Sports: October 2008 Archives

As the temperatures cool down, more runners start turning their attention to running/racing a marathon. (No marathons for me this year. I’m only doing a half-marathon in mid-November.) But how would you feel if you ran a marathon and posted the best time, but you didn’t win the race? You don’t think that’s possible? Well, it happened at the Nike’s Women Marathon in San Francisco two Sundays ago. Turns out someone in the regular group (Arien O’Connell) ran 11 minutes faster than the winner in the elite group (which started 20 minutes before the regular marathoners). But because she wasn’t part of the elite group and they didn’t have to adjust their strategy to Arien’s time and effort, Arien wasn’t the winner of the race.

To which I say - BS. An 11-minute difference cannot be easily made up just because someone was racing in the same group as you. Anyone who has run a marathon for a good time knows you are spent by the end of it. If your first-place finisher only managed a 3:06, I don’t think she was going to average 25 seconds per mile faster if she had to go against Arien. Arien was eventually declared “a” winner and received the same trophy, but it’s not the same. And I think it just shows that starting the elites in a separate category is nonsense, especially when the elites race at a time that is not so elite.

Which takes us to the Chicago Marathon the preceding weekend (where a situation similar to Arien’s occurred in the men’s race — a regular pack racer had the 4th best time, but wasn’t awarded a fourth place finish). In this race, you had someone fall 10 yards from the finish line and struggle to make it across the finish line. He finally got some help, unlike Julie Moss, who lost the 1982 Hawaii Ironman just yards from the finish line after her legs refused to go on.

I love the music background on that clip.

With that, I want to wish my sister Emily good luck this weekend in the New York City Marathon. I think her training has put her on track to set a personal record in the marathon.

No, we’re not talking about the Aerosmith song here. Rather, the James Madison football team (currently ranked #1 in the FCS — nee Division 1-AA) certainly likes late game heroics. They trailed national champion Appalachian State by 21 at halftime, but came back to win. They trailed late against Richmond late in the fourth quarter by 8, but scored a touchdown and tying two-point conversion, stopped Richmond’s drive, then took the ensuing punt back for a winning touchdown with 1 second remaining on the clock.

All of that may be topped by the shocker in Philadelphia this past weekend. Looking at near certain defeat, needing a “short” hail-mary type play, this is what JMU found against Villanova (who had already defeated then-#1 Richmond in Philadelphia earlier this season).

Who knows how this season will end, but James Madison has definitely shown itself to be top-notch (with a never-say-die attitude) this season. I’m sure their alumni (like my brother-in-law Dennis) are enjoying this. Good luck the rest of the way.

YouTube went down as I was finishing loading a video, so my other planned posting is going to have to wait. In it’s place, I give you this…

College football gave us some bizarre situations this past weekend. First, Iowa State really cranked up the smoke machine for their entrance to the game. (Look for #83 at around the 10 second mark.)

Then there was this penalty flag thrown during the Virginia Tech/Boston College game.

Lastly, I cannot say I’ve ever seen or contemplated an umpire getting this involved in a play (during the South Carolina/Louisiana State game).

Now, seriously, what was in the drinking water at stadiums this weekend?

Today did not involve anything extraordinary. We had another church fundraiser at Noodles & Company. But we remembered to take our camera with us this time, and we got the video of Sean eating his bean sprouts. (He ate them all again this time, just like the time we first discovered his love of them in late June.)

And while I’m too late for the Olympics, I found this amusing little gymnastics routine to be — what? Inspiring? Confusing? Over-the-top? Any way you look at it, that is still some good skill to be able to do a non-standard routine like that.

OK, I still don’t have the State Fair slides done. (Gotta work with Kellie on figuring out what the pictures represent in some cases.) Busy day of a long run, a run to drop off recycling, shopping, and yardwork. But I did catch a quick video on the cellphone this evening before Sean’s and Daniel’s bath time. I thought you might enjoy it. (Converting it from the 3GPPS format is a bear. I finally found a decent converter.) The video is actually at double-speed, as the cellphone only takes 15 frames per second, but most videos are 30 frames per second. The boys do not run around like they are part of the Incredibles family.

And congrats to Emily for breaking 1:45 in a half-marathon today. She’s 4 weeks out from the NYC Marathon — looks like she’s rounding into form nicely.