Goodbye Grandma

My grandma died (no need for euphemisms) last night (morning in Taiwan). She left peacefully and painlessly in her sleep. I really didn’t spend a whole lot of time with my grandma, or any of my other relatives, because my family is sort of isolated in New Jersey from everyone in Taiwan and California and whatnot. I only visited every few summers but I remember talking with my grandma on the phone, or rather, her constantly telling me to 用功,不要交壞朋友,好好讀書,上好的大學. I guess I’m really going to miss that now.

Today my mom told me what it means to be the 大孫, or the eldest son of my grandparents’ eldest son. My mom told me that it means I have to show composure and be more mature in these times of grief and to try to help in any way possible. I don’t really know what I can do to help with the funeral arrangements and stuff but I know what I can do. I can work hard, I can study hard, I can get into a good college. I can strive make her proud.

I’ve been thinking a lot about death and life. I can’t say I know what happened to my grandma after she took her last breath or what happens to any of us after we die. I can’t say I know for certain if we go to heaven or hell, or just fertilize grass after we die. But I’ve come to the conclusion that it really shouldn’t matter that much what happens to us after we die. What matters is what we do during life, how we impact the world and people around us.

So on the 14th, I’ll be going back to Taiwan, this time on a much more depressing note. I don’t know how long I’ll stay. I’m going to miss the running camp but o well I guess.. I don’t know how to end this post so I guess I’ll just end it with a quote and the thought of my grandmother, who loved her husband, her children, and her grandchildren. Who taught and disciplined many students who grew up to become businessmen, doctors, and maybe teachers themselves. Who spoke her mind but kept us all in her thoughts. And who I’ll never forget.

“Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows.”

Yes!

2190!

Edit: + 5 on APUSH & Bio!

End of the year post/looking forward to XC

This year was….less than great.

Grades….crappy much

Running….pretty damn bad, except the 2:11

Friends….=T

Well at least summer is here. I’m going to spend most of my summer trying to find a job/volunteer oppurtunities, training like a mofo, studying for SATIIs & doing AP summer HW, reading (or at least trying to), and doing anything else to make my resume for college look good.

I can’t even stress how hard I’m going to train this summer. I figure I ended spring track 8th or 9th returning man. That’s going to change. Big Time.

XC Goals

sub-17 at Holmdel: more than 2 minutes off my PB, but hey, I’m going for it

Top 5 Varsity: the sleeper must awaken

Injury-free: I might hit 60-70+ weeks, so this is pretty important

Dissapointing Year

Winter Soph – 5:05

Spring Soph – 5:01

Winter Jr – 5:05

Spring Jr – 5:00

It’s tough watching all your teammates improve and watch people who you used to be better than leave you in the dust. I don’t know what happened this year and why I didn’t perform well. I was in 10x better shape than Soph year and my fitness was the best I’ve ever been at. I really only had one good race, which was my 2:11.0 tri meet 800. I can ramble on about how disappointed I feel and how I should be so much better but there’s no need for that. This year was filled with too man “Should of” and “If only”s. I lost the fire I had for racing and competing. I need to rethink my position on this team and what I need to do to make varsity next year. I didn’t reach any of my goals this year and I just never raced with everything I had. I tried everything to improve my times but I just don’t know what happened. I need to do everything in my ability to be better and I have about 3 months to get ready for XC and my last year of running.

Onward!

Really overdue update.

School

yea…..to oversimplify it…..grades are crap, but I think did well on my APs. Probably a 4 on APUSH (maybe 5) and probably like a 3 or 4 on Bio. SATIIs were terrible. USH i completely gave up on and left like 15 blank (might retake it next year or just take another one) and Bio was ok considering i studied for it for about 30 minutes. I’m hoping to get a good score on the regular SAT in June so I can ease off and just take 2 SATIIs next fall.

Running

Performances have been sub-par. 10:41 is ok, but my fitness is way better than that. 5:00 is terrible but like coach said, it’s a step in the right direction. I’m going to start doubling and training twice as hard from now till the end of spring track because I feel like if I don’t give it my absolute all, I’m just wasting my time with running. I mean, why settle for the usual, sub-par, Oh-let’s-break-5-and-be-happy-Holmdel-attitude. It’s time for some serious training. After reading about Bob Timmons, I was inspired to up my training. Not that running isn’t hard enough, but I’m got giving my all. I mean staying up on runs is one thing, but that only got me to what….5:00? I need to take it to the next level if I want to make top 5 varsity for XC and catch up to the rest of my grade (Ollie, Stefan, Friggly, Jon Tai). Bottom line: time to stop fucking around and TRAIN.

List of Things I will/might consider doing

1) Doubling. Definite must. Now that school is done, I have more time to run. I still have to put together some good workouts or runs to do that will push my training to the next level but won’t kill me and get me injured. The 8×200s at 30 double I did that one day was good, but I need more of that.

2)Running home from school? Good idea, but it might be a little too much or might take too long…hmm…

3)Core, abs, strength exercises.

4)Visualization. Sounds corny but hey, I’m willing to try anything to run faster.

5)Eating right. Must do.

Time to start rollin’

AP’s, one month left of track, time for shit to it the fan.

Running

Training has been going decently. I’ve been staying up consistently but I still feel that the Group 2 runs are too easy. The only challenging days are when my calves feel like shit. Track workouts have been pretty easy and I have yet to really puke my guts out on a killer workout.

Racing has been looking upward. My times are gradually improving to my true fitness. The Holmdel Relays 3000m was an OK race. I PB’d by 10 seconds and used the relax and move strategy but I didn’t race to my fullest. The 800m against Matwan and Raritan was very good. I sat back in the second pack with James TIng and drafted off him until about 200m to go. My strategy paid off and I passed one Raritan kid and out leaned a Matawan kid for a 4.5 second PB of 2:11.0. I might have been able to go faster if I had tried to go with the 3 Matawan kids, Raritan kid, and Robby but I might have died out. 2:11.0 is very good considering I haven’t had any real MD type speedwork.

The Lion Invitational is on Saturday and I’m looking to run as close to 4:45 as possible. My plan is to stick to my instinct and not go out super hard.

Other Stuff

With less than 20 days left to AP exams I really got to buck down and study. I really want to pull off a 750+ Bio & USH SATII and a 5 on APUSH and 4 on AP Bio. I’m pretty pissed that I pretty much have no chance of getting an A in English because on the 64 I got on the research paper. What the fuck Gothelf. Also, an A in Physics & APUSH is very slim…..fuck high school.

Up to episode 130 in Dragon Ball. Hopefully I can start Z soon. hehe

dead

School is killing me. Bio is rape, homework & procrasination is eating up my time. Can’t wait for spring break.

Hit around 62 miles this week for running. A couple more 60+ weeks and I should be rolling. More later, time to start HW =(

blog attempt #3

So I finally got around to getting a new blog after the first two failed. My first running blog was pretty lame because I just sucked half way through XC. I would’ve kept the second one but I forgot my password and Blogspot/Google Accounts was acting like a bitch so yea…new blog.

I already have a log for running, which I will use for more specific stuff, but I’ll still post general comments and stuff unrelated to my log on here.

Running

It has been pretty awesome lately. I don’t really know how I got back in shape. After the shitty XC & winter track seasons, I just decided to stop sucking. I can honestly say that I’m in the best shape of my life and have reinvented my whole outlook on running, although I still have A LOT to improve upon. I think the difference was that I was overanalyzing things before and worrying to much. Now I just have one goal in mind while running: stay up and run fast. I’m really excited for spring, not only for myself but for the entire team. This is going to be the greatest track season in Holmdel history. Just some things to anticipate: George sub 4:15/9:00; Kev Hsu, Sean, Robby, Ollie sub 10:00/4:30; 6 or more freshman breaking 5; possible records in the 4×800, DMR, 4×1600, etc.; Friggly sub 2:00, Stefan sub-10:00; a bunch of other guys 4:30-4:30/10:00-10:20 range. This is going to be an epic season.

Goals

4:40 is what I’m really focused on. I don’t really know what I want to run for the 3200 & 800. After the 2:15 that I treated as a workout/time trial, I would say sub-2:10 would be a good goal. Some non-PR goals I have are to definitely stay healthy and injury free for the rest of high school, build a strong core/abdominal area (something I’ve been trying to do for a long time), turn 8:00 fw/bw & 9:00 toploops from all-out into “just another run”, inspire my brother to work harder & run faster (5:2x maybe?), and just stop worrying about trivial things and have more confidence to run fast.

and of course, my first varsity letter

Poppin

Well this is something I’ve kind of kept as a secret but I really enjoy it. I’ve been improving a lot and I’m planning to really learn a lot of new stuff when I get the chance (maybe spring break). Look out for a possible video soon.

School

Ugh…..classes are going ok (except Bio). I have a good chance at getting A’s in English, APUSH, Physics, Chinese, if I work hard. Bio is a lost cause. I’m just going to try to pull of a high C. I really have to start studying for my two AP tests + SAT IIs + SAT (2020 -_-).  Hopefully I can do well the rest of this year and senior yea to counterbalance my shitty GPA from freshman and sophomore year. Still have no idea where I want to go for college and what I want to major in.

Social Life

Pretty much nonexistant right now. I hang out with track kids mainly, but other than that I’m a complete introvert towards other people. Girls?…haha, I am really doubting my chances of getting a date to prom this year.

Well that’s about it for now. I should start my homework soon. O yea, the name…well I started watching Dragon Ball Z lately..and yea…”Stuff”, “I love JC”, and other names were already taken.