dennis yang dot com

Last night, I went to the Giants-Braves game with Kendra and her friends Duncan and Jason. Kendra got a hold of the Bode Gravel tickets, which are SWEET seats a few rows back from the first base line… The Braves routed the Giants 6-1, starting off with a Chipper Jones HR in the top of the 1st inning — the Giants had a tough night scoring, leaving 18 guys on base for the night (with Pedro Feliz leaving 6 of those guys.. both in bases loaded situations).

We stayed the whole game, and it’s good that we did… Bottom of the ninth, Dan Kolb pitching to catcher Mike Matheny — I wasn’t really paying attention to the game, since I was chatting with Duncan (Kendra and Jason were up getting beers or food or something).. So, we’re talking… Kolb pitches to Matheny and he pushes a low pop into the stands along the 1b line…

Someone yells “HEADS UP!”.

So, I turn around, everyone’s standing up, and I’m looking for the ball. As I stand up, the ball is still nowhere to be found, lost somewhere in the lights. But then, at the last minute, I see it appear, reach out with my glove, and “WHAP” catch it cleanly in my glove. Yes, I brought my glove to the game, I figure, why not? I mean.. what if a foul ball came my way?

And in this case it did. Whooohoo! My first major league foul ball.

Thanks Kendra for taking me to the game.. that was awesome.

In other baseball related news, my Alameda softball season has finished — we ended the season 1-11, which I believe means that we get the #1 draft pick now, right?

I’ve also started playing with this Japanese baseball team, the Tokyo Sexy Dreamers. We had our first game this weekend, versus the J’s from Berkeley — we lost 3-6, but it was a great game. It’s quite different playing a full 9 inning game, fastpitch, with stealing and everything… but soo fun. And you can’t beat playing with the Japanese kids. They have neat customs like everyone lining up before the game and bowing to each other.. and they count balls and strikes backwards (like, instead of a 3-2 count, it’s 2-3). And they use this rubber baseball. But it’s still baseball, and so fun.

Whoohooo! We won our first softball game last night! So we’re no longer winless! Man, winning is a lot more fun than losing…

Um, so, I suppose a vital detail that would be that we won by forfeit. The other team didn’t bother to show up.

But, a win is a win, right? Whoohoo! Winners!

So.. our flag football team won our game this weekend.. wahoo! The black rock bruisers, after 7 straight losses, emerged victorious in a great game..

Our regular quarterback was missing yesterday, so I got to try my hand at QB’ing. Man, QB’ing is so fun.. I had a great game, with, i think, 3 TD passes, 1 TD run and no interceptions. We varied our offense quite a bit, running the ball, passing, and we ran the fancy halfback option with great success (one of which was a TD).. Ed “Sticky Fingers” Kriete was our masterful offensive coordinator, devising crazy plans that fooled and stumped the defense play after play… Clint “Speedy Legs” Dickson burned his defender quite a few times, and had one (or two, i don’t remember) TD receptions.. Our defense played great, Brian “Party Cow” Walsh and his go-go-gadget arms had three sacks, including one diving tackle that was certain to be shown on SportsCenter tonight.. Dana “MVG” Yobst had the play of the game with a fantastic interception, setting up the Bruisers for a scoring drive to win the game in the final seconds of overtime.

Final score… 32-26..

Too bad it was the last game of the season, but at least we didn’t finish winless! We celebrated our victory at the haight street fair afterwards, dancin’ up a storm at the brass tax party — and then off to Finnegan’s Wake in cole valley for more drinkin’

Whoohoo.. winning is fun! (Hopefully now we can get a win in softball too.. I hate to think that I’m the common denominator in both of my un-undefeated teams)

So we lost yet another softball game last night 20-5 (albeit it was to the undeafeated team)… I think we’re improving though… There were no blow-out innings, they just consistently scored 5 runs each inning.. and after 4 innings, that’d be.. well, 20 runs. That makes our record.. um.. 0-6, I think.

Coach Kitts put me at right field this time.. It’s been years since I’ve played in the outfield, so my distance judgment is a bit (ok a lot) off.. I overran every fly ball, catching one of them with my bare hand (to prevent it from smacking me in the face). No golden glove for me, I guess.

Our baserunning was pretty spectacular — I think 3 outs were due to creative baserunning.

Maybe we need to get some red jerseys so we can start winning games.

The downtowners (my softball team I’ve joined in Alameda) suffered a heartbreaking defeat to.. um, some other team whose team I don’t know. I think the score was like 30-4 or something like that. Ouch. Since I doubt that we’ll be written up in the Alameda Journal this time, I’m sure a dennisyang.com writeup is almost as good..

Coach Kitts had a marvelous almost diving catch in the outfield.. he’s running for the ball, almost there, glove outstretched, he goes sliding across the grass… It was a Sportscenter moment (well, if he had made the catch, but it sure did *look* like he caught it.. i’m not quite sure what happened.. i still think he caught it).

We were just out-hit.. the other team was able to find the gaps regularly, particularly in short center. The ump was calling strikes and balls strangely.. Blue was encouraging the pitchers to pitch a lot higher than I’ve seen previous umps do.

I think we would do much better if we had jerseys, but after last night’s loss, I think the sponsors are all pulling out. When I was growing up, my little league teams were “Honey Girl Donuts” and “Fioritto Funeral Home” — that made for some interesting jerseys. Maybe I’ll give Fioritto a call, what could be more intimidating than a team sponsored by morticians…

So, I survived my second Wildflower Triathlon.. I’m pretty sore today. The weather was fantastic this year. Unlike last year’s 100 degree heat, this year was a pleasant 80 degrees or so.

I finished this year in 3:58:54 — almost 11 minutes slower than last year’s 3:48:04.. Well, consdering I trained much less than last year (I did NO running at all), I suppose that’s ok… I need to train more for the next one..

My splits for each year…

I knew it was going to be a long day when I put on my wetsuit.. I was struggling a bit to get into the suit, thinking to myself.. “crap.. have I really gotten that much fatter?” After about 1o minutes, I managed to get the wetsuit on, and I made my way down to the boat ramp, where everyone was milling about, waiting for the race to start. I looked around at all of the other competitors, nervous excitement filled the air..

I had my wetsuit half-on, as was the custom since it’s really hot in the wetsuit. I noticed how neat it was that when the wetsuit is half on, the logo of the wetsuit is printed on the inside of it, so that everyone can see what kind of wetsuit you’re wearing. I then looked down and thought to myself.. “hmm.. that’s weird, my logo is upside down.” — then it dawned upon me. I had put on my wetsuit on inside out. Oooooops. That’s why it was so hard to put on! Instead of the neopreney side next to my skin, the rubbery side was there… Argh! Well, at least I noticed before the race.. had I jumped into the water with my inside out wetsuit, who knows what would have happened.. ugh.

I was able to get my suit on properly before the start, luckily, but the problems didn’t stop there.. after the race started, I started to settle into the swim, when I realized I was having a lot of trouble breathing… Well, it turns out that I’ve added a few pounds since last year’s triathlon, so, maybe my wetsuit fits a lot tighter than it used to, making it sooo hard to breathe. I started freaking out and hyperventilating a bit, but after I flipped over and backstroked for awhile, I was able to calm down and start swimming again… ugh. not fun. I was able to paddle my way in around the 0.9 mile course.. somehow.

Thankful that I didn’t drown in the lake, I hopped onto the bike for my favorite portion of the tri (I must have been really eager since my swim-bike transition was the ONLY time this year that was better than last year).. the bike… Man, I really do love the bike part. You don’t really get to ride for 25 miles without stopping, except for in a race. The Wildflower bike portion is legendary for being hilly and grueling, but the good thing about riding UP a hill, as that you get to ride DOWN it later.. wee! This year, my top speed was 44.7 mph.. wahoo! That was super fun. Anyway, right around the turn-around for the out-and-back course, I really, really, really had to pee.. The way back is basically one long hill followed by a medium hill and then a huge hill… After the second hill, I just gave up and stopped and pee’d at the side of the road.. people kept riding by and joking that I was “lightening the load”.. haha.. i really did feel faster this year, although somehow, my time last year was faster..

And then.. the run.. Now, I haven’t trained running AT ALL this whole year, I’ve maybe run 3 miles in the past six months. Well.. it showed.. I speed-walked most of the “run” but somehow ended up with a time that wasn’t THAT much worse than last year.. strange.. Every time I tried to run, my legs would cramp up, so I just walked most of the way… The run course is 5 miles uphill and then 1 mile downhill.. Walking downhill kind of sucks more, so I ran that last mile all the way to the finish line…

And so.. I made it.. Mehul did very well with a 3:20 time, and Kristin beat me by a few minutes with a 3:55… next year.. maybe I’ll train a little harder, enough of this slacker training stuff..

wahoo.. weezer tonight at the warfield… this weekend is the wildflower triathlon, and i’m not really supposed to be going out, but.. apparently it didn’t stop me last year either.. so.. oh well… my goal this year is to try and beat my incredible time of 03:48:04… yah, i know, it’s not that fast.. i was 224 out of like 250 people in my class… but considering the winner finished last year in 02:04:30 — I’ve got to be able to close the gap a bit…. maybe i can hit 3:30 this year….

all i can say is.. last year, I was the only one I saw with a tortoise squeeky horn on their bike.

I joined a softball team in Alameda.. we play every tuesday. it’s fun…

I was mentioned in today’s Alameda Journal.. So far, no scouts have called, but I’m waiting…

Yes, it mentions I got three hits.. which is nice.. What’s also nice is that they fail to mention that our team lost 20-11, and I didn’t exactly do a bangup job fielding third base (but — the sun was right in my eyes the whole game, i swear).. or that all my hits were singles…

But.. I did make it into the paper.. my mom must be so proud.

update ok, mcc says that singles are good. so i’m happy.

Well.. my “slacker tri team” training paid off, and I finished my first triathlon yesterday… I’m a bit sore, but really happy I did it. (supposedly tomorrow i’ll experience more pain) The weather was excruciatingly hot.. it was in the 100s all day.. I did almost what I expected… I finished in 3:48:04, 1866th overall, 224th out of 251 in my division. I was looking to do 3:30 (30 minute swim, 2 hour bike, 1 hour run), so I did close to that..

As I learned in my first open water swim a few weeks ago, I do NOT swim in a straight line. I kept veering off course, getting kicked in the head as I cut across several (faster) swimmers’ paths. For the first leg of the swim, I was so pumped up that I was going all out (staying near the front of the pack), and ended up tiring myself out by the first turn. I had to flip onto my back for a little elementary backstroke whilst I regained my composure for a few minutes. After I resumed a more sane pace, I was able to finish out the leg freestyle.

I was really happy with my bike portion — thanks to my brand new bike computer, I was able to see that I hit a max speed of 43.5 mph.. that was soooo fun.. and, my turtle horn was quite a hit with the fans. The bike was definitely my favorite part, though I think I need to see if my bike really fits me properly. Granted, I’ve only logged about 25 miles prior to raceday on this bike…

The run part was the worst — I wouldn’t really call it a run.. more like a run/walk.. I’m actually quite surprised that I actually had 12 minute miles. I was quite delirous and I was making little deals with myself the whole way like “ok, the faster we go, the sooner this is over” and “ok, run to the next hill, then we can walk” (who is this “we” anyway?!?). I also tried to pace myself with some of the various other racers, so thank you camelback-guy, thank you big dude in a too tight race suit, and no thanks to the really cute girl that just flew by as if it wasn’t the last leg of a grueling triathlon in 100 degree heat.

Oh.. and one more thing… why is it that at the end of the race, they put a “false end”.. meaning this.. I’m running for (what i thought was) the end.. and.. it TURNS.. and there’s like another 200 yard gauntlet for you to run through.. and here’s what sucks, you’ve already given your all to get to what you just thought was the end, and now you’ve got another frikkin 200 yards to run, and it’s full of people watching, so if you stop to walk, they all get to point and laugh. so, what do you do? you keep on running. and it frikkin hurts. but they did give me a nice medal at the end. yay!

Actually, I lied about the worst part. The worst part of the day was the walk back to the campsite after the whole thing was over. I mean, honestly, it’s not as if we hadn’t done anything all day. The campsite was over a mile from the finish, and uphill about 1,000 feet. Add the 100 degree heat, carrying all of my gear, and my bike and you can imagine how frikkin annoying that was. They should really put in a chairlift or something.

Anyway, I’m already looking for the next tri.. I figure I already have all this equipment, so why the hell not. Maybe i’ll train harder next time.