Run 5

It just seemed like the right day to do it. After watching Kobe win his 5th title last night and after realizing this was my fifth recorded run, it seemed the stars were aligning for me to do something special. So today, I took off for my first 5 mile run in a long time.

The last time I ran more than three and a half miles was during the ill-fated Turkey Trot 10K in Santa Monica. In the last ten years (without taking into account the third run of the Hood to Coast last year), I don't think I've ever felt worse during a run than I did during the Turkey Trot. Cramps and a total lack of training absolutely destroyed me.

I tend to have the bad habit of assuming I can just go out and do anything. While sometimes this works, usually it tends not to go so well. This trend is what I'm trying to break in these short weeks before the Hood to Coast. So far, training is going much better (and much more consistently) than last year.

Running on the road can be both a blessing and a curse. While stoplights are rarely a problem on the short loop I normally run, they're all over the place on the long loop I did today. The problem with this is that you're constantly having to stop and wait for lights to change. While this can be nice because it gives you a chance to recover for a minute, it also totally kills any momentum you have. As anyone who runs can tell you, stopping and starting just isn't a good technique for running. When you have to wait for a few minutes to run, the next minute or so of running always feels like someone just switched your legs with Gumby's. The bigger problem with roadrunning is that by the time you get back into a groove, sometimes you have to stop again and the cycle continues.

I don't know if this is true for everyone (or anyone) else, but I've noticed that the soreness I feel after running on the road is significantly less than the soreness I feel after running on a treadmill. Now, this could just be due to me pushing myself too hard on a treadmill. Still, I'm not sure that's all there is too it. For a long time, I was noticing that my right knee was hurting during and after treadmill runs. I thought this was either due to my body getting older or due to some kind of error in my running form. But since I've stopped running on the treadmill, I've had absolutely no pain in my knee. Nothing.

Overall, the run felt really good. If nothing else, it was a huge confidence boost. It feels really good knowing that I can still go out and run 5 miles if I want to. Not only that, but I finished the 5 miles in 38:45, which isn't going to break any land speed records, but puts me in range of my projected 10k time which, at this stage of training, is a huge moral victory for me. We're getting there.

Flopping

So right now, I'm watching the Barcelona /Inter Milan game. Personally, I would love to watch more soccer, but it's pretty hard to find televised matches in the U.S., and when they are televised, they're often shown at times I either have work or class. When I do get the chance though, I try to watch, especially when Barcelona is playing. For some reason, soccer is still not very popular in the U.S. (hence the lack of televised matches). I think you could definitely argue that it's getting there. In the last few years, I've noticed an increase in the attention sports fans pay to soccer. However, I think that there is one perception that needs to change before soccer can really become popular. (Note: this is my opinion as a casual observer.)

Soccer players are a bunch of pansies: At least this is what it looks like every time I see a match. Every time someone comes near them, they fall to the ground grabbing something on their body like they just got shot. By no means is this true for every soccer player, but many of them take more flops in a match than a white center in the NBA.

Having played and watched soccer, I know for a fact that there is a lot of contact in soccer. I don't want to come off like I'm knocking curling here. There is plenty potential for injury over the course of a soccer match. However, isn't it a wee bit peculiar that when a player goes down, he's only "hurt" for as long as it takes the referee to either make or deny him the call? It's a little hard to take a sport seriously when this is allowed to go on. The NBA had a flopping problem and ended up handing out fines to frequent floppers. In soccer, the issue is still allowed to go on.

Here's what I think the real problem is: Too much reliance on referees. In sports like basketball, we see this a lot as star players like Kobe Bryant and LeBron James often blindly charge at the basket late in games counting on referees to bail them out with a foul call. In soccer, we see the same thing, with start players like Cristiano Ronaldo falling down and grabbing for their ankles seemingly every time they touch the ball.

On a side note, in the France/Ireland game that ended with a controversial handball by Thierry Henry, the Irish were so sure that they were going to get the handball called that they stopped playing defense and gave up the game winning goal. If you look at the pictures of the goal, you will see Henry's teammate, William Gallas calmly heading the ball home for the winning goal while the Irish defenders around him are looking away from the goal with arms up to signal the handball. Yes, it was a terrible call and the goal should not have counted. However, players can't just count on the referees to always bail them out. This is true for any sport. Referees are human. They're going to miss calls every once in a while.

So, basically, what it comes down to is that soccer players need to focus on playing the game. The game is beautiful when played correctly. However, when there is constant flopping and pleading for calls, people assume that soccer players are a bunch of pansies. In a place like America, that perception can be fatal to a sport. If it's between playing a sport like football (where they can knock the crap out of people without penalty) or soccer (where it can seem like every time you breath in someone's direction, they go down in pain), most young boys in America will choose football. Ultimately, I think that whether or not the flopping issue is addressed will have a huge effect on whether the sport survives.

Urgent

I absolutely love the Los Angeles Lakers. Some of the best memories I have growing up are of watching them. Watching Kobe and Shaq play together was something I will always remember. I guess I didn't realize what I had until Shaq was gone, and all of a sudden, so were the championships. I was thinking a lot about what's been wrong since then. What has stopped the Lakers from winning another title? I mean, they were close last year, but ultimately flopped in the finals. My feeling is that it comes back to urgency.
Watching those Lakers, there was something about them that these Lakers have lacked for the most part. The Kobe/Shaq Lakers played every game like it meant something. Watching every game of the playoffs was like watching a game 7 of the finals. Kobe was hungry, Shaq was hungry, and it showed. Remember the Kobe/Shaq alley oop that took down Portland? The Lakers were hungry then because they knew that they were talented, but that other teams actually had a chance against them. Because other teams could realistically hope to beat them, the Lakers played hard, they played with heart, and they played with urgency.These Lakers have more talent than any other team in the league. Hands down. Who else has a player like Lamar Odom coming off the bench? Most teams don't have starters with as much talent as Odom. However, Odom has the unfortunate habit of not really showing up to games that really matter. He's shown flashes these playoffs and I'm hoping that it carries into the finals. If last year's finals was any indication though, things aren't looking good.
So what do the Lakers need? They need to find that urgency again. When they've played with it during the playoffs, no other team has had a chance. The Lakers have won every single game that they "had to" (see games 5 and 7 of the Houston series and game 5 of the Denver series). But in games where they don't face elimination or good odds of elimination, they decide not to care and lose. What gave me the most hope is when the Lakers won game 6 of the Denver series. I didn't think there was any way they were taking that one, based on how they have played in every other game they didn't have to win. But they did, and now my hopes are high for the finals. Looking at the matchups, the Lakers should take it easily. But wasn't the same the case against the Celtics? Sorry Boston, but the Lakers had the better team last year. The problem is they didn't play like it. If the Lakers can play the way they're capable of, I will be celebrating another championship shortly after game 4. If they don't, it will be another long summer of hoping they wake up and find the urgency again.

Golfing

Today, I went to the driving range for the first time in months. There's something about whacking the crap out of a little ball that seems so therapeutic. It doesn't matter how bad your day has been, if you go hit balls on the range, it will make you feel better every time. Unless of course you suck. Then it might make you even more frustrated.
I think that more professional athletes should take up golf. I know a lot of them do when they retire, but I think that pro athletes have a lot they could learn from golf. The main thing is humility. If you mess up on the golf course, you don't have anyone to blame but yourself. If you're a pro golfer and you don't win a tournament, you know it's no one's fault but yours. The only thing stopping you from beating anyone else is you. As Will Smith said in The Legend of Bagger Vance: "Golf is the only sport I know where you can call a penalty on yourself." And golfers do. Imagine an athlete like Terrell Owens always blaming everything that happened in a game on himself. It's just not going to happen. Or imagine Kobe calling a foul on himself. There's no way. That's the beauty of golf. When you lose, it's no one's fault but yours. But when you win, the feeling is total because you know that all those hours at the driving range have finally paid off.