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  I resolve to update this site much more often and replace my outdated pictures from the spring of 2007.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!

Every morning, I wake up faster. At 5:30am the alarm goes off. I get up, eat, train, eat, go to work, eat at work, get off work, train, eat, and promptly pass out. Then I wake up faster again. If I don’t immediately bounce out of bed, I lie there for a moment and think, “Today I am faster than I was yesterday.” It’s a great feeling to be getting faster every day and will usually put a smile on my groggy face.

That said, I continued my PR streak at the Sentinel Triathlon in Santa Cruz on September 23. It’s essentially a shorter version of Big K, the half I did 2 weeks prior, or rather, Big K is a longer version of Sentinel, which was celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. So this is one of the oldest tris around here, though it would be my first time racing the course. It is kind of funny that the sport of triathlon is roughly my age.

One of my favorite parts of the weekend was having a sleepover with some of my new local teammates from Team Sheeper, based in Menlo Park (about five miles from work). Lorraine and Michele were also racing Sentinel and we stayed with Virginia and her husband Glenn, who live about 30min from the beach, in a cute little town up in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It was so peaceful and quiet up there, I felt like I was about to go camping! V & G were the best hosts ever, I later told them it was like a pro homestay, or what I would imagine a pro homestay is like, so good practice for when I go pro later.  ;)  We had a yummy home cooked dinner, played with their dog Willow, and slept in comfy beds. Best of all, I got to bond with my local training mates; I move around so much I feel like the perpetual “new girl.”

We drove down the mountain race morning and I met my mom in the transition area, who handed me the running socks I had forgotten to pack. She brought G-dog, who was very excited. (He gets that from me. Everything is just so exciting!!!) I took my time setting up and then headed over to the beach only to start jogging in my wetsuit to the swim start, which was further down the beach than anticipated.

Just like at Big K, the swim went around the wharf. Unlike at Big K, I didn’t get my face pummeled. There were only two buoys that were set by the end of the pier, so there was plenty of room to deviate from swimming a straight course. I opted to swim the shortest and most direct line to the first buoy, aiming for the end of the pier, instead of going with…well…everybody else, who seemed to be taking it really wide. Soon enough I looked up, finding myself completely alone, and realized that the ocean current was pushing me into the side of the pier. A volunteer kayaker actually ended steering me away from it. I linked back with some swimmers as we rounded the end of the pier, and it was another ambiguously wide route back to the beach. The water was choppy on the way back and at times I felt like I was swimming in place. Not the quick swim I was hoping for; I washed ashore with a big wave and stumbled across the sand.  :)

T1 like 2 weeks ago was a bit of a run from the beach to transition. Amusingly, it was a shorter run than Big K—it really was like a mini-me version! I got on the bike as a spectator yelled at me, “go pink and green! Like Ferrari colors!” Really? Cool! I’ll have to go as fast as a Ferrari! And in fact my bike did feel the fastest it has all season. The training has kicked in and I had also dropped my cockpit down by a couple spacers, so my aero position was slightly more aggressive. After seeing the official race pictures from my last race, all of which featured me sitting upright on the bike, I vowed to stay aero as much as possible. Obviously so my pictures would come out better. My legs felt extremely responsive, and the turnaround appeared much quicker than expected. I even did the take-the-feet-out-of-the-shoes-while-still-biking trick on my way into T2. yay!

Weather-wise, it was a cool day (actually rained the day before), and my feet had frozen while I was biking. I took off for the run and felt like my feet had turned into ice blocks, I couldn’t feel them! I focused on my breathing and a quick cadence, the feet finally thawed out around mile 2. I had been visualizing myself running 6:58’s off the bike, but unfortunately there were no mile markers laid out so I didn’t really know how quick I was going, I just went as fast as I could. I could hear myself breathing as I began passing the age group men, taking them down one by one, it wasn’t pretty, but at least I was moving up! I hit the 5k turnaround at about 22 minutes, and from there on out, it would be a battle against my mounting fatigue. At this point, a triathlete boy my age thanked me for pushing him on the bike and run and unlike me, was able to pick up the pace back to the finish line. It must be hard for boys to get passed by a girl in hot pink. Maybe not. A lot them were rooting for me  ;)

It became difficult to stay focused and at times my vision went blurry. I had to remind myself to keep moving, keep motoring through the field. I saw my local teammates at various points on their way out and was so wretched I couldn’t respond to their cheers. At one point I glanced at my watch and thought, “hey, you can still PR even if you slow down!” but I snapped out of it quickly and gave myself a few choice cuss words. During the last mile, my low back threatened to cramp up, courtesy of my new bike position, and I was quite afraid I wouldn’t make it. Even more talking to myself, “a PR is not going to get handed to you on a silver platter, you have to work for it!!” And work for it I did. It was all I could do to keep thrusting one leg in front of the other, and I could only focus on going from signpost to landmark to tree. I finally saw the host hotel in the distance, but was not exactly sure where the finish line was relative to it. Soon enough, I saw my mom cheering for me to GO!!!! and I realized it was time for my finishing kick. Oh, that hurt. I was so happy to be done, finishing right at 2:24:59. I was really glad my back didn’t go out!

Turns out my efforts were good enough for an age group win (my first in California after just moving back here), and 15th overall female. I took another 3 minutes off my Olympic distance time despite a longer transition and was ecstatic that my mom was there to see me finish on top of the podium! Sort of. I actually just missed getting my name called out as I was in the midst of a fabulous complimentary massage. But I still won a folding chair that had the 25th Anniversary Sentinel Triathlon logo on it and promptly gave it to my #1 fan, my mom! Perfect for taking to the races.

I’m very excited (like G-dog) about my continued improvement as I am learning first-hand the effects of keeping a consistent training schedule. I will keep at it, and wake up every day faster. Next up will be my season closer, the Treasure Island Olympic Tri in my very own backyard, San Francisco!