Running Shorts

The South 80 is a 1.5 mile loop in Mariemont around some community gardens along the Little Miami River. It's actually a brand new trail construction, and it makes a great 5 mile loop from my house. Since it's so new, it's mostly really well groomed and also about a sidewalk's width (which I like a lot better than single track trails). It's a your typical dirt trails, so a little uneven and rooty in places. But I hear rumors that Mariemont is planning on adding onto the trails here, with Phase 2 make about a 3 mile loop and Phase 3 making 6 miler. Depending on who owns the property and stuff, there's so much land down here that it would definitely be feasible, so hopefully those happen too. Another (better) photo of the trail, but without a runner so it's technically not a rave run.

[Insert Bare Naked Ladies here] It's been one week / Since I ran one day... Yeah I haven't run in a week. But before chalking that up to pure laziness, hear me out. Before this week, I hadn't really shut off mentally since November. Even the week I didn't run after the Pig was spent doing rehab stuff...I was anxious to get back to training, and I never really turned off mentally. I needed a break. My desire to actually train was virtually nothing. It was weird how it kind of happened all of a sudden...like, one afternoon I just decided to mentally check out. And you know what? It felt awesome. Not running has been great. I've had so much more time and energy during the day. I needed some time to check out mentally. But I think it's about time to get back into it. I don't think I'll have lost much fitness with just one week off. Let's just say, the mental benefits of recharging the batteries (so to speak) far outweigh the physical negative

Sorry it's been a few weeks...if I keep up the goal pace of one post per week, not a chance I finish by the Olympics. Because they're only two (2!) weeks away? (Right? I'm pretty sure that's close to accurate...) This post is structured around one simple question: do fans (particularly on TV) know what they are watching? No, they don't. Not even close. The casual fan has no clue about the strategies, tactics, participants...or really anything about track. As mentioned in earlier posts, part of the reason for that lack of knowledge is that the commentators also have no idea what they're talking about. What boggles my mind is that Americans (A-murr-icans) can sit for three hours and watch cars drive around an oval, but they can't sit for 5-15-30 minutes and watch actual people run around an oval. You know, actual athletes. People get NASCAR. They don't get track. Track isn't boring...it's just boring for people who don't know anythi

So I guess I'll start out where I left off last time: track is hard to watch on TV because the commentators have no idea what they're talking about. Okay, well maybe that's a little harsh. But is it really? Watching the Olympic Trials this past week, it's sometimes been painfully obvious how bad they are sometimes. That said though, coverage of the Trials has been better than track coverage usually is. First, let's look that the sprinters. Ato Boldon does of pretty good job with the sprint events. I mean, I don't really know too much about sprinting, so I can't really so too too much. But I think he does a really good job educating the viewer about what's going on. So then, is it any surprise that the sprints get top billing on TV? Now for the distance races. In the past, they've been awful. By that, I mean at times the commentators haven't even known who's who in the races. The general sporting public doesn't know much about the