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About Me: First and formost I am a VEGAN (circa 2001), athlete, potter and cook. I am the product of a Naval Officer father and a Filipina mother. I have a brother who lives in Maryland, and a sister who lives in Maui with her husband and three children. Both of my older siblings were also very good athletes in their own right and I have to credit them for some of my success as well. At the age of three, we moved to Hawaii and at the age of seven, we moved to Pasadena, MD of which I still consider my home base. To me the most important thing in the world is to promote veganism and limit the suffering of animals in the process. As a gifted athlete, my athletic performace is my way to get the word out about veganism to a larger audience and I plan on doing that on the biggest stage possible…the Olypic Games. I am a very dedicated and focused person and I always fight to make things happen. I take pride in my journey of molding myself into a top young power athlete at 320lbs into the elite endurance athlete at around the 190lbs that I weigh in at today. I have a strong background in science and went to college as a bio major for 2 years before I decided to attend a school for ceramics and metal smithing. Once I achieve what I want from playing competitive sports I plan to make a name for myself with my pottery and hopefully my food as well. Outside of athletics and the arts, I love helping animals, spend time with family, traveling, meeting new people, reading, listening to music, the color green, cooking and/or eating great food, and I refuse to do anything that doesn’t make me happy for more than a few minutes. The Athlete: My life as an athlete started when we moved to Maryland and I quickly proved myself on the baseball field and dibble dabbled heavily in hockey, tennis, football and eventually fell in love with Track and Field. I have always been up for a challenge and Track and Field was the biggest one for me. After dislocating my left shoulder and breaking my throwing arm during a football game in the 1st quarter and finishing that game, I managed to damage my shoulder to the point that I needed surgery. Refusing to miss any of my first year of high school sports I improvised and as a shot putter throwing with my opposite arm so obviousy I managed to be a complete failure my freshman year. For me temporary failures are OK…quitting is not. I was determined to learn to throw with my opposite arm and from my sophomore to senior year of high school I managed to win virtually every track meet I entered up until the Maryland State Championships. I was untouchable in the shot put and nearly untouchable in the discus…only failing in my last county meet my senoir year and getting a silver medal(thanks Yomi). In all I earned 8 individual County Championship Gold Medals, 1 Silver, 4 Silvers at states(beaten each time by an Olympian), competed in the World’s biggest track meet on two occations(Penn Relays), was an All-America Athlete and beat a few Olympians in the process. My results landed me with an athletic scholarship to LaSalle University (Philadelphia, PA) where I nearly immediately picked up a VEGAN lifestyle and had some great early results. As a teenage VEGAN athlete, I was bench pressing 370lbs and squatting 600lbs. Quickly, I was named A-10 Conference Athlete of the Week early in my first season. Unfortunately, I soon suffered a hand injury that would hamper my future as a thrower. After surgery and the recommendation of my doctor, I took a ceramics class and fell in love with making things with my hands. I realized I had to go to school for the arts so I looked around for schools with good programs as well as an adequate track team. I wound up going to Virginia Commomwealth University for their BFA program. Unfortunately, my hand and shoulder never came around and in 2005 as an injured 300lb shot putter; I decided I also had the perfect body to become a cyclist!!! Well…not quite but since I wanted to do it, I did do it! In about a year, I trained hard and starved off 100lbs and in two years, I was doing respectably but obviously, I wasn’t happy with that. After 3 years, I was regularly on the podium on the Velodrome in Portland, OR. In 2008, I really found myself on the bike and became a force as an Individual Time Trial Specialist. Come 2009 I won nearly every TT I entered and for a while, I was the third best Cat 2 Time Trialist in the US. This was also the year I earned a spot on the Philippine National Team. On a training ride in 2010, I ran into a speed skater and got to chatting. With little coaxing I figured I would try it for cross training and two weeks later I was skating and having a blast. Unfortunately, I was clumbsy and had no balance so I wound up breaking my clavicle 6 weeks later. I hung the skates up and after winning a few bike races I put them back on and I won my category in my first Inline Marathon event with maybe 40 total days of training. I realized that I have a future in this sport so I planned a trip to skate on the ice. I never do anything halfway and even had custom longtrack speedskates made for me before ever seeing one of the few 400m speed skating ovals in the US. On a 10-day trip to Milwaukee, WI to train at the Olympic Training Center I realized it’s really not much like inline but I knew I could still do it. From day one, I was already skating with a group of experienced skaters. Later that week I posted some great first times and improved from there. After a second 15 day trip I cut massive chunks of time from my 1500m and got quite a bit of encouragement from multiple Olympic Athletes that think I can “make it” with the right training. 2-Time Olympic Gold (2-Time Silver) Medalist and multi-event World Record Holder Shani Davis told me I’ll be dangerous once I figure out how to put my power in the ice. After hearing that from the best skater in the world, I know there is a positive end to my journey if I focus and dedicate myself to this sport the way I have done in my other endeavors. |
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