What would you do for free?

The final report of the CEDAN project in Haiti came in the mail some time ago. It was nice to see the summation of our effort in a tangible format. The architectural scope is to design a new multipurpose building which will house a school, a clinic, a meeting place for the community, and some housing. Meanwhile, the team of engineers make sure infrastructures like electricity, water, and septic are in place to support the building and its service to the occupants.

Flipping through this report brought me back to the good times we spent in Haiti. I still have some unfinished business there, which is to run the complete loop of mountains ridges aptly named "The Necklace."

I believe our strongest passion is found in things that we are willing to do for free. Perhaps even for the rest of your life. For me, being able to provide design services to better lives and be able to run in God's creation are two things that I'll do for free for the rest of my life.

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WV Trilogy - Part 2

(If you haven't read Part 1, it's here .) (Sat) Oct 13 - Sunrise at Spruce Knob 6 a.m. start in the dark. My legs surprised me by being happier than yesterday. My heart is in better place as well. The first 6.7 mile goes up to Spruce Knob, the highest point in West Virginia. Part of this section was on fire road and I welcomed the faster miles. Steady progress was made in the first 20 miles or so until the long, long descent into Aid Station 3. As I have decided yesterday, I'd start the race, go from aid station to aid station, and re-evaluate my condition at each. I left Aid station 2 feeling good but then the long descent once again put doubts in my mind. Running reduced to little steps on jello-legs. Compression socks helped to contain the injury and pain, but the strength to support the pounding was still lacking. Soon, my knees started to hurt as well. At aid station 3, they told me I had 2:45 to make it to the next aid station before the cut-off. At the pace I...

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New Year's resolution

Nine days into 2012 and a day before entering into a new age group is an opportune time to nail down some New Year's resolutions. 2011 was a good year, one that filled with transitions and norming -- be it moving from California to Charlotte, from being a student back to an architect, or starting fresh in a new territory to establishing roots and relationships. My new running and swimming communities had made the transition easy and welcoming, and partly because of that, much of my attention in the past year was on either sports, like running my first 50k and participating in my first swim meet. Having just graduated from seminary was probably the other half of the reason why I had been keeping a distance from structured studies / reading in 2011. With that said, my 2012 focus will be on balanced growth. While I still have a long list of goals in swimming and running, I need to make sure I allocate enough time and attention to spiritual and intellectual grow...

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Georgia Jewel Weekend

My last-minute decision to run the Georgia Jewel 35-miler last weekend turns out to be a good one. A group of friends had made plans and arrangements to go, running all distances: 35, 50, and 100! Everything was in place, I couldn't pass up the fun to run with old friends and meet new ones, and see Sully running a difficult 100! A storm was passing through on Saturday and it was torrential downpour from the start at 5 a.m.! The first 10 miles through the "rock garden" was difficult for me. It was hard to see through the heavy rain and fog in the dark with my glasses and crappy headlamp (Lesson learned: I'm investing in a better headlamp - it's worth it). Sky lightened up after the first 10 miles and we also got to run on smoother single-tracks. I was able to pick up my pace a bit and caught up with a few that passed me during the Rock Garden. Unlike the point-to-point 50-miler, the 35-miler was an out-and-back. During the return trip, some sections of the tra...

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