September 11th: Ten Years Later

The body of this post we included in a letter I sent out to my clients earlier this week.  I thought it would be a good idea to post so everyone may see.  Enjoy…

This September 11^th marks the solemn 10-year anniversary of that fateful day when terrorist acts changed this country forever.

September 11, 2001 began as a bright morning in many regions of theUnited States. But suddenly that was all shattered as a plane crashed into theWorldTradeCenter. Everyone seems to remember where they were when they heard this news. As tragic events continued to unfold that day, it became more and more surreal, as if time was standing still. The days that followed seem to be etched into our consciousness, and its effects are still being felt across the globe.

This day has since been referred to as “The Day the United Statesonce again became United,”⁽¹⁾ and “The Day the World Changed.”⁽²⁾ Americans truly banded together and we seemed to become one in purpose to help rescue and comfort. Many of the first responders, our heros, became victims as well. Heartfelt sentiments and condolences were sent from many nations around the world.

On September 11, 2011, a decade later, the world will be watching as the National September 11MemorialPlazaopens on the site of the formerWorldTradeCentercomplex. I thought it would be nice to share what I have learned about this memorial.

The memorial will be dedicated on September 11, 2011, and open to the public on September 12, 2011. This memorial features two enormous waterfalls and reflecting pools, each about an acre in size. The names of the nearly 3,000 victims of the September 11, 2001, and February 26, 1993 terrorist attacks will be inscribed on bronze panels lining the two pools. It will be a special place for remembrance and reflection. The surrounding plaza will be filled with oak trees, and one callery pear tree. This tree is known as the Survivor Tree, which was nursed back to health after surviving the 9/11 attacks.

The 9/11 Memorial Museum is being built in this plaza also, and will open a year later in September 2012. The entrance to theMemorialMuseumwill be a large pavilion with a glass atrium housing two enormous tridents within its glass atrium. TheTwinTower“tridents” (two beams each crowned with three prongs) are artifacts from the steel façade of the original 1 WTC, also known as theNorthTower. Even though the pavilion will be inaccessible to visitors this year, these majestic tridents will be visible from the plaza at the anniversary commemoration.

The museum will provide visitors with the opportunity to learn about the men, women, and children who died. The Museum plan calls for visitors to enter the exhibition along a corridor in which portrait photographs of the nearly 3,000 victims form a “Wall of Faces,” intended to communicate the scale of human loss.

Historic rebuilding will also be taking place in the plaza of four new towers rising just beyond the northwest and southeast corners. Millions of visitors are expected during this first year, and free visitor passes are available online and by phone.

As you reflect with your loved ones on this anniversary, let’s remember to always be united as a nation, and a world, and never forget … never.

References:

⁽¹⁾  http://home.families.com/blog/the-day-the-united-states-once-again-became-united

⁽²⁾ http://www.september11news.com/

⁽³⁾ http://www.911memorial.org/

What We Do For Our Kids (and loved ones)!

Many of my clients routinely ask when I’m planning a vacation or when I’m competing in my next triathlon.  As you may know, my daughter Amanda is an aspiring and avid volleyball player.  And all father biases aside, she’s pretty good.  The reality is most of my spare time has been spent participating in and supporting her volleyball ambitions.  Between Volleyball and work I have little time for much else.  Over the past 7 months I have been her personal chauffeur with weekly drives to Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach and to the campus of USC for practice, as well as more travel intensive venues (San Diego, Anaheim and Atlanta) for tournaments.  Our recent story takes us to Reno, Nevada where we competed in the end of year tournament Junior Nationals (formerly called Junior Olympics). 

My struggle began with scheduling issues before this tournament.  Originally, I was scheduled (and ticketed) to fly with Myrna and Amanda out of LAX to Reno.  As the date approached I realized that my broker/dealers’ annual conference began a few days prior to flying to Reno.  The game plan was to drive to San Diego Wednesday at 6 am in order to attend classes at 9 am the same morning.  This would allow me to attend the conference Wednesday and Thursday, but required me to drive back either Thursday night or Friday morning to catch my flight out of LAX.  I was able to re-shuffle my flight and fly directly out of San Diego to meet everyone in Reno.  It was a great game plan, allowing me to attend another day of classes and spare me a 2 hour commute before my flight.

 Unfortunately, things don’t always goes as planned.  My itinerary was set for an 8:10 pm departure from San Diego for a 9:39 pm arrival in San Francisco.  I then had a connection to Reno departing at 10:38 pm.  As we boarded the attendants were rushing to get everyone seated in an attempt to depart a bit before schedule.  Everyone cooperated and the doors were shut by 7:55 pm.  As it turned out, we were in a hurry to wait.  Sometime later the Captain announced that they had not received approval to push back, but departure clearance would be granted soon.  20 minutes later (around 8:20 pm), the “click” on the intercom sounds and the Captain informs us that San Francisco was delaying due to weather issues.  However, they opted to not open the doors in case they received clearance.  Our new target time for departure was 9:00 pm.  We finally got underway but took our sweet time getting up to San Francisco.  The doors didn’t open at 10:28 pm, and as luck would have it I was seated towards the rear of the plane with 10 minutes before my scheduled connection.  As I entered the terminal I performed my best football player impersonation at running through the airport.  Resembling OJ (circa 1986) in an Isotoners commercial, I hurdled baby strollers and jumped over seated travelers as I rushed to the gate for my Reno flight.  Struggling to catch my breath at the gate, I noticed that the seating area was empty, and the door was closed.  The attendant informed me that plane had been boarded and the doors had been closed.  I explained my situation to no avail.  The door would be easy to reopen, but they had already given my seat away. 

Things got worse.   I discovered that there were no flights available until the next day.  And because my missed connection wasn’t the fault of United Airline’s, they would not give me a hotel room free of charge.  Even worse the best they could do was put me on a standby the next day, which couldn’t confirm me a flight until Sunday afternoon.  Options???  United could fly me back to Los Angeles and put me on standby there.  I could opt for another airline.  The cheapest confirmed flight would get me into Reno by 2 pm the next day but would cost almost $500.  I figured I’ve watched the movie “Planes, Trains and automobiles” as well as the television show “Amazing Race,” and there had to be more options.  I decided to check for rental cars.  The rental car kiosk was packed but I patiently waited my turn at Enterprise.  The agent tells me the rental fee is only $49.95 (plus taxes and fees of course) and has unlimited miles.  However, there is a one-way return in fee of $250.  Further, he explains that the construction around the mountains and my sleep deprived state would make for a dangerous drive on unfamiliar roads.  He recommended that I drive in the morning.  I mentally vetoed the idea, as that option, like the airplane required a room for the night and was ultimately more expensive.  I looked into the train, but fittingly, and indicative of my situation, the last train for the night departed at 10:30 pm.  What’s left?  How about a bus?  That’s right a Greyhound!

 When was the last time you rode a Greyhound bus?  I needed to take a cab from the airport to the station in the Financial District.  Luckily, the last bus to Reno didn’t depart until 1:00 am and would arrive in Reno at 6:30 am.  As the cab driver nears the station I notice the area is significantly less appealing and I can tell I’m in the inner-city.  As I exit the taxi and begin walking into a tunnel of the station I noticed 4 others walking in the same direction; I’m pulling my luggage and the other 4 are pushing market carts.  They were going into the tunnel for the night; many of the homeless sleep on the floor and in the phone booths of the station.  I went through ticketing (only $36.50 to Reno, the cab fare was more) and got a chance to sit for a bit in the waiting area.  A chance long enough to ponder, “How the heck did I get into this situation?”  There were approximately 20 people waiting for the bus, which meant we all got a row to ourselves.  There was plenty of room as we boarded, but the bus is probably over 20 years old with seats that had most likely never been cleaned.  I casually tossed a sweatshirt over the headrest of the seat so that I could sleep without worrying if my head was resting on drool or worse.  I received a couple of glares, but heck I don’t plan on getting on another Greyhound bus anytime soon.  We departed the station and headed over the Bay Bridge.  Soon after we pulled into another station, probably no more than 5-6 miles from where we departed.  Why would they have two stations so close to each other?  I heard the echo and felt the vibrations of the compartments opening below.  The hissing of the door sounded and in poured what looked like a parade of people boarding the bus.  I thought to myself, “It’s 1:30 am and were heading to Reno.  Who‘s traveling at this hour?”  I was really hoping not to have to share the seat next to me.  I threw my backpack on the seat, rolled and faced the seat to pretend I was asleep.  It worked!  The bus began to move and I noticed it was almost full, as the seat next to me was 1 of only 6 that remained empty.   As 3:00am rolled in, the bus pulled into a Sacramento station, and a herd of people exited the bus.  Thirty minutes later we picked up a few more early morning passengers.  I woke from my sleep as the bus was turning back and forth through the mountain roads.  Not too much later the sun began to rise and I get a chance to see a hint of beauty in my otherwise ugly journey.  The final 30 minutes of my travels gave me a moment to think of the things that are important in life; family, health, religion and friends.  It reminded me why I was sitting in this crumby seat in the very early morning.   I finally get to the hotel and see my wife which immediately cracks a smile on the frowning face I had been wearing for the last 9 hours.  She says “you can relax now, you’ve made it.”  I managed to get a couple of hours of sleep before the volleyball began.

At the Junior Nationals there are three divisions of competition; Open, National and American.  It’s similar to Division 1, 2, and 3 in college athletics where D-1 is the highest caliber of play.  In the Junior Nationals, Open Division is the highest caliber of play.  Our team (SCVC 15 Roxy) was fortunate to qualify for Open and was seeded in the top half of the division.

The team began its tournament on Saturday at the Reno Convention center.  The tournament utilizes a process to eliminate teams based on losses, called pool play.  Each team is seeded in a pool of 6 teams, the teams play each other, and only the top 3 teams move on for medal contention.  Pool play consists of two days of playing three matches, followed by a single pool play match on Day three and potential challenge matches depending on the ranking.  Day 1- Our team had a long tough day, losing 1 match and winning 2.  However, each win required going the distance of 3 games each match.  The girls were in the convention center from 3:00 pm to 10:30 pm.  Day 2- Was a bit easier day as the girls won all three matches without losing a single game.  Day 3- Was a heartbreaker.  We faced off with the number 1 seed in our pool and fought with them point after point, but eventually losing in game 3.  This loss ranked us as the 3^rd seed in the pool.  We survived pool play but had to face a high seed for the challenge match.  We found that we were paired against a familiar foe, from southern California.  Our opposition boasted a couple of girls with NBA Champion fathers.  This match was also a long, tough battle.  We failed to capitalize on an opportunity to win game 1 and lost.  We bounced back to win game 2 handily.  Game 3 was a tug of war.  Each team moved ahead only to be pulled back in this epic battle.  When the smoke cleared it was our team that had come up short, but we held our heads high.  At the end of the match Amanda was very emotional and crying in my arms.  There was nothing I could do but hold her.  She played her heart out and left everything on the court, but she still shed tears because she wanted to win so much but fell shy of accomplishing her goal.  I couldn’t help but feel a little helpless myself.  I endured all this frustration and did everything to be at that tournament for her, but in the end there was only so much I could do.  If you read this far thank you, but here’s the thrust of the story.  Sometimes we as parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, donors, etc. do everything in our power for our loved ones.  And yet sometimes we are powerless.  However, I submit to you, that if it were in our powers we would do (almost) anything for our loved ones.  And while we may reach a limit to what we can do, we want to know that we did all we could.

The season and tournament ended with our team finishing 9^th overall in Junior Nationals.  Total hours watching volleyball in 4 days, over 30 hours.  Total hours slept in 4 days?  Less than 24 hours.  I would gladly have the (minus the bus ride from SF) experience next year!  The team had an incredible season one that will be cherished and in my memories for years to come.

Why Climb Mount Everest?

by: Allen Yee

In the endurance sports world why complete in an Ironman Triathlon? You know it’s that race that’s in Kona, Hawaii where people are crawling across the finish line and sometimes lose control of their bodily functions. These folks Swim 2.4 miles, Bike 112 miles and then Run a marathon (26.2 miles) and yes, it’s done all in one day. In fact the cut off is 17 hours, no exceptions! Why would anyone do that? My race was in Lake Placid, New York and while I can’t answer that question for everyone I can lead you into an insight as to why I completed mine.

My Background

Before I get too deep into this, let me briefly tell you about my recent history. Just about three years ago a few weeks before I turned 40, I said to myself, I’m going to make my 40’s better than my 30’s become more active and healthy. At that time I was 238 pounds that had accumulated after a decade of excuses. You know, I’m too busy because of career, kids, friends, lifestyle, etc. I used them all to justify my plumpness because I never thought I was “fat,” just a little excess most probably due to genetics. You see I’ve never been thin except when I was in the Army. I was 157 pounds when I got out of active duty in 1992. So what lead me down this endurance sports road? It was truly accidental. I had gone back to skiing after a bad accident 12 years prior. My kids and I had a great time on the mountain except I was in horrible physical shape. So, I made an effort to watch my diet, which had limited success and it wasn’t until I had a nutritional plan and exercise plan that I began dropping significant weight. My original plan was to become a really good skier, so I need to increase my muscular structure and become stronger cardio-wise.

To increase my fitness in cardio I began Spinning classes at the local YMCA. I had so much fun in those classes I found myself going 3-4 times a week. Soon after I found myself on a bicycle and was riding 40-50 miles a week. With the phenomenal weather we have in Southern California I began riding more and more outside and spinning less and less inside. Soon after I met some people who referred me to a local club, Pasadena Triathlon Club. I told them it’s not for me, because I can’t swim. They thought I couldn’t swim well, when actually I can’t swim at all. Back when I was a child (7 years old) I had a swimming accident where I had to be pulled out of the water and turned over to let the water drain out of me. Needless to say, I have never been comfortable in the water since. At any rate they convinced me to attend a “brick.” This is a workout where you bike (an hour or so) followed immediately by a run. This workout was during the summer at the Rose Bowl.

Despite not having run (at all) in over a decade, albeit very slowly I finished a lap around the bowl. The energy I felt around the bowl and the people I was with were incredible. Unfortunately, my skiing has taken a backseat to my triathlon training.

My First Triathlon

Soon after my first brick, I signed up for my first triathlon, The Los Angeles Triathlon Sprint. Talk about ignorance being bliss, yes, I knew I had very limited swimming skills and yet I signed up for a triathlon that had an ocean swim. I had the best of intentions to learn how to swim. I hired a swim coach who tried to teach me lessons from the Total Immersion method. His final words were, “Allen, you’re going to have a great year, next year! The upcoming race?…you just need to survive.” The plan was to be comfortable with a wetsuit and to use the breast stroke, doggy-paddle, and any other method I can find to complete .4 miles. I did it, slowly (31 minutes) but I did it. After completing the race I felt great despite still having saltwater draining from my sinuses. I was truly hooked on triathlons since.

The Decision To Do Ironman

I have always been enamored with triathlons ever since watching Ironman on television in the late 80’s and I knew completing the race would be a major challenge, perhaps one of the greatest physical challenges I’ve ever faced. But, soon after 2007’s Ironman Coeur d’ Alene, a few of us started discussing signing up for a race in 2008. At that time, I had not swum more than 600 yards in open water nor ran more than 15 miles. The chatter became intense, and within our Pasadena Triathlon Club there would be at least 8 people signing up for

Ironman races in 2008. I figured I have over a year to training and learn to swim. Furthermore, I would have at least 7 people to train with and two close friends that would participate in Lake Placid with me. I thought when would I ever have an opportunity like this again? The next thing I did was to talk to Myrna (my wife) and kids; I needed them to buy off on the idea and support my goal. Training for an Ironman isn’t just about the physical demands, it’s also about balancing life, particularly time. It takes a lot of time away from the family. Unequivocally, they gave me their support and confidence in completing the race. With that behind me I was ready to tackle the task.

Getting Read For Ironman

The first thing I did was hire a coach, Rich Strauss. I figured I needed all the help I could get, especially because my schedule gets erratic due to family obligations, travel for work and work events that can’t be rescheduled. It was really smooth sailing the first 8 months of training. During that time I completed three half marathons and my first half-ironman. Slowly things began to wear down. I contracted chicken-pox on May 31, 2008, eight weeks out from the race. I was sick and in bed for a solid 7 days and it took another 7 days to get back on my feet. I really struggled mentally at this point, feeling sorry for myself and crying over spilt milk

Fortunately, Myrna set my head straight and Rich helped me realign my goals and expectations for this journey. Not only did I lose two critical weeks of training but I lost (physically) months of strength and endurance. My lung capacity had diminished over 30% and what I could do relatively easily a few weeks ago couldn’t be done.

The upside to all this was I dropped a bunch of weight. During this ordeal I lost 9 pounds and was down to 167, only 10 pounds heavier than I was in the Army. Shortly thereafter, we left on a family vacation to Cabo where the only training I could do was running on a treadmill. Once we got back to the States, I must have brought Montezuma back with me because I came down with a stomach bug that stayed for a week. Luckily the final three weeks leading up to Lake Placid were much more pleasant, I was able to ride longer distances with greater intensity and complete my race rehearsal which include a 112 mile bike and 4 mile run. Lastly, I completed my longest ocean swim to date, 1.1 miles at Manhattan Beach, a month before the race.

Pre-Race Lake Placid

I arrived in Lake Placid on Wednesday July 16th. The red-eye out of LAX was pretty uneventful, however landing in Burlington, VT and having to take a ferry across Lake Champlain was a chore. The winds whipped up and what would’ve normally taken 25 minutes took us over 40 minutes to cross the lake. My thought was hoping not to run into winds like that on race day. The scenery around the northern section of New York and Vermont is absolutely beautiful. The remainder of the week was spent absorbing the energy around the event and the logistical items before race day like a short run, driving the bike course, going to registration for packet pick up. There were two highlights before the race. The first was Rich Strauss’ (Endurance Nation) pre-race talk. He and his partner Patrick gave the group (~50) an insightful talk on how to race the course in both advance and beginner flavors. I walked away with many insightful tips that I implemented on race day. Many veterans of Ironman don’t attend the pre-race dinner and meeting but I’m glad I did. A sponsored athlete spoke of his story, where he had battled leukemia and is now back to health and was now going to complete his first Ironman. This story along with the ones about ALS (Blazeman), amputees, and the man who carried his son the entire Ironman distance (Team Hoyt) are truly amazing. These people are truly exceptional and special that must derive strength from divinity to inspire us mortals.

Race Day

I went to sleep around 10:00 pm and had the alarm set for 2:00 am and 4:30 am. The anxiety kept me up a little and I didn’t fall asleep as quickly as I had hoped, but I had great sleep the previous two days. 2:00 am came quicker than I thought it’s important to store calories in your system before the race so I drank two Naked Mango juices and ate a peanut butter sandwich. I tried to go back to sleep, but as nerves wouldn’t have it. I never really got into a sleep after that. 4:30 am, showered, dressed and had another Naked juice and banana. From that point on I was only taking in liquid calories, no more solids. Everything went off without a hitch, got the tires pumped up, made sure I had all the necessary items in my transition bags, placed power meter on the bike, shifted the bike to the appropriate gear, dropped off Special Needs bags (Thanks Jose!) and made it through the lines for the porta-potties.

2.4 Mile Swim

The swim is in Mirror Lake. The buoys are lined up in a rectangular fashion where the participants swim in a counter-clockwise fashion. The buoys are held together via a cable where you could see them up to 10 ft away, so sighting wasn’t an issue. I entered the water for a few practice strokes before making my way to where I had planned to start. After talking to an EN member and Rich I decided I was going to line up for the start 50m from the line and far right, knee deep. As I made it to that shore and stood up, I notice an unpleasant sensation on my right foot. Bummer! I cut the ball of my foot about an inch and half. Two other people had the same thing happen to them and a few minutes later the volunteers were screaming at people warning them of glass and/or sharp objects in the sand. A medic made his way into the water and look at my cut and another person’s cut. The other guy’s cut was bleeding, mine was deep but not much blood, he just said to make sure there wasn’t any debris stuck in there after the race. Finally, the cannon went off and the masses are swimming.

My goal was to stay out of the major groups. Everyone was trying to swim the cable which caused all the congestion. I swam the outside line directly towards the last buoy. It’s a good idea but require some sighting the first 800m. After that, we were fairly clear and I was actually passing people. In ended up swimming just behind two others, for the first 15min or so we kept passing each other back and forth. I decide to conserve energy and just draft behind them. I’m glad I did because I got out of the water in the first lap around 40 minutes. Two mistakes at this point; first, I didn’t swim until my fingers touched the ground and I stood up prematurely and had to walk (it took more time and it reminded me of the pain in my foot), second, I took too much time on shore looking at my foot and I lost the two people I was swimming/drafting. Second lap, fairly uneventful followed people that were swimming the cables.

I got out of the water at 1:30:53. It had been raining quite a bit and it left transition (T1) a mud pit.

112 Mile Bike

The bike course consists of two loops. It’s a challenging course that has its work (climbs) consolidated in sections, so it wasn’t hard to bury your head and just work through the climbs. The descents were steep and the rain made it challenging to navigate oneself around other riders and turns. My problems continued at mile 28 climbing out of Wilmington, when a spoke in the front wheel broke. I pulled over to the side and removed my spoke. The wheel wouldn’t spin pass the brake, so I tried to adjust the brake. It spun better but it would take lots of energy to turn the wheel. So I decided to release the cable and open the brake entirely. The wheel spun almost freely but I no longer had a front brake and it was still raining. I wasn’t convinced that it was the best choice. For the next 14 miles I rode with a major wobble in the front wheel, no brake, an incessant rain and thoughts running through my head about how I was going to descend the next major hill? Luck was finally on my side, at mile 42 where I would see some people on ATVs riding back and forth. I finally figured it out when I passed them and there were three other cyclists standing there with them. Roadside help! Yeah! It took some time but when it finally became my turn the tech grabbed a wheel from behind the ATV to put on my bike. He pulls the brake and said “your front brakes don’t work, that’s not safe!” Doh! Anyway he pulls the cable adjusts the brakes and I’m finally off. My total bike time 7:17:25.

26.2 Mile Run

The run course is also a two loops course that takes you through town 4 times. The conditions in the transition area were even worse than the first time; there were literally pools of water underneath the tent. I was so glad to get off the bike I started the run a bit fast, I passed two aid stations without any aide. I remembered what Rich said about nothing really matters until Mile 18, so I slowed down and ran my race strategy, which was run to each aid station and then walk a minute through that station. It worked for next 14 miles, but after that my body wanted to renegotiate with my mind. My body (mainly hamstring and foot) said hell 10-11 minutes of running for 1 minute break is a no-go, how about we run 5 minutes take 1 off and if we don’t time the aid stations correctly we’ll take an additional minute. It worked until mile 20, the mind and body had another renegotiation, this time the body was saying, look, you’re going to finish, what’s the difference between a bit more time. The mind said, yeah, we’ve overcome so much why not? So now the deal was to walk all the uphills, run the downhills and a minute on and a minute off, unless an uphill or downhill comes up. I did this all the way until mile 23.1. At that distance there were a number of people saying only a 5k left, you can do that in your sleep. One last renegotiation, this time my mind took charge, it’s less than one lap around the Rose Bowl to finish strong, body, suck it up! I ran the final 5k in 26:42 stopping only briefly at two aid stations. My total run split of 5:18:23.

Conclusion

So why climb Mount Everest? First, I would say this is nowhere near the task of climbing Mount Everest but a useful analogy. The reason I did an Ironman was to expand my perception of limits. It’s a task that anyone can accomplish if you set your mind to it and dedicate the time necessary. Truly, if I can do it anybody can. All you need to do is sequentially and systematically develop a plan and then execute the plan. If you made it this far, thanks for reading…but what’s going to be your Everest?