happy new year!  I am going to of course first apologize to everyone that still come by to check out my site hoping for an update and walking away extremely disappointed.  Sorry to let you down!  but today I am working on it.  "Monthly updates?!" you've been scoffing.  I know, I know!  I'm mortified, believe me.  You miss a monthly update, then another one, and before you know it, your poor neglected website is severely overdue for a massive overhaul....you give a September update, the weeks fly by, and suddenly it's a brand new year!  I was completely swamped with training my butt off for 2 months at rookie boot camp, and then came home in time to study my butt off for my prosthetic board exams.  I took the last of the 3-part exam just this past weekend, and am SO GLAD to be done!!  I feel like I can finally come up for air.

ok, enough whining and excuses.  what's the quote--winners make goals and losers make excuses!!  well, let's do a new year's resolution, shall we?  I resolve to update this site much more often and replace my outdated pictures from the spring of 2007.  Yes, this was when I was still living in Texas, which explains the random pictures of me in a cowboy hat ;)

I now consider myself as based in both the San Francisco Bay Area and Southeast Asia (the Philippines, for now).  Finishing my residency put a series of events into motion, notably my first camp with teamTBB which led to an official 3-year place on their team as a development athlete.  That's right, it's official now!  I had been considered a development athlete for the year I had been on the team during my residency, but we still had to figure out if I was a good match for the team, and if the team was a good match for me.  Turns out that I absolutely loved it, and besides the brutal training, I got a chance to do some prosthetic missions in Manila and the surrounding areas.

I honestly feel like the luckiest girl in the world (pinch me!), to be able to train with the best tri team and best coach in the world, and also use the skills I learned in grad school to make a difference in people's lives around the world.  A lot of exciting new developments in store for 2009 and I will be sure to keep everyone updated on them.

In the meantime I'm training hard and preparing to leave the US again in a mere 2 weeks.  I'm working two jobs essentially: part-time as a prosthetist-orthotist for Gary Berke Prosthetics and just as many hours swimming, biking, and running.  The workday starts at around 7am (first workout) and sometimes doesn't end until 7pm (second or third workout).  But I am passionate about both jobs and can still smile when I go to bed completely exhausted every night!

Thank you for all your continued support, even despite my severe neglect!

hey fans and lovers

I seriously missed last month's update, and almost this one too!  It's the last day of September, which of course makes me sing some Green Day in my head...

summer has come and past
the innocent can never last
wake me up, when September ends...

Of course, when I wake up tomorrow, it will be October.  OCTOBER!!  I missed the last update because I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to get done all the crazy last-minute stuff one gets done before moving to a foreign country for 2 months.  I can't believe I've almost been here for a month now!  It's been fun, definitely eye-opening, and makes me realize how lucky I am to be following my dream here.

There are moments when I feel like such a spoiled American girl, even so, I can almost blend in with the locals.  One thing that is different, being the token Asian on our team, is that I don't get stared at or harassed quite as much as the white kids.  hahaha!  I mean, I still get stared at and harassed for money by people for being tall (SUPER tall for an Asian, especially in this country) and obviously not a local for the way I dress (mostly spandex these days).  But I've got the black hair and darker skin (and even darker these days with the time I spend in the sun) and a lot of sales people actually will talk to me in Tagalog...not that I can understand much of it!

Our head coach actually arrives this weekend, and that is why we sing "the innocent can never last..." because the real boot camp is about to begin!  In the meantime, I have been getting my fitness up to prepare for boot camp--the last couple months of residency were not so "pro triathlete friendly" in terms of getting big hours in.  I've also been helping out the local prosthetics clinic in Manila and going to their monthly missions in the Pampanga province.  The next one is this Saturday, and I'm also trying to figure out how to best help out the local amputee population in terms of improving their care here.  So I've been meeting a lot of people and talking and networking.  I also need to be studying for my prosthetic board exams which will be taking place a couple weeks after I get back from camp!  yikes!

well, that is the scoop for now.  I've been lousy about updating this website, but thank you for all your support and please check out my teamTBB blog for more frequent updates and PICTURES!!  My stat counter says I'm getting over 120 "page views" on this site every day, whatever that means...well I think it means I should try to update this website if so many people are looking at it!  Geez these pictures are OLD!

hugs and kisses the Pinay way (it's a cheek kiss),
Jocelyn

ok, it's the last day of July so I better do my "Monthly YAY Jocelyn" update.  Do you ever look at my website and just feel like cheering for me?  I do.  yaaaay Jocelyn.  yaaay!  That is the whole point of the website, really.  It's for self-promotion in the sport, for the sponsors primarily, and the 1 or 2 of you in my fan club.  ;)  Quite honestly, jocelynwong.com was already taken, jocelyn.com may or may not be a porn site, and yayjocelyn.com sounded so much cooler!  I got the idea from Jessi Stensland's website actually, hers is gojessi.com.  So I thought about gojocelyn.com, and it was my friend Bill in Dallas who suggested yayjocelyn.com.  that's the story!

speaking of self-promotion, I got nominated for, and subsequently won, Athlete of the Month in my local tri club, Team Sheeper!!  It was an honor to be nominated, and I then took it upon myself to see it as running for student body president or prom queen...in the spirit of the 2008 campaign season, I emailed a tongue-in-cheek campaign letter to my club explaining why they should vote for me, and not the other two candidates.  oh, the smears!  It was all for laughs, and I was pretty excited to end up winning.  One guy was so impressed with me that I ended up winning a date with him, too.  niiiice.  Here is my Athlete of the Month profile...it's kind of like an interview and the most important quote  is "I'm currently happily single, but I hear that once a girl becomes Athlete of the Month, her social calendar and datebook literally EXPLODE."  hehe.  I also say "Remember, winning comes to those who want it most!"  I don't remember where I've heard this before, or if I just pulled it out of my butt, but it sure is a good quote, isn't it?  actually, maybe I did just make it up myself , I just googled it and it points to my livejournal as the only result.  damn, I better trademark that one!!

Speaking of winning, I am a little tired of people (non-triathletes, usually family members or co-workers) asking "so DID YOU WIN?" after each race I do.  I've never won a race outright, and sometimes I win my age group.  But it's not always about what place you get.  At Vineman 70.3, I finally broke 5 hours at the half distance (on my 15th try, woohoo) and to me, I won that day.  Sure I got spanked by the pros and 14 other amateur women (who completely handed it to me on the swim, I just never caught up) but I was so happy finishing under 5 hours, I could have cried.  My race report is here; it is full of swear words so if you are sensitive to f-bombs, you shouldn't read it.  I am really proud of myself because I faced the pain, and am learning to mentally push through the pain barriers, how to keep suffering when your body wants to back down.  Vineman followed 3 weeks after the Buffalo Springs 70.3, where I had a spectacular mental blow up and raced nowhere near where I should be.  I was extremely disappointed in myself, and it proved to be a very expensive (but effective!) lesson in exposing my weaknesses.  It lit a fire under my butt and I felt completely redeemed after Vineman.

Now I've got just one more day of residency (WOW a year has gone by already, and so quickly!) and August will be spent working on my final research paper, training to train, and having a little fun before my life changes forever.  It sounds dramatic, I know, but I've booked my plane tickets (thank you to my friend and flight sponsor Mark!!) and will be boarding that plane to my new life on September 3rd.  I have a feeling that life will never be the same again, and so I will enjoy "life as I know it" for another month.

will let you know how that goes...in another month!!  ;)

hey, can you believe it's June already??  I only started working with Coach Brett and teamTBB a year ago in June and I'm amazed at how quickly the year has gone by.  Residency is sort of winding down, as in, there is only a month and a half left but there's still so much to do!  I have to get my research paper done and I've got two 70.3 races on the schedule in this time frame too.  what was I thinking?!

Once August hits though, I will get to breathe a little easier.  I'm going to continue working at my current office with more flexible hours, so I can get in more training (and more importantly, more sleep and recovery) and still practice prosthetics and orthotics.  then around mid-September I will be going to my first training camp with teamTBB (!!!) in Subic Bay, the Phillippines.  WOW.  I am completely psyched, and just a bit nervous, but more excited than anything.  I know it is going to hurt and humble me in all sorts of ways training side-by-side with the world's best, but it'll be one HUGE step in my quest to become the athlete--and person--that I want to be.

the photo above is my favorite shot of me from my last race, the San Jose International Triathlon (race report here).  You can see I've got my new-ish teamTBB race kit on, and I'm hopping off my new-ish Cervelo P2C.  barefooted, that's right, barefooted!  What you may not see as clearly are the horrible sunburn lines on my thighs from Ironman China are almost, not quite, faded away (I had much longer shorts on), and I've painted over the still-bruised toenails, also courtesy of IM China.

Meanwhile, I've noticed that yayjocelyn.com is in DIRE need of a makeover.  a ton of the content was put together when I was living in Texas over a year ago, so I need to do some major updating.  especially since I still seem to get some new visitors daily (thanks for visiting, come back soon!!).  unfortunately this won't happen probably until residency is done first...though I have been known to procrastinate and find ways to distract myself when I should be doing research... ;)

until next time, hope you are having a happy summer full of great training, no injuries or sickness, and AWESOME racing with ginormous PR's!!

hey sports fans, wow!  it's been over six months since I've updated the yayjocelyn.com blog???  what has happened in the meantime?  well, I took 5th place amateur at the Treasure Island Tri-turned-Duathlon, then was madly studying for my orthotic board exams.  I found out in February that I passed, so I am now officially a certified orthotist!  that makes me Jocelyn Wong, MSPO, CO.

The past few months I've been juggling working full time during my prosthetic residency while training for my first Ironman as a pro, just a couple weeks ago.  Ironman China!  Land of my people!  It was a big trip for me, as not only was it my first time being in the pro division, but also my first time overseas and in the country of my ancestors.  Culturally it was a very enriching experience, and I vow to return next year, not only to race better and faster, but to also speak better Mandarin so I could communicate with the locals.

It was a very tough "day in the office" as temperatures went up as high as 114*F, with over 95% humidity as it was on a tropical island.  I did the best I could in the conditions, but training in our mild San Francisco Bay Area climate, where it is only 45-55*F before and after work was a big contrast.  I was the youngest pro woman by 3 years and I'm pretty sure no other pros were also working full time, so I'm ecstatic with my 9th place finish and truthfully I have never been so happy to see the finish line of an Ironman.

It was also great to be part of the teamTBB brigade and finally meet many of my teammates.  Our two other women, Belinda and Donna, took 1st and 2nd!  Both have been pros since the late 90's (before I even got a bike), so I have much to learn from them and lots of time.  I'm currently working on a race report, and hope to update the website when I can.  Thanks for reading, and for all your support!