Here's a list - in order - of the best days of the year:
- The day before Presidents' Day
- Thanksgiving
- The beginning of the NFL season
- Super Bowl Sunday
- The first Sunday in June
- The beginning of the NFL preseason
- The Fourth of July
That makes today the sixth best day of 2009. The NFL preseason starts when the Pittsburgh Steelers report to training camp and the Pittsburgh Steelers reported to training camp today. Suck it, Independence Day.
I think I might be the only Coen brothers über-geek on the planet who didn't care for Burn After Reading. It had a very funny trailer and an impressive cast featuring, well, everybody. I'd hoped for a return to their light comedic form after the resurgence of their black comedy with No Country for Old Men. I guess my expectations were too high.
I won't lie - I'm still pretty down today about this injury and having to give up on the Marine Corps Marathon. I've been trying to talk myself into the Disney marathon all day, but it's tough going. Mainly because I'm not eight years old and going to Disney World doesn't thrill me all that much. In the hopes of perking myself up, I checked out the Team In Training website to see if there were any other options for my local chapter. As luck would have it, the Rock and Roll Marathon in Phoenix is just a week later. And I like rock and roll a whole lot more than I like Disney.
Well, that was short-lived....
I had an appointment with an orthopedist/physical therapist this morning. She spent two hours poking and prodding every square inch of my right leg below the knee and I spent two hours wincing and grimacing and trying not to cry like a little girl. Her diagnosis was that I have a high ankle sprain or a stress fracture, and probably a stress fracture because that's all she talked about for the last forty minutes. There's really no way to know for sure without an MRI (stress fractures often don't show up on x-rays) but really it's moot at this point. In either case, I'm not going to be able to run for at least four to six more weeks. So no Marine Corps Marathon.
I'm pretty bummed. Not only am I going to miss the Marine Corps, but I'll also have to give up on the Rock and Roll Half Marathon in Virginia Beach that I was going to run with Daby and CarrieNation and Emma and a few other people. I joked a lot in the month leading up to the start of training about not following through, but this was something I really did want to do. What gets me the most is the timing of my injury. I was just starting to feel good about running again, and I was gaining confidence that I could actually run twenty-six point two miles every time I got out. That - if anything - is the silver lining. Signing up for the marathon was a means to an end: I wanted to start running again. As much as I love being out on the bike - and I think it's fairly obvious that's something I enjoy quite a bit - there's nothing quite like running. I remember now that I've missed it. It had been a long time, but I missed it.
So now I'm weighing my options. I can switch over to the next marathon season, which won't interfere with a cycle event. The Walt Disney World Marathon is the first week of January. The training will probably start in September, so - knock wood - I should be healthy. But that's an additional $2,000 of fundraising, which doesn't bother me per se, but will mean I'll probably have to alter my plans for next year. I want to do the Tahoe ride in the spring, and we're adding a ride in Solvang, California for the fall season. My second century was in Solvang, and I've been dying to get back there for four years. If I do a marathon in January, the fundraising - not to mention the constant training for over a year - will be a bit much. Plus - and this is no small thing - I'd really been looking forward to a local event and having the support of my friends along the way and at the finish. The Marine Corps Marathon will be there next year, but there's much to be said for following through before I lose too much momentum. I just don't know.
Man, what a depressing post this turned out to be. I sincerely apologize to both my readers. I didn't mean for it to turn out this way. I'll try to make it up to you starting now: Your taste in music is terrible! Pie is the best and brownies suck! I'm the best at Scrabble! Daby and Jodi are stupid! Hmmm, I think I might just feel a little better.
The Tour de France has one more stage tomorrow, but tradition dictates that the overall contenders don't compete on the way into Paris. So Alberto Contador wrapped up his second Tour victory today on the brutal climb up Mont Ventoux. My guy - Andy Schleck - took second, and Lance somebody-or-other came in third.
So now that all that bike racing is out of the way, we can focus on what really matters about the Tour de Fance: the Podium Girls. Photos of this year's crew are surprisingly difficult to find (though there's a decent gallery here), but thankfully Versus - in their dedication to full coverage of this prestigious sporting event - takes us behind the scenes into the daily life of these hereos.
Dear Hotrod,
My closest friend at work is getting married in September. She had her invitations in the office today, and when I made a joking comment about who might be my date, she informed me that I would not be able to bring a guest. Now it's likely that I wouldn't be bringing a guest anyway, but being told flat out not to bother irks me a little bit on principle. For starters, I'm reasonably certain that other of our unmarried co-workers will be bringing their boyfriends and that a former co-worker will be there with his girlfriend in tow. And what's more, I've already heard more about the planning of this wedding than I really cared to. Every minor crisis that has arisen - from the save-the-date notifications to the selection of the band to the proper invitations - has prompted an instant message. I understand that weddings are expensive and that tough decisions have to be made, but I believe I am being treated unfairly just because I am not currently in a relationship. Am I wrong to feel this way?
Sincerely,
Singled Out
Dear Singled,
Your co-worker sounds like a real bitch. You should skip the wedding entirely.
Hotrod
I may be over Lance Armstrong, but there's no denying the sport of cycling is better off when he's not on the sidelines. Ratings for this year's Tour de France are up a whopping eighty-three percent over last year and there's only one reason why. Better ratings for the Tour means the possibility of even more cycle racing for me to watch in the future. So that's why today's announcement of Lance's new team - sponsored by RadioShack - is good news, despite at least another year of nonstop slurping from Bob Roll and company.
And yeah, I guess there's that whole "I'm riding my bike mainly to raise awareness for my charitable organization whose mission is to cure cancer" thing. I guess there's that. I can still want him to lose, right? RIGHT?!!?I walked home from the Metro tonight for the first time in over a week, and while that half-mile may not seem like a big deal, it's the longest I've walked at a stretch since my bad decision to hobble to the movies to see robots in the sky on the day I hurt my ankle. I'd been taking cabs (and occasionally the King Street Trolley) back and forth. But my leg was feeling much better today, so I thought I'd test it. It's more sore now than it has been in a few days, but it's still not the sharp pain of a week ago. It's more of a dull ache. I've got my fingers crossed that I didn't do something stupid. More than, you know, usual.
Yesterday, I had a small revelation. The overall pain had subsided enough that I was able to isolate when my ankle hurt most and (probably) why. I overpronate when I run - which means my foot leans to the inside more than it should. I am also slightly splay-footed. (Or duck-footed, if you prefer.) So basically what I think had been happening is that my toes were pointed outward at the same time I was running too much on the inside of my feet. It's no wonder I felt the pain first on the inside of my ankle. I've dealt with this before, when I ran a lot in college. In high school I had knee and hip problems (with the same leg). I had to concentrate on my form while I was running in order to correct it - which I hadn't been doing since I'd been concentrating so much on just not stopping.
Anyway, I now think this is just a sprain, and that I had been feeling pain further up my shins because, well, everything hurt. The most important thing is that I now know what causes more pain just getting around and I can avoid it. I also learned how best to stretch my ankle to ease the pain. This is obviously a setback, but I haven't yet given up on the marathon. I've talked to my coaches, and they're not yet concerned about modifying the training schedule to accommodate my unfortunate layoff. I hope they're right. I mean, B-----e thinks I'm a badass. I'd hate to let her down.
A quick glance to the left-hand column of this page indicates that the "smugness" tag has diminished more than I'd like. To that end, now seems an appropriate time for an update of the standings in the Vox/Facebook Scrabble Challenge.
I had taken some time off from Facebook Scrabble after Scrabulous fell victim to Hasbro's copyright attorneys because the official Scrabble application was more cumbersome than I liked. Plus, I was playing too much at work and needed to stop. So I was at a bit of a disadvantage - I was way behind - when I threw my hat back into the ring a couple of months ago. It didn't take me too long for my ranking to pass Jodi's, but Dabysan was another story. He seemingly does little all day but play internet Scrabble against lesser opponents to pad his rating. I briefly passed him a few weeks ago, but my stay at the top was short-lived. Not this time, however. Despite a string of uncharacteristic and unfortunate losses to Jodi, I've been on a pretty good streak against Daby lately. That - coupled with his ability to maintain the status quo against Jodi - has landed me atop the rankings once again. Dabysan is a distant second and Jodi remains an even more distant third. And most importantly, I've been on top for close to two weeks now. With a one hundred thirty point lead over Jodi and a nail-biter with Daby in my current games, I'm poised to stay there for a while. As I should be.
Hey, we made the [music is good] box again! And we love the caption. It encapsulates perfectly - and much more succinctly than our words - one of our most valued rules for life. In fact, let's go ahead and update the rulebook right now.
Hotrod's Rules for Life, #13: All's good if you keep your shoes on, okay?
