magic ice cream koi fish, part 1: DELETED.

Friday after work, I was grabbing groceries at the local indoor farmer's market, which has all kinds of international products, when something caught my eye. In the ice cream aisle. And I was immediately hit by a shockwave of that uber powerful nostalgicky feeling.

I was pretty stressed out from some challenging cases at work that week, on top off capping of the third week with Christmas Puppy. (Hence the ice cream aisle.) And there it was. The shining beacon of red bean with vanilla ice cream inside a crunchy koi fish.

The magical Korean koi fish ice cream sandwich.

Only the most hard-core Wongstar fans will recall, the magical Korean ice cream sandwich of October 2009. This was the ice cream sandwich I ate the night before I broke 10hrs for the first time in an ironman triathlon. I even blogged about it. And damn right there is a picture of me cheesing it for the camera with my magic ice cream koi fish the night before the race...

I almost had a heart attack last night, because I was ready to blog about the magic ice cream koi fish, of course with a link to the original "night before my first sub-10" blog post, when I clicked the link and found: "This user has elected to delete their account and the content is no longer available."

AAAAUGHHHHHHH WHAAAAAAAA-------#@!@#$*&$#!-------AAAAAAAT?!?!?!?!

Maybe I did have a heart attack. Or more like an anxiety attack. How could 4 years of over 300 blog posts chronicling my journey from being a normal 13+ hour ironman girl to an international triathlon superstar be deleted, just like that?! I wasn't about to tell the Sherpa, who is constantly on my case about backing up my files. Yes, I had been meaning to upload/download/whatever all my content and throw it onto an archived blog, but, but, but...

A little bit of hyperventilating, Googling, and emailing commenced. If they really were deleted, posts seemed like they were cached on Google. My Google Reader had pulled a bunch of posts that I had read (yes, I subscribe to my own blog on Google Reader...I like to re-read my adventures). But not all of them. And I have a whole bunch of drafts offline. But just drafts. Most posts were edited and finalized most of the time until they were perfect. I am a writer, and take pride in publishing blog posts free of horrible grammar mistakes.

Last night, seeing my displeasure on my Facebook fan page, the current web chick quickly wrote back to tell me the posts were most likely not deleted and gone forever. This morning my old team manager assured me they are not deleted and are to be put up and viewable again. Some assurance, but my heart is still racing. Or maybe it's the caffeine I'm hyped up on so I can juggle working like a real person with a full-time job, parenting a little puppy, and training to become an Olympic hopeful.

But DELETED. Such finality. My heart aches with the feeling of what once was, because as happy as my new life and exciting as my new sport is, breaking up with triathlon--a 12-year relationship--still hurts. I know I can always go back, but I don't want to.

DELETED.

It's a metaphor for how I feel sometimes. Like a flash of light, the WongSTAR came, she saw, she conquered. Then she walked away. Or rather, she ran out of money, smashed into a van, and mentally crashed.

If the old teamTBB blog were truly gone, then what else was there to remember me by? Some days I'm happy to be out of the limelight, the triathlon circus full of both haters and fans, living a quiet life. Other days I see a magic Korean koi fish ice cream sandwich at the grocery store and yearn for the days a sub-10 ironman was a foregone conclusion, living out of a suitcase and traipsing through foreign countries was a lifestyle, and having no money just meant you'd have no problem hitting "race weight."

Is this why I still blog? So I could feel that I have not disappeared, been DELETED from the memories of former triathlon fans? Is there anyone still out there?

"Is there anyone out there cuz it's getting harder and harder to breathe..." --Maroon 5

post-triathlon dreams.

Last night I had a dream I was in Thailand. I was hungry, and I saw some golden arches in the distance. McDonald's. I headed towards McDonald's, and it was on the second floor of the building. The only way to get up there would be to jump really high and grab ahold of this ladder attached to this ceiling.

I looked up and thought "No chance in hell. I really need to keep doing my pull-ups."

There was a kitchen and restaurant on the first floor, and I ordered local food instead. It was wheat-free, but it wasn't soy-free.

Then I was at home, and I realized I had signed up for an Ironman probably the year before. The race was in San Diego. It was 3 weeks away, and I didn't want to do it. I hadn't been training, and I didn't want to do it. We started to weigh out the cost of the entry fee I already put down, with how much it would cost to fly out to San Diego, with the bike and everything, and hotels and food etc etc etc.

I actually started to contemplate if I could do the ironman on basically ZERO training.

But even in my dream, I knew I wasn't going to go. I didn't want to do the Ironman. I don't even know how I signed up, and paid for the entry fee too.

Buzz Lightyear kicks out White Tiger

I updated my header image. If you are using a blog reader and can't see it, open up www.thewongstar.com in a new browser.

I was tired of looking at myself riding White Tiger. (I know...poor White Tiger has been relegated to the basement. Heart stickers and all.) I haven't mentioned the post-traumatic-car-crash syndrome (like PTSS but specifically from car crashes), maybe it'll be another blog another day.

Anyway, making my Buzz Lightyear costume and running around in it for Halloween was a big highlight this crazy year. I can relate to him because we are both really obnoxious, totally awesome, and slightly out of touch with reality. ("I can fly!!!") Unfortunately the best photo of myself as Buzz is in front of ugly furniture in a messy living room. Anyone a Photoshop whiz out there? Then again, Space Rangers have to make do with the strange planets they land on. :)

I've been inundated with all kinds of messages since announcing that I don't want to race as a pro triathlete any more. For the most part, true friends and fans that have followed me the past years have been overwhelmingly supportive, and I'm so appreciative beyond words. I feel like I've been out of racing form for such a long time (oh, a whole year), that I guess I was surprised so many people still followed me and read this blog. I haven't had time to respond to everyone's messages but am hoping to get to all of them soon.

In the meantime, I renamed the blog. Oh, there will still be shenanigans, always, but I liked the idea of "To infinity, and beyond triathlon..." because what also sorta-not-really surprised me, was the responses on the Slowtwitch forum on my retirement thread. (And I stand by my statement, nothing says "triathlon superstar" like your very own retirement thread on Slowtwitch!) I've definitely learned to not take any negativity directed towards me personally because people tend to be jackasses when they can hide behind their computers. I once even had some marathon girl send me hatemail calling me a "fuckin' loser." WOW.

The general tone from a lot of Slowtwitch folks was that if I was retiring from triathlon, I was saying good-bye to competitive athletics completely. Of course, this is coming from triathletes only, and I guess to a triathlete, if you're not doing triathlon, you're not doing anything. Mm-hmm. You know there are other sports out there, right guys?

Somewhere in the middle of the decision process, I started to think of my pro triathlon career not as the end goal, but thought "maybe I have yet to find out what I'm really good at." And maybe this whole tri thing was merely a stepping stone to something even bigger and better.

So here we go...life after triathlon. Fasten your seat belts, because yes, I plan to keep blogging. I was a blogger long before I was a pro triathlete and I will continue to blog about my new adventures. Whatever I do, wherever I go. Thanks for reading!