This is my newest hobby. It's something that I've thought about doing for a long time and I finally took the plunge. My first race was the Nautica Malibu Triathlon in September 2006. My goal was just to finish the race since it was my first one. This race was also a fundraiser and thanks to the very generous donations of friends and family I was able to raise $1065 for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. It was such a satisfying experience to do all the preparations and training myself! And the race itself was awesome! To finally cross the finish line gave me such a sense of accomplishment!

Now I'm hooked. I did the Pflueger Honda MountainMan Triathlon in November 2006 in Kaneohe, Hawaii. The distances were slightly shorter than the Malibu race, but it seemed much harder. Unlike my previous road race, this triathlon took place off-road. And the ocean swim went against the current. Mountain biking and trail running is a lot harder than racing on pavement, but it's a lot of fun.

Now I've started running marathons. I never thought I could do a marathon-type race, even when I was training for the triathlons. I had never run double-digit mileage before. Then a friend of mine, Yvette, asked me to run with her. She was training for a marathon. As I got into her training program, I started to realize that maybe a marathon was a possibility. It still took me about a month of training with her to make the commitment and actually sign up though. So Yvette and I ran the La Jolla Half-Marathon in April 2007. This race was actually just part of our preparation for our real goal of completing the San Diego Rock 'n' Roll Marathon in June 2007. I ended up running it in 3:50:14. I continued training on my own and ran the Las Vegas Marathon in December 2007, beating my previous time by about 6 minutes. Unfortunately, my timing chip malfunctioned and I have no official time recorded. Still trying to get that worked out.