2009

• Lake Stevens 70.3, August 16th, 2009. This was a half-iron distance race, at the end of my season. The swim and bike were solid, except for the squirrel that jumped in front of me on the bike. (Luckily, I didn't go down. Unluckily, the squirrel didn't get up.) The run was another story; I was fit and had the energy to go hard, but both legs locked up with cramps for 10 of the 13.1 miles, costing me almost 20 minutes on the run. I'm happy with my fitness, and ready to take a month or two off before spinning up base building for the 2010 season!. Overall, I pulled a 6:02:22 race, putting me at 470 out of 875 finishers, and 88th out of 117 in my age group. My swim was 37 minutes flat, my bike was 3:05:35 (18.1 mph average), and my run was a painful 2:14:16 (10:15 min/mile pace). Next year, Oceanside is up in late March, and I will have my revenge!! Here's a picture of me on the bike leg, and a picture of me near the end of the run Also, here's the histogram with my finishing position.

• Seafair sprint triathlon, July 19th, 2009. This race consisted of a half mile swim, a 12 mile bike ride, and a 3.1 mile run. I somewhat botched the swim; I gunned too hard to get in front of a crunch of swimmers, blew up my heart rate, and had to sit up for a minute to recover. But, the ride and run were very fast. My swim time was 16:35 (779th out of 1454), my bike time was 35:20 (200th out of 1454, a 20.3 mph pace), and my run time was 21:08 (132nd out of 1454, a 6:48 min/mile pace). Overall, I was 216th in the race, or 31st out of 137 in my age group. Here's the histogram with my finishing position.

• Beat the Bridge 8K, May 17th, 2009. This was a fast 5 mile running race, but with a massive 4,576 participants. I went out hard from the start, and kept a 6:42 minute per mile pace, and finished in 33:33. I was the 231st finisher out of 4576, or 27th out of 289 in my age group! Here's the histogram with my finishing position.

• Oceanside 70.3, April 4th, 2009. My best race yet; I finished in 5:38:16, which is a 13 minute personal best for the half-ironman distance. Oceanside has a fairly protected swim in the harbor, a very fast first half of the cycling leg (tailwind and flat), but a pretty challenging second half. The run is very flat, along the Strand, a road hugging the ocean and beach. My splits were a 36:45 swim, a 2:55:55 bike, and a 1:56:48 run. I was confident and aggressive in the swim, and my bike ride was really fast (at least, for me -- I averaged 19.1mph). The first half of the run was solid, but I really slowed in the second half. Overall, very satisfying for my first race of the new season! Here's the histogram with my finishing position.

2008

• Haleakala ascent, November 11th, 2008. Sunny and I were on Maui for Paul's wedding, and I got the chance to cycle up the Haleakala volcano. This was a 35 mile, 10,200 foot ascent -- apparently the largest paved ascent in the world! It took me about 6 hours to make it up; fortunately, a local rider from the Maui Cyclery (Matt) went up with me, and was great motivation and support. Here's the elevation profile, a route map, and some images of me and Matt at the summit. We started at the Maui Cyclery store, and finished at the summit. Marion and Bob also took a whack at the ascent, making it to about 4000 feet.

• Ironman Canada 2008, August 24th, 2008. After a nervous and slow first 15 minutes, I really picked up the pace on the swim, and finished the leg with strength. The bike was fast -- a PR for me -- though I had a nutrition bonk partway up the climb to Yellow Lake. The run was terrible, as usual, and I crumbled horribly, running only 5-6 miles of the marathon, and walking the rest. Nonetheless, I finished the race with a PR of 14:48:34. Here's a YouTube video of me running into the finish chute, late, late at night (and a local, mp4 version).

• Lake Stevens 70.3, July 6th, 2008. Another strong, sub-six-hour race. I came in at 5:56:26, placing me 480th out of 881 finishers, 374th out of 580 males, and 76th out of 111 males in my 35-39 age division. My time was just 30 seconds slower than the average time for the race -- close to cracking the top half! I had my first ever bike flat during a race; took about 8 minutes to do the tube swap. Happily, I had a very strong sub-two-hour half marathon (1:55), which kept me under 6 hours. Here's the histogram with my finishing position, a photo of me on my bike, and a photo of me running.

• Shawnigan Lake 70.3, May 25th, 2008. Yvonne, Celina and I did this race just north of Victoria on Vancouver Island. It was my best race yet -- I cracked the 6 hourmark for this half-iron distance event, coming in at 5:50:39! I had a solid swim (36:40), a really fast bike ride (2:58:57), and a somewhat weak run at 2:09:36. I was on track for a sub-2hr run, but ran out of steam with 4 miles to go. It was a small but competitive field; I placed 63rd out of 94 participants. Of the many strong people participating, most notable was perhaps Jasper Blake, the Ironman Canada 2006 men's winner. Here's the histogram with my finishing position.

• Oceanside 70.3, March 29th, 2008. Nick and I headed down to Oceanside, just outside of San Diego, to do this half-ironman. It was Nick's first ever triathlon, and my first of the season. I'd been training hard, and it paid off: I came in at my personal best of 6:14:45, including a fast 3:09:08 on the bike. Overall, I was 1,160th out of 1,958 racers, placing me in the 39th percentile. Here's the histogram with my finishing position. I cramped up on the run and went very slowly, so there is still a lot of room for improvement! Splits: 41:27 on the swim (too slow), 5:46 t1, 3:09:08 bike, 4:19 t2, and 2:14:05 on the run.

2007

• Ironman World Championships, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, October 13th, 2007. I was lucky enough to win a lottery slot to this year's Ironman Triathlon world championships! This was an incredible adventure; my race writeup is here. Between the heat, the winds, and a seriously bruised and blistered foot, I barely finished this race. But, I did finish in 15:44:06, putting me 1624th out of 1787 racers -- that's the third percentile! Here's the histogram with my finishing position.

• Lake Stevens 70.3, July 8th, 2007. A half-ironman triathlon. Pretty slow race for me; I was running with an injured achilles tendon, and so I walked the majority of the run. Overall, I came in at 6:36:35. Here's the histogram with my finishing position. I was 631st out of 766 racers.

• Issaquah Triathlon, June 2rd, 2007. This was a sprint triathlon, with a quarter mile swim, a 15 mile bike, and a 3 mile run. Out of 400 men, I finished 124th. In total, I was 155th out of 760 finishers, and 30th out of 82 in the male 30-34 age group. I was pleased with the race: I was fast in the swim, moderate in the bike, and very fast on the run (sub seven minute miles). Here's the histogram with my finishing position, and the full race result PDF file.

2006

• Utah cycling odyssey, June 16-21, 2006. Paul and I took a week to cycle through the mountains and desert of Utah. We started at Cedar City, and rode 79 miles on the first day over the mountains, ending up at Bryce Canyon. Day 2 was a 75 mile ride through Tropic, Cannonville, and Escalante, ending at Boulder town. Our plan from there was to cross the desert and end up at Moab, but the heat was so intense we decided to backtrack instead, fearing heatstroke on a monster 120 mile day through the desert. So, we rode back to Cannonville on day 3 (I did in fact get mild heatstroke that day!) and up to Bryce Canyon on day 4, and then rented a car to go to Moab for some mountain biking on slickrock and rafting down the Colorado river. Here's a set of photos from the ride.

• Issaquah Triathlon, June 3rd, 2006. This was a sprint triathlon, with a quarter mile swim, a 14.5 mile bike, and a 3.5 mile run. The course was fast; mostly a flat ride hugging the shore of Lake Sammmamish. Out of 416 men, I finished 118th. In total, I was 143rd out of 771 finishers, and 29th out of 81 in the male 31-34 age group. I lagged a little in the swim, but my bike ride and run where both really fast; I was constantly passing people from earlier waves, and at most two or three people passed me. Here's the histogram with my finishing position.

• Big Climb 2006, March 19, 2006. A lung-popping race up the stairwell of the Columbia Center in downtown Seattle, consisting of 69 flights of stairs, 1,311 steps, and 788 feet of vertical elevation. I finished in a pretty fast 11 minutes and 25 seconds, putting me at 154th out of 1385 racers; here's the histogram with my finishing position.

2005

• Seattle Escape from the Rock Triathlon, September 11, 2005. This was a sprint triathlon (a 1/2 mile swim off of Mercer Island in Lake Washington, an 11 mile bike ride out and back over the I-90 bridge express lanes, then a 2.5 mile hilly run). I finished in 1:24:39, putting me 118th out of 282 men, 17th out of 43 in my age group, and 148th out of 571 overall competitors. Here's the histogram of my results.

• Vineman Half Ironman July 31st, 2005. I got my butt kicked in this race. I finished in 7:39:05, a full hour slower than the last time I did the race. My swim was good -- 42:36, only 18 seconds slower than 2004, but my bike slipped to 3:33:43 (17 minutes slower) and my run was more of a walk than a run, at 3:10:37 (compared to 2:22:18 last year). A bit of a wake-up call -- time to get training!

2004

• Ironman Canada 2004, August 29, 2004. This was my second Ironman Canada, and I finished in 14:54:38, an improvement of 31:42 over my first Ironman. I was still near the back (I finished 1753rd out of 2056 official finishers). The swim and the bike both went very well, though I shuffled most of the run.

• Beaver Lake Triathlon, August 14, 2004. A sprint distance triathlon (1/4 mile swim, 13.8 mile bike, 4.3 mile run) in Sammamish; this was a good shake-out to figure out what I needed to work on over the last week of preparations for Ironman. My bike ride felt totally solid, but my swim was shaky and my legs would work on the first two miles of the run. Nonetheless, I finished in 1:37:54, which put me in the top half of the race. Here is a histogram showing my position relative to the rest of the field: I was near the median, though each minute I shaved off would have put me ahead of 20 more competitors.

• Vineman Half Ironman, August 1, 2004. A very fun course - a river swim, an extremely flat ride, and a half marathon run through the vineyards. My swim and bike times were pretty decent, but my run was a snail's pace. Overall, I placed 253rd out of 288 males 30-34, 979 out of 1183 males, and 1303 out of 1692 overall finishers. My final time was 6:32:44.2.

• Whidbey Island Half-Marathon, April 4, 2004. This was a really hilly run course, and I was underprepared. The first half went great, but I really slowed down in the second half, dropping from about an 8 minute/mile pace to almost 10 minutes/mile; my overall pace was 8:54 minutes/mile for a final time of 1:56:34. In the end, I placed 39th out of 59 runners in the male 30-34 age group, 174th out of 313 male runners, and 249th out of 748 total runners.

2003

• 2003 Seattle Marathon, November 30, 2003. I did the full marathon (26.2 miles), finishing in 4:11:44. This was a fairly slow pace; I did the first half marathon in 1:50:54 (8 minute 27 second miles), but slowed down to 2:20:51 (10 minute 45 second miles) for the second half. My time put me 954th out of 1,984 total marathoners, 726th out of 1,277 males, and 131st out of 228 in my age group.

• Pumpkin Push 2003, October 25, 2003. This year, the pumpkin push was an 8km course (4.97 miles). I started way too fast (6:20 mile pace), and settled down by mile 2. In the end, I finished at 36:02, which was a 7:23 pace. This put me at 18th out of 81 in my age group, 58th out of 230 males, and 74th out of 533 overall runners.

• Royal Victoria Half Marathon, October 12, 2003. About 8,000 people did either the half or full marathon; it was a great crowd. I finished the half marathon in 1:49:44, an 8:22/mile pace. This put me 796th out of 3,680 total half marathon runners, 546th out of 1,334 males, and 109th out of 197 30-34 year old males. (writeup)

• Seattle to Canada bicycle ride, September 22, 2003. Paul and I tried to make it from Seattle to Vancouver by bike in one day (about 160 mile ride). We started at 7am, made it across the Canadian border to Surrey (the outskirts of Vancouver), and called it a day at about 9pm, after 135 miles total.

• Ironman Canada 2003, August 24, 2003. My first Ironman; my goal was to finish, and I did, in 15 hours, 26 minutes, and 20 seconds. This put me near the back of the pack, so there is plenty of opportunity to improve next year. (writeup)

• San Francisco to Santa Barbara bicycle ride, May 22-26, 2002. Paul and I flew into San Franciso on Thursday afternoon (May 22), and cycled from there down to Santa Barbara, a total of 371 miles. We made about 30 miles to Half Moon Bay on Thursday, 95 miles to Monterey on Friday, 80 hilly miles to Ragged Point on Saturday, 75 miles to Grover Beach on Sunday, and cruised about 95 miles to Santa Barbara on Monday.

2002

• Pumpkin Push 5K run, October 26, 2002. Getting faster; I did 20:39, which is a 6:39 minute/mile pace. I finished 9th out of 46 in my age group, 35th out of 229 males, and 39th out of 622 out of all 5K runners.

• Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation 5K run, July 20, 2002. Sunny and I ran this race together. I kept an even pace throughout, and finished in 21:36, which is a 6:58 minute/mile pace (much faster than the dog dash last year).

• Colorado Adventure Training, May 24-26, 2002. To get back into the adventure racing swing of things, I signed up for this 3-day AR training course put on by team Eco-Internet, 8000 ft high in Estes Park (near Boulder, CO).  Unfortunately, I badly sprained my ankle playing soccer the week before, and it was still seriously swollen and sore by the time of the camp.  So, I went anyway.  Good fun, but my ankle forced me to skip the 20-hour race at the end.

2001

After a long hiatus from racing, it's time to get back into it. The past year and a half has been intense, interviewing for a new job, starting as an assistant professor at the University of Washington, and learning how to adapt my schedule to the "professorial life". The cost of this hiatus has been about an extra 15 pounds of weight, and a big fitness hole out of which I am starting to dig... ;)

• The Dawg Dash 5K, October 13th, 2001. A good first run; Hank, Alon, Larry A., Sunny, and I entered as "Team High Bandwidth", defending the honor of the UW CSE Department. My brain wanted to run faster than my body did, and I ended up starting out way too fast, going completely anaerobic and sucking wind for the last half of the run. I finished in 89th place out of 607 runners with a time of 23:56, which is a 7:39 minutes/mile pace. This put me 46th out of 111 in my age group. Our team finished 3rd out of 5 faculty teams, and 4th out of all teams in general. We'll take it.

1999

• The Sacramento Hi-Tech Adventure Race, August 29th, 1999. An excellent result - Paul, myself, and Tal did this race. We finished in 3:46:45, which put us 12th out of 64 in the all male division, and which put us about 40th out of around 260 overall. The temperatures soared to over 100 fahrenheit for this one; we all were really dehydrated by the end of the race. The race involved a 6.5 mile hilly trail run, 10 miles of pretty tough single-track mountain biking, and about a mile of kayaking. Plus, there were some "special tests" thrown in, like a miniature orienteering course, doing marine hurdles with a kayak, and bringing our mountain bikes over a 15 foot high cargo net.

• Cal Eco Adventure Race #3, July 17th, 1999. This was the best race of the year, by far and away. Once again, we didn't quite finish this one - we had 2 miles of biking left to go, but my knees were completely trashed and we had to stop after 19 hours of racing. Read all about the race here.

• Escape from Alcatraz, June 5th, 1999. The swim absolutely destroyed me on this race; I was out of the water in about one hour and ten minutes, instead of the 46 minutes of 2 years ago. This year, the currents were nasty; I somehow got trapped in an eddy current right next to the island, and I was literally stuck in the same spot (10 feet from Alcatraz's shore) for over 20 minutes trying to get away. Eventually I did, but I was so tired and mildly hypothermic that the rest of the swim went at a slower pace than it should have. After the swim, however, the race went great - I was passing people all over the pace on the bike ride, and held my own nicely during the run. After the race, the sniffle I had going into it turned into a full-blown cold complete with fever and cough; I guess I abused my immune system a little too much during that swim.

• Cal Eco Adventure Race #2, May 22nd, 1999. Another fun race, although my team dnf'ed on this one too. The race involved about 8 hours of night-time orienteering, followed by 3 hours of mountain biking, 7 hours of open-sea kayaking, and another 2-3 hours of mountain biking. We never made it past the orienteering; our route choices were poor. Although we never got lost, we ran into a dead-end trying to make our way up a river valley up to a ridge on top; the vegetation was too think and impassable near the top, so it took us about 3 hours to hit a dead end, and 3 more hours to extricate ourselves, by which time we were dead-tired, scraped up, and way behind the rest of the racers. Great fun...

• Wildflower Half-Ironman, May 1st, 1999. Excellent race - 1.2 mile swim, 55 mile brutal brutal road bike course in blistering sun and crazy hills, then 13 mile run to the finish. I dnf'ed, though; feeling my knees starting to give after 2 miles or so of the run, I decided discretion was the better part of valour and that I'd hobble back to the finish line instead of running the rest of the race. :(

• Monterey Midnight Madness, April 1999. Another crazy adventure racing practice. We began at midnight on a Friday, did 4 hours of orienteering on foot, 4-5 hours of mountain biking, 4 hours of Kayaking, then 3 hours of mountain biking to get back to the start. I bonked after the Kayaking, and needed to get a lift back. Paul, Ivry, and Matthew finished by 4pm, so they did 16 hours of racing.

• Pacheco Midnight Madness, March 1999. Time to get serious about adventure racing...this practice race began at midnight on a Friday, and involved 3-4 hours of orienteering, and 4-6 hours of mountain biking (also while orienteering, of course). Paul, Eduardo, and I finished up in 9 hours or so, and then drove home to go catatonic.

1998

• The Napa Valley Half-Marathon, October 31st, 1998. This was an exceptionally gruelling half-marathon, including roughly 2000 feet of uninterrupted climbing for the first 5 miles. The top place time was 1:36:03. I placed 29th out of 135, with a time of 2:01:59, which is pretty pleasing, since my knee was so trashed at the end of the race that I couldn't bend it. (Stupid ITB band.)

• The LA Hi-Tech Adventure Race, October 24th, 1998. More of the same like Sacramento, but this time we got to be yelled at by marines, see a bunch of paratroopers land on our beach in formation, and other wild stuff.

• The Sacramento Hi-Tech Adventure Race, August 9th, 1998. This involved running, mountain biking, kayaking, wall scaling, mud-pit-swimming, and other such fun, fun stuff. My team placed 2nd in the corporate division...woohoo!

1997

• The Big Sur Ride, September 20-21st, 1997. This was a 170-mile, 11,000+ foot 2 day group ride along the coast of California south of Carmel, and then looping inwards back to the Carmel Valley. This wasn't a race, but it was an incredibly fun ride. Check out my writeup of the ride.

• The Triathlon at Pacific Grove, September 13th, 1997, Olympic distance. These results are the first 175 out of 360 male finishers. I placed 141st out of 360 in the male age group categories, finishing 14th in my age group, and 155th overall out of 463 in the race. My swim rocked - I've got to work on my running now. If only my knees would heal!

• San Jose International, June 29th, 1997, Olympic distance. These results are male age group (14th out of 29); I placed 276th out of 809 overall. This is one of the first races in which I really hammered on the swim. I also survived a nasty bee sting during the bike ride..

• Escape From Alcatraz, June 1st, 1997. 1.5 mile (from Alcatraz to the mainland) / 18 mile / 8 mile (1 mile of which is along sand). I placed 192nd out of 404 finishers, or 13th out of 18 in my age group. Gotta improve my swimming - I was lagging pace by about 10-15 minutes! A sports photographer took a picture of me about to cross the finish line for this one:
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• Wildflower, May 4th, 1997, Collegiate championship Olympic distance. (Click here for the overall Olympic distance results to compare against the rest of the competitors.) This was the first race of the season for me; I came in 102nd out of 134 in the collegiate championships, and that put me at about 300th out of the 800 overall competitors. Splits aren't on here - I was equally slow on all three legs, I'd have to say. Not bad for the first of the season, but definite room for improvement exists.