. Pretty crazy. Lady Gaga performed with the Russian Bolshoi Ballet, and it was called, "The Shortest Musical You'll Never See Again." This event was ridiculous, and ridiculously awesome. :-) Enjoy!

The Gala Tent

Cocktail Reception (see those Graphics in the background? I was responsible for those)

Cocktail Reception Tent

Arrivals Step and Repeat

The Marquee

Dinner Table (Francesco Vezzoli and Lady Gaga in posters behind tables)

Damien Hirst piano (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Hirst)

Cocktail Reception with people

Gala tent with people

Bolshoi Ballet Dancers from Russia

Bolshoi Ballet

Lady Gaga - her dress was designed by Muccia Prada (yes, Lady Prada), the hat was designed by Frank Gehry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Gehry), and the mask (not pictured) was designed by Baz Luhrmann (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baz_Luhrmann)

Welp...

Its been quite a while since I last posted on here. I completed the Lavaman Triathlon (along with the Newport Beach Tri as well) and it seems that the rest of the year has been pretty much a complete blur. I've done some pretty amazeballs things, not the least of which has included an incredibly eventful summer in Los Angeles, some killer events, trips to Disneyland, Palm Springs, and (soon) Vegas. And the HOLIDAYS are coming. My favorite time of year, when its OK to gorge yourself on smoked (or fried - my FAVORITE) turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing (gimmie summadat deliciousness!), and the ever-so-tasty miscellaneous sweet treat. It is really the only time of year when its acceptable to go out in public wearing red and green in the same ensemble (God rest the poor soul who attempts this combination in August), or to attach little individual fire hazards to your house in the festive spirit of Christmas, to insure that Santa knows someone lives there. Yes, I do love the holdays. :-) Everyone is in a great mood and it really is the season of giving.

When I was a young lad, and not so aware of the spirit of giving but more of the spirit of receiving, I looked forward to Christmas because I always wanted something new and fresh. I was a spoiled little shit. One of my favorite gifts (well I had several favorites, but this one seems to stay in my memory) was this Lionel train set that my parents bought me (actually, I believe the fat man himself HAND-MADE this from scratch - thats my story and I'm stickin to it). It was one of those train sets that collectors buy (actually, this picture is almost the exact set up I found when I awoke at 6am on Christmas morn, complete with wrapped presents with bows, Christmas tree, and a bright red caboose).
It later made a cameo appearance at my high school Winter Formal. I received a race-car track one year,
which my father and I spent the good part of Christmas day setting up on the piece of plywood that acted as the support under the mattress on the bottom level of my bunk bed. When I was older, into late middle school and completely awkward in my own body, I got a computer and when I came out on Christmas morning the screen saver was on. Remember those old scrolling screen savers? You could insert text into it and it would scroll all day long? Well, I woke up and it said "Merry Christmas Chris." I think my heart skipped a beat.

Hawaii Saturday

So Hawaii is pretty cool so far. Our flight yesterday was about 5 hours long - flew direct on United to the big island. We got to the hotel and had several hours of free time (after waiting for 30 minutes to get checked in). We went to the pool, had lunch, and just kinda kicked it a bit until 5:30 rolled around and it was time to get our bikes. Luckily, my bike arrived in one piece (yay!). We took them out for a quick ride last night to make sure all our gears and brakes and knick-knacks worked after that and then went to dinner. I fell asleep last night to the sound of the waves crashing on the beach and the palm trees outside our window making noises like rain...

This morning we woke up and went and did an early morning swim. Hawaii is 3 hours behind CA so waking up at 7:00am really wasn't bad at all. We swam in the bay where the race will be tomorrow - it is crystal clear and it was awesome watching all the little sea creatures and critters swimming around on the coral beneath me as I swam along. It got me really excited for the race tomorrow and I think that the swim might end up being my favorite part.

Got my race packet and everything so I'm all checked in and ready to go! I'm so pumped for the race tomorrow! Its finally here!

(BTW - I have to pay for internet here so I'm going to try to use it as sparingly as possible. If you want pics, you can check my facebook profile - everyone with their nifty iPhones are uploading pics to facebook all day... :-)

Tonight is the TNT pasta party - there are so many TNT participants here. We had a meeting this am with Dave Scott (i think thats his name...) - he's won the Ironman World Championship like 6 times or something. He did a Q&A session with all TNT people - there were probably 150-200 TNT participants from all over the US who were there.

My official race number is 82. One number off of my birth year. Go team. I have some videos that I'm uploading too so I'll try to get these to you ASAP - again, internet sucks so I have to be picky. :-)

Aloha!

Internet

So the internet here is really expensive. so i'm not gonna be able to do as many blog posts as I would like. I will try to do one at the end of each night (hopefully). But currently its 10:45 PM local time and I've been up since 3:00am local time, so its time for sleep. :-) goodnight, sweet pacific ocean waves crashing outside my hotel room window! goodnight.

Its Gon' Rain!

In the true style of the Blackie Weather Report from Family Guy, it may be raining in Hawaii. But alas, it'll be that nice, warm, Pacific Ocean type of rain (we shall hope...)