Baseball season is in full swing, and the Yankees have gotten off to a strong start. I typically don't put much stock in the April standings given that over the past 5 years in the AL East, both the Orioles and the Blue Jays were comfortably in 1st place by the end of the month. By the All-Star Break, both teams were well out of the race for the division. I know the Red Sox faithful are debating whether to jump off of one of the many bridges that go over the Charles River, but I don't think they should worry. After all, the Yanks got off to a slow start last year and it seemed to work out well for them. Of course, I would love for the Sox to have a bad year.
The insanity that was the NFL Draft took place this past weekend. As a Giants fan, I do care about who they pick up but it's hard to say now if the draft is considered a "good one" for Big Blue. You tend not to know these things until a few years from now. I will say that the biggest shock of the year came in for Marc's team when the Denver Broncos drafted Tim Tebow from the University of Florida (and my brother-in-law's alma mater). Many reasons existed why Tebow was a high risk pick even though he had tremendous success on the college level and is considered a "good character" guy. Whatever. He's not a Giant, but I do hope he is successful in the NFL. Myron Rolle, too. If you haven't read his story yet, you should – it includes being a top player in college football AND being a Rhodes Scholar.
I had 2 runs scheduled for last week. Did one of them a day later than scheduled because of some other commitments, and it went pretty well. I always try and learn something new on a run in terms of something I should try again and something I should stay away from until I am more prepared to take it on. I did 7 miles on Thursday and as mentioned last week, my upcoming race is on a flat course, so I was at Greenlake again doing a couple of laps. I was trying to hit a specific pace without hitting my lactate threshold. Was mostly successful except for the very end because I slacked in mile 5 and went a little slower than I should have. Oh well. Lesson to pay more attention, but overall a solid run with some good lessons learned.
Yesterday I had 8 miles with Coach Lesley and the gang. I was excited because the start was right near the house, which means I can sleep later – woo woo! I felt kind of sluggish for the 1st couple of miles keeping up with 2 of my friends that I was slated to run part of the way with. The wind definitely didn't help either, but at least the forecasted rain came in earlier than expected, so we didn't have to deal with that. I ended up settling into a decent pace and probably felt better in the last 2 miles than I did in the beginning of the run. Maybe the fact that I was done with the Stone Way climb helped.
But being the glutton for punishment that I am, I wanted to get to at least 8 miles. That meant going up the hill towards the house. So nothing like trying to sprint out the last quarter of a mile of a run up a hill – even if it was relatively small compared to other ones that I run regularly. As soon as the run stopped and I was walking back to the house, I felt something "squishy" on the bottom of the my foot. Uh oh.
Thinking I had a blister, I immediately reached out to Lesley for some advice. Well it was more like an "SOS". I have been very fortunate on the injury front for some time (knock wood please), so I wasn't sure what to do about this. We eventually figured out it is a 'hotspot', so for now, we are icing the foot. 36 hours later, it is a heck of a lot better but this is going to need some TLC from now until Sunday.
I'd also like to take this time to wish my friends who are running in races next week the best of luck – they are in events in New Jersey, Eugene (OR), Lincoln (NE), San Francisco, Vancouver (BC) and Long Island (NY).
OK folks, game time approaching…. Wish me luck! I hope I am ready!