Run to Win

Having been banned from track and field for illegal doping, Justin Gatlin has started working out for different NFL teams over the past month. He has not played football since he was in high school. He has an appeal coming up early next year, but if he loses the appeal it would certainly help him to pay the bills and stay in shape for the next few years until he can return to the track circuit.

Justin Gatlin made news earlier this year when he broke the world record in 100 meters. Due to a timing error, his world record time was rolled back to equal the existing record set by Asafa Powell. It all became a moot point, however, when it was determined that Justin Gatlin was using some type of steroid and his records were dropped.

He specifically has worked out with the Houston Texans, but they apparently do not have any intention of offering him a contract right now. He did all right catching the ball as a receiver, and they were very impressed with his speed. They are not sure that he would be able to make that step up to a contact sport, no matter how fast he is.

This week does not have me real excited. Games start on Thursday on the NFL Network for the next few weeks.

I think that New England, Indianapolis, Chicago, and New Orleans are pretty solid locks for the week.

Oakland is going to do their best to keep from getting the first pick in the draft, and will manage to squeeze by Houston.

Jeremy Shockey thinks that the Giants are going to wipe the floor with Dallas if his team can play up to par. I agree with him in that I think that their coach is an idiot, but this team playing up to par is asking for a lot. I think that Dallas wins that game pretty handily.
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In the gym today, I was doing some deadlift shrugs. It is a fairly simple compound exercise. You load a bar on the floor as you normally would with a deadlift: feet shoulder width apart, over hand grip, and your back in a natural arch. The only difference is that rather than stopping the deadlift when your are standing straight up, you continue the motion and shrug shoulders, lifting the bar that extra six inches or so. You then relax your shoulders until your arms are straight hanging as they normally would be at the end of a deadlift and return the bar to the floor.

In the process of performing this exercise, however, I discovered a new danger for men when they are lifting weights. I am sure that this is not the only exercise where this is apparant, but it is the first time that I had trouble with it on almost every single repetition.

Note: The rest of this article discusses the male anatomy. If this bothers you, please do not click through to read the rest of the article.
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Adeel at Complete Running wonders, “Is running a dying sport?” He argues that African domination has eroded American interest in running as a sport, and that it is only viable because of the participation factor.

Coupled with changing economics rooted in non-competitive enjoyment, the future is at best uncertain for running as a sport. It seems ridiculous to offer large purses when the competition at the front of the pack has little to no interest for most customers, the competitors sadly indistinguishable. The success of the Marine Corps Marathon, a prominent race with roughly 30,000 finishers and no prize money, testifies to this reality.

In my mind, running as a competitive sport is so strong right now that had Adeel not posed the question I would not have even imagined that anybody thought it was weak.
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In a collaborative effort with Scott over at Straight to the Bar, we wrote about injuries for the month of November. This is the final article in the series. I will first explore why runners get injured, and then I will share some of the most common running injuries that you are likely to hear about or suffer.

Causes of Running Injuries

The vast majority of running related injuries are due to one of 3 things:

1. Poor biomechanics
2. Over training
3. Trauma

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Thiago Olson, a high school cross country and track runner, created a fusion reactor in his basement in Oakland County, Michigan.

In the basement of his parents’ Oakland Township home, tucked away in an area most aren’t privy to see, Thiago is exhausting his love of physics on a project that has taken him more than two years and 1,000 hours to research and build — a large, intricate machine that , on a small scale, creates nuclear fusion.

His mother would not let him create a hyperbaric chamber. My guess is that this kid is going to do well in college; I hope he finds time to keep up his running.

Thanksgiving week last year was pretty slow. There was some random football news, but it is not really very relevant anymore. Although it was kind of funny that Jay Feeley missed so many field goals.

• I still believe that weighing yourself daily is not only a healthy thing to do but is also an important training and fitness tool.
• I tried to figure out how to structure my workouts around the holidays.
• I took a cue from Scott at Straight to the Bar and made myself some roasted vegetables; I highly recommend that you add them to your diet. I’ve found that this method works even better on the grill.
• I found out that the Paul Bunyon Marathon would be coming back to Bangor in July of 2006. Chuck Engle wound up winning it in 2:41:39.
• I disagreed with Todd Henderlong’s assertion that a 2 month break from training after a marathon was necessary. While it is certainly not a bad thing, I tend to look at it as more of an Autumn Luxery.

The New England Patriots are claiming that StubHub, an online ticket reseller, is circumventing Massachusett’s anti-scalping laws and the team’s own policies in regards to the resale of tickets to their games. They claim that the website does not inform their users that what they are doing is illegal and can lead to the Patriots cancelling season ticket holders’ right to attend the games.
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