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wiffleball + hurling = wiffle hurling (bonus… with sombreros).

Woohooo.. Well, I successfully completed the 2007 Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon and yah, that was kind of hard. It was a foggy and cold (ie.. normal) day here in SF, which actually was kind of nice… At 4am, I headed over to the Marina, where I joined 1600 other crazy people to jump off a perfectly good ferry, swim to San Francisco, and then bike and run around the hilly parts.

Here are my splits — I didn’t finish last. I actually beat 6 dudes in my class. Yay. There were 163 dudes in the 30-35 age group.

Total Time	Swim Time	Swim Trans	Bike Time	Bike Trans	Run Time	Sand Ladder
4:01:32	0:50:22	0:12:49	1:14:45	0:02:35	1:41:01	0:03:40

I met up with a bunch of peeps from my triathlon club on the ferry, so that was kind of nice to have some people to talk to whilst I awaited my doom.. It seemed like an excruciating wait between the time that we actually boarded the ferry and the starting gun.. As the moment neared, we all crowded toward the starboard side of the ferry, causing it to list severely to that side.. And then… like lemmings, people started jumping off into the bay. The cold wasn’t as shocking as I expected — I guess those training sessions at aquatic park paid off.. What was surprising was how far the city looked off on the horizon. Crap. That’s far. What the hell have I gotten myself into? Hmm. I hope I don’t die.

I started swimming, and as expected, I started off at a pace that was WAY too fast. But again, I knew I would do this from my practice sessions in AP, so I consciously tried to slow myself down as to not tire myself out too quickly. As I swam into the channel, things got kinda choppy. Literally. The swells started getting bigger, maybe 6 feet or so. Not huge huge, but still, a lot more than I had ever seen. Freestyle got tiring. I switched to breast stroke, which I knew was a bad idea cuz it uses your legs a lot more. But, who cares as long as it propels me closer to home. Hmm.. let’s try sidestroke — I read somewhere that it was super efficient or something. Some dude behind me was doing elementary backstroke and he looked pretty happy, so I tried that one too. But damn, that’s so slow. So, I finally settled into a good rhythm. 5 strokes of freestyle, then, 2 breast strokes to sight land and straighten myself out…

But.. apparently, my sighting wasn’t working that great. The race is timed such that the ebb current pushes you out towards the Golden Gate. So, you’re supposed to sight towards Fort Mason, and then the current will push you right into the finish. I apparently need to aim at Oakland. All of a sudden, a dude in a Kayak yells..

“Hey YOU! Go LEFT!”

I stop for a sec, look around, and realize that the ENTIRE field is to my left. Oops. But (thankfully) the exit is now in sight, albeit like 300 yards to my left now, which, of course is now against the current. Crap. I put my head down and swim hard for the exit and after a few excruciating minutes, I creep slowly towards the exit. Woohoo. I made it. Legs are wobbly as I stumble onto land. My transition bag is easy to find because, well, I was pretty slow, so most everyone had already gone ahead of me.

I jog the half mile back to the transition area, happy that I didn’t die somewhere back there. But now I get to bike and run. Great.

The bike portion was super fun. I’ve done the bike course a ton of times, so it’s my home turf, so I felt quite solid and strong on the bike. I actually passed a bunch of people, cranking pretty hard up the hills and then bombing pretty fast on the downhills. My new Ksyriums and the Specialized Pro tires were super solid and instilled a great deal of confidence in my riding, so that was pretty cool.. So yah.. hooray for biking. I felt pretty damn good. Zoom zoom. I biked above my swim/run rank, since I was ranked 1,175 in the bike, and well into the 1400s for the swim and the run.

The bike course took us from the Marina, up past the GGB, over to the Legion of Honor, down around the Cliff House, down Ocean Beach, around Golden Gate Park, and then.. all the way back.. It’s an 18 mile course, but super hilly. I passed a bunch of people that were from out of town and were completely taken aback by the sheer hilliness of the bike course. Apparently Chicago… not so hilly. So yah, I guess all of that fixie riding around town paid off..

Then.. the run. Ouch. I hate running. It’s painful, and I’m not very fast. I’d blame my broken ankle, but honestly, that was the only part of my legs that didn’t hurt today. The run was an 8 mile run, from the Marina, to Baker Beach and back… with a climb up the deathly Baker Beach sand ladder. All in all, it really sucked, but I actually jog/ran most of the course, which I’m actually quite proud of myself for doing. Then again, I don’t think my running is *that* much faster than my walking. The slowness of my running was exemplified when, at the turnaround, I was passed by a 71 year old dude. Man, that old guy could move.

My legs started cramping up somewhere near the 6 mile marker. Ouch. I gulped down some cytomax, and that seemed to help, but that wasn’t very pleasant. I just tried to keep on truckin’ and eventually, the finish was visible in the distance. I kicked hard for the finish, and when I got there, I was met with Mom, Dad, Andy and Meredith at the finish line. Thanks guys for coming to support me!

Despite my slowness on the run, I decided that I would book up the sand ladder as quickly as possible. I got what I think is a pretty respectable (compared to the people that finished near me) 3:40 for the sand ladder. I can’t run too good, but sure.. stairs? Done.

So yah.. I do admit that I did think to myself that I wouldn’t be too disappointed if “something” happened and I couldn’t do the race. But, I’m glad I did it, and I don’t think I’m gonna do that again. I think I’m gonna do more biking now, and maybe some more swimming — but limit that to a pool. Oh, and I guess I’ll still run, but only to beat Carlo and Sunnia in our Nike+iPod challeges. The SF to LA Aids Ride started today (Go Dana! Go Chad! Go Steph!), so I think I’ll do that next year.

More photos from Dad, Andy, Meredith, and Brightroom.

So, I’ve been loving my Nike+ iPod nerdy shoe integration thing that Andy and Mer got me for Christmas… I’m currently about halfway into a 100 mile race with Carlo… Carlo’s currently winning — he’s at 51.89 miles, but I’m right there with 45.92 miles…

Anyway, I just noticed today that Nike is giving away the LCD Soundsystem song that they commissioned from them.. awesome.. Here’s the link:

45:33, by LCD Soundsystem.

This song used to be only available on iTunes for $9.99 for the “album,” which consisted of one 45:33 track. Hmmm. That doesn’t seem very fair. I mean, it’s one track, right? So it should cost $0.99.. not $9.99… whatever. It’s free now.

Weird, the song is actually 45:55 long.

Anyway — I’m listening to it now, and it sounds like it’s gonna be a great track to run to. Carlo, I’ll be catching you soon. Look out.

Andy and Mer got me the Nike+iPod integration stuff for christmas, and it’s pretty damn cool.. They also got me a gift cert to get the Nike shoes that are designed for the sensor, but, thanks to the Marware Sportsuit Sensor (Thanks Carlo), I could just attach the sensor to my existing shoes, which is cool cuz I really like my shoes right now (and now I can get some other Nike gear that I need too)..

The accuracy is so-so, it seems to work mainly on a “step-meter” type methodology, so when I switch into “chi running” mode, it definitely thinks I’m going a lot faster than I actually am.. I’ll try and calibrate it some at the track, but I suspect that no matter what, it won’t ever be super-duper accurate.

That said, it’s pretty damn cool to have my runs logged on the iPod — my run data is only available to me if I log in (or if I screencap it here), so it doesn’t seem very “2.0″.. Although, there were some privacy concerns about being able to track people using their nike+ sensors..

Anyway — if any of you out there are also using the Nike+ system, let me know… I’ve challenged Carlo to a 100 mile race starting 2/1, so if you want to join in, I’ll add you for sure…

So, I got word this weekend that I was granted an entry into the escape from alcatraz triathlon in June.. I was already planning to do Wildflower in May, so this will be really fun. Awesome. I’m excited and scared at the same time. The drive you out into the bay on a ferry right next to alcatraz and then.. you jump off and swim 1.5 miles for shore.. then, 18 miles of bike riding all around San Francisco’s super hilly parks. And then, 8 miles of running along baker beach. Hmm. fun. I was motivated by this, so this weekend I got things started with some running work with Kristin at Kezar Stadium, and then a 40 mile bike ride with Dana, Dan and Dave along Paradise loop.. I better really stick to the training schedule this year, or I’ll end up as sea lion food. Woohoo. Fun fun fun.

Well.. I just got back from San Diego… The drive down there wasn’t that bad, but the drive back was a bitch and a half. I had to navigate around two accidents in the LA area, so it took me like 5 hours to get to the grapevine from San Diego. Double Yuck.

So, the trip down to San Diego was awesome… weather was gorgeous, 85 degrees and sunny all weekend.. There’s apparently a huge number of Browns fans down in Southern California (including someone with this crazy Mustang), and we sat in a block of about 2,000 Browns fans. Of course, the visitors section was waaaaaay up in the nosebleed seats, but still, it was fun to be in a big block of Ohioans.. We even dressed up Doug in some Browns gear, although he spent much of the game pondering how seemingly normal people could get dressed up in various goofy outfits, bark loudly, and hurl epithets at people simply because they were rooting for another team (whose allegiance simply was based upon geographical location).

The Chargers were supposed to be a much, much better team than the Browns, the fact that we were winning at the half was pretty cool. The Browns lost, but they covered the spread (12.5 points) against the Chargers, so I guess that’s something. The offensive line didn’t really seem to protect Charlie that much from the Chargers pass rush, but I probably don’t really know what I’m talking about anyway, so I’ll just stop now — mistake by the lake does a much better writeup of the game, so if you’re so inclined, you should go read their recap (and I like that the Browns are 9-0 in their moral standings)…

After the game, we all went over to Canes for the Regina Spektor show… as expected, she played a marvelous show, although there seemed to be an excruciatingly long time in between the opening act’s set and Regina’s set.. The opening act was just one dude, his guitar and his “band” (an iPod), so it’s not like they had to break down anything, so I don’t know why it took 45 minutes for her to come out and play for us. I must be getting old, cuz my knees ached after that show, and it even a very dancey show.

Anyway, thanks to Doug and Laura for being gracious hosts.. Go Browns!

Well.. I’m back playing baseball and softball finally and it’s great to be back, even though I’m much fatter and slower now.. Need to work off the broken ankle weight… yuck. Anyway, we had our last game last night at Lang field… The team made a valiant effort, but we lost 17-10. I think that everyone played really well though, and once the team gels I think we’ll do just fine…

And.. special thanks to Meredith for designing the Hacks logo for the shirts, and again to Meredith and Andy for making us our jerseys..

Anyway.. we have a bye next Tuesday, but come and support us on Tuesday, August 15th at 6:30pm at Lang Field…

So… yesterday I played in our third baseball game, a scrimmage with the Grizzlies.. In my first at-bat, I walked, and was then batted over to second on a fielder’s choice (avoiding the double play, I slid hard into second). So far so good.

I took a good sized lead-off from second, saw the catcher bobble a pitch, and I took off towards third. I saw out of the corner of my eye that the catcher had quickly gotten control of the ball so there was gonna be a play at the bag, so I ran hard, and slid hard into third base, just under the tag..

Then I heard a disgusting CRUNCH. Uh oh. Not good. I look down, pick up my leg, and my foot is hanging kind of down and to the left — I get that sinking feeling in my stomach that I’ve just done something really bad to myself. Crap. It didn’t really hurt that much though. It was just the sound and the realization that you’ve done something really bad to yourself that was the sucky part.

So my teammate Bruce drives me over to the hospital, where I’m hoping that I’ve only just sprained my ankle. We go into the ER, which is empty and everyone seems incredibly calm and relaxed — I guess real world ERs aren’t crazy and dramatic places like they are on TV. Like, nobody really seemed to be in a rush like they seem like on TV, but maybe that’s a good thing. They were calm and friendly and just kind of progressed about their tasks like it was their everyday job. Oh wait, it IS their everyday job. I suppose if they ran around like crazy people like they do on TV they’d go crazy and stick themselves with needles in all of the panic and stuff. And I suppose the calm ER doesn’t make for good television.

Anyway, the ankle is swelling up quite a bit, which is a bad sign, but when the doctor takes an initial look, she doesn’t seem to feel anything broken… good good.. there’s hope. I’m in good spirits and take a pic of my swollen ankle (it looks really gross, so don’t click over unless you’re cool with that).

But, we need to be sure, so off to the xray I go…

Yah.. so, I guess that’s not how a healthy ankle should look. I hear mumblings that it’s maybe just dislocated, and that makes me happy.. and then I hear that the emergency room doctor needs to get a second opinion. Uh oh.

And then two doctors come into my room with somber looks on their faces. My heart sinks.

“Yes, it’s broken.”

Crap. And, there’s more — I need to go in today to get surgery to put pins and screws into my ankle so that it’s sufficiently stablized during the healing process. Hooray. Oh, and my ankle was still dislocated, so they needed to pop it back into place. The nice doctor asks me if I’d like some drugs for the pain while they pop it back, and at that point, I’m like hells yah I want some drugs… So, the friendly nurse pushes in the happy drugs.. Weeeeee. I don’t really remember what really happened next, except the room looked really wobbly and the doctor said to relax so I did. My body felt like jello. Ooopy goopey jello. Wee. Where am I?

I kind of come to and there’s a cast around my ankle now, which is getting really hot from the plaster setting. The warmth feels nice around my poor ankle, and the happy drugs are starting to wear off, so the pain is coming back. Not so good.

So yah.. now I’m resting at home (hooray Percocet!) before I head back into the hospital for the surgery.

Yah.. so that was my Sunday.. Woo.. Apparently Coco Crisp also broke a bone while stealing third base yesterday. He broke his left ring finger but apparently he’s still gonna play in the season home opener. Yah, there’s no need for me to play on this broken ankle, and luckily I can still work (thank goodness the commute isn’t that bad). Granted, living in a 3-story place isn’t the most ideal of situations, but I have been thinking about getting a mini fridge for my room for awhile…

So.. no more dancing for me for a few months. Looks like I’ll have to be like Lisa from Saved by the Bell and just dance “The Sprain“. I really just hope I didn’t do anything permanently bad to myself. Apparently I’m 30 now and not “young” anymore or something.

March madness, bah.. my brackets are doing just awful. I picked OSU to win the whole thing, so, um, yah.. oops. Well, at least in my pool last place gets their money back, and at this rate, I’m in serious contention for that prize. Yay.

So, two weeks until baseball season starts.. I think the Indians are putting together a solid team this year (and the Browns too, with a ton of great pick ups in free agency). But.. this weekend, my baseball season starts.. Yup, I’ve joined a baseball team. Yes, baseball.. not softball. The ball is smaller, field is bigger, and they pitch overhand and stuff.. After playing with the Japanese Tokyo Sexy Dreamers last year (where I was “Sexy #005″), I decided to join up with a team in the SF N.A.B.A., the SF Superstars. This team is made up of mostly Korean guys, so it’s kind of like the TSD where the on-field chatter is in a language that I don’t understand.

We play full 9-inning games for the 20-game season, so i’m pretty excited.. It’s a wood bat league, so I had to go shopping for new bats this week.. I’m starting off with a Louisville Slugger Pro Stock Lite PLP72, a classic ash bat. I just ordered a Louisville Slugger M9 271 maple bat off this dude on eBay, so that should be arriving soon too. I was really liking the 34″/26oz. DeMarini White Steel I used in softball last season, so swinging these heavier wood bats (more like 33″/31oz.) around should be quite a change, not to mention I’ll be facing pitchers throwing a hell of a lot differently than the softball pitchers.

Time for some batting practice, I think.

Anyway.. As if I didn’t have enough baseball in my life already (with the 2014 season of my OOTP baseball simulation season just starting), I’m also doing a fantasy baseball team. I wasn’t gonna do one, but Masnick pointed me towards this one that sounded interesting — you can’t pick any of the top rated 50 guys. I’m a little scared — Masnick is a baseball whiz, and Joe apparently has this magical excel spreadsheet that he’s named “The Oracle.” Well, I couldn’t possibly fare worse than my March Madness brackets. We could use more owners, so contact the guy running it if you’re interested. And hurry, the draft is on Monday.

Yay. Baseball.

So, for awhile now, I’ve been playing this game, Out Of The Park Baseball… It’s a baseball simulation (as opposed to fantasy) game. You get to manage everything from your team’s lineups to who gets called up from the minor leagues, to how much you charge for tickets — it’s pretty fun (albeit admittedly geeky). Masnick had been playing in one of the online leagues, and got me to join up..

I manage the Milwaukee Brewers in our league. I had a pretty decent season, going 93-69, winning the wildcard spot for the playoffs.

So anyway — today, the chronicle wrote up quite a great article about OOTP, where I was interviewed and featured in a photo.. Note the photo credit — Andy took that.. Now he’s an officially published photographer, I guess, eh?

In real life, I’ve started playing on yet another softball team — this time here in San Francisco.. We play tonight at 7:35pm at the Jackson fields in Portero Hill, so swing by and cheer us on… We’re 1-4 right now. Last week we lost 32-7 (ouch.) Yes, that’s a softball score, not a football score.