Run to Win

The Eliot Festival Day 5k was this morning in Eliot, Maine. The field was not quite as deep this year, but still saw a record setting winning time of 14:16. Pat Tarpy of Providence (formerly of Yarmouth) beat the field by almost a minute. Casey Moulton and Ethan Hemphill came through in 15:12 and 15:18 to round out the top 3. Rehima Kedir and Reba Naser of Ethiopa won the women’s race, coming in right behind me in the low-mid 16:40s. Kristen Barry was third in 17:14.

There was no team award this year, but Dirigo would have won it had there been one. Everybody that came down on both the men’s and women’s side went home with cash or hardware. Josh Zolla missed breaking 16 minutes by 6 seconds. Bill Mariski and Tom Ryan were the first masters runners in 16:19 and 16:20. I was a short ways behind them in 16:38, failing to catch PR Racing’s TJ Hesler.
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This week last year, there was some doping, some soreness, and the Red Sox lost.

• I explained how to do hip extensions with a swiss ball and linked to an animated image at a different site showing the move.
• I asked whether you would take a DNA test to determine athletic abilities and point out what you would be good at.
• Another doping charge against an athlete happened this week last year when Alex Bogomolov Jr was suspended for a month and a half for not having a therapeutic use exemption for Salbutamol.
• Chris at Strength News bought a Captains of Crush strength grippers.
• I spoke about sore muscles, and I also posed the query about whether or not to run through an illness and gave my standard operating procedure.

The Mystic Places Marathon has a new name now: The Mystic Country Marathon & Niantic Bay Festival.

The course appears to be the same, so I imagine that not much else has changed about the race with the new name. I am sure that it is still a great (and quick) marathon course and thoroughly boring 10 mile course. Anybody in southern New England or along the northern Atlantic that is looking for a good marathon in the Autumn could certainly do worse for themselves.

If you have run it in the past, I imagine that they will be having some good deals on old apparel while they try to get rid of the old name.

Denver, NY Giants, Pittsburgh, and Tampa Bay are not playing this week.

I hate to do it, but I have to pick against my Patriots this week. I think that Cincinatti is going to have the edge at home this week. I think that Chicago, Indianapolis, and New Orleans will remain undefeated; Cleveland and Houston will garner their first wins. I’m not sure whether San Diego or Baltimore will get their first loss.

I feel a little more confident this week than I did last week. We’ll see whether I can bring my average back up.
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Earlier today, I wrote my thoughts about the Oscoda Area High School football team and how their coach shut their season down after going 0-4 and not scoring a single point. I may have to revise my opinion of the situation. My thoughts were boiled down to:

Let the kids play, as long as you can get enough of them out there to field a team. Sports build character and help the kids continue to lead a healthy lifestyle after school.

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I was listening to the news about the Oscoda Area High School football team, and how their season was arbitrarily cut short after being shut out for their first four games. Their coach, Kyle Tobin, is in his first year. His argument is that they are so physically dominated in their tough conference that it is not safe for them to be out there playing ball.

I do not have all the facts about what happened, just what I have heard on the news. What it sounds like to me is that the coach is so embarrassed by his awful football team that he doesn’t want to play any more games. The team is small, they aren’t very good, and they can not seem to score at all. However, the kids all want to continue playing, and they should be allowed to. It is not the coach’s job to deny them their season, it is the referees job to make sure the kids stay safe during play. Making them sit a season denies the seniors their last opportunity to play organized ball and does not help the underclassmen improve their skills at all for future seasons.

Let the kids play, as long as you can get enough of them out there to field a team. Sports build character and help the kids continue to lead a healthy lifestyle after school.

There seems to be a lot going on in the minors, this year. With the increased cash flow of minor league baseball teams, they have been able to break free of some of their affiliations for more advantagous positions with other teams.

With Allentown building a new baseball stadium, the Phillies affiliation with Scranton/Wilkes Barre is leaving town. They will still have a team there, it will just be affiliated with the Yankees rather than the Phillies. That leave Columbus open, which is where the Nationals are moving their farm team. Baltimore is kicking the Mets out of Norfolk so they can move their team out of Ottawa, which gives the Phillies somewhere to park their team until 2008 when their new stadium in Allentown is ready. The Mets are moving their AAA team to New Orleans.

This moves everybody closer to the MLB team they are affiliated with except for the Mets, who got run out of town. That’s a lot of shake up for only one level down from the majors.

(Source: Sports Biz)

Anybody that is at all interested in sports should be sick of hearing about Terrell Owens today. He took too many painkillers, mixing them with supplements, and went to the hospital. Whether he tried to commit suicide or just made a stupid mistake he teaches us a very valuable lesson that I have not heard anybody talk about all day. You need to be very careful when you take any sort of medication.
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