tennis's grand waste of time

ok, so i know i'll catch hell from male readers, but i have to fully explain my distaste for miss kournikova. put on your feminist listening caps:

saying that anna made it pretty well as a teenager but had to use her looks to "make it" is actually my point. it's a disservice to all the other women on the tour--unless they're destroying the competition a la martina navritalova (sp?) in her day, the women don't get noticed unless they can be marketed as a sexpot. and i dislike kournikova because she purposely did exactly that--why should lindsey davenport or kim kjlisters (sp?) have to pose provocatively to earn the praise they deserve? oh wait, they don't--they're actually good at what they do. you don't see the gratuitous use of tennis for reasons other than competing with maria sharipova, martina hingis, or the men for that matter--andy roddick, while pretty yummy, puts it all out on the court and earns his keep *there*, not in photo shoots and pretending to be something he's not.

it's one thing to pursue a modeling career of sorts. it's another to pursue it while saying that you're a great athlete when you're truly not. she was using her initial fame in tennis as a springboard to more of a celebutante life, all the while claiming that she was a great player. so gratuitously dragging the sport along with you, just to boost your cred, pisses me off, especially when, as has been said, the other "non-lookers" have to work their butt off for any recognition. the way she conducted her path distorts what sport is about.

oh, and she's not terribly brilliant either. she's now a fitness columnist for elle (i think it's elle, anyway), and i'm sure that the editors vomit every time she submits a piece. her snippets on workouts and the healthy, sporting lifestyle are written at a middle school level and don't provide any insight into anything. her title at the magazine should be Captain Obvious.


thus ends my dissertation on my distaste for miss kournikova. next time i'll discuss something that's not so ridiculously... ridiculous.

favorites

today we'll talk about athletes.

soccer: whole portuguese men's team. i absolutely canNOT wait for the match vs. england. they're once again the underdog, but i hope they pull off an upset like the 2000 Euro Cup. that would be AWESOME. they definitely have it in them, especially after withstanding the ridiculous brutality of their previous game.

tennis: andy roddick. while he's had a rough patch lately and isn't quite the golden boy of tennis anymore, he still has a wicked serve and the tenacity to make it in spite of the increasing depth of the field of competition.

track & field: christina hattestadt and stacy dragila. hattestadt is a norwegian javelin thrower who once held some damn good world records. i like her a lot because she took time off to become a mom and then came roaring back in competition, despite the track world's skepticism about her ability to return to form. stacy dragila is just awesome. she was really a force in bringing women's pole vault to the fore of international competition, and the way she nursed a friendly rivalry with the few other women in the event really brought attention to the sport. plus, a record-holding pole-vaulter friend of mine met her and said that dragila is a really down-to-earth, fun person. the sports world needs more athletes like that.

miscellaneous: lance armstrong. duh. jackie joyner-kersee. the retired track star is the epitome of all-around star athlete.

ooops, gtg!

Book'em, Danno!

my finger had a run-in with the kitchen knife

my finger didn't win.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand toby's totally sacked out. YESSSS!!!!!!!!!!

poor little guy is completely out on his pillow, all curled up with his new squeaky toy.

so this day has been a very good one. got back with the pacemakers today for a run through dru hill park, and hanging w/ them has made me realize how much i miss those long grueling runs. my main reason for getting out there was my detemination to do the dreaded druid hills 10K, one of the most, well, dreaded races of the year. it's basically an out & back, with the middle 4 miles pounding you into the ground, and since the pacemakers were hoofing it this morning, i figured it'd be a good idea to familiarize myself with how terrible these six/seven hills actually are.

i'm really glad that i did. it's not that the hills are impossible or that i was dying halfway through, but now i know exactly how i'm going to run the 10K--i'm going to run smart. thank goodness for cutting my teeth on hills in middle school and high school xc & track. anyway, this is definitely a race that calls for conservative running and an iron will. i'm very pleased with the run this morning, as i definitely ran very prudently. i cut short because i had a lot of stuff to do, so i ended up doing ~5.3 miles in ~55 minutes. i'm satisfied.

i'll have to blab about the World Cup! of Beer! tomorrow. i'm pooped. but mad props to the U.S. for holding off italy, especially with a man down. that equalizing goal (own-goal by the italian defender) was AWESOME!


gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

lazy

interesting: "• Australian scientists in January said that they had identified a gene that causes bipolar disorder in about 10 percent of those with the condition."

very interesting....

anyway, tonight has been very lazy, mostly because i've been absolutely exhausted all week. so what am i going to do? wake up early tomorrow morning and do a long, hilly run with the pacemakers. :) because of that and my unintentional 7 miler yesterday, i just went easy tonight with toby. we just did our easy 2 mile loop in the park, this time at 730PM, to keep toby from overheating. it was nice.

and now it's bedtime.

:)

this is how 5 miles turns into 7.5....

first, take the stress of major job and household fluctuations. add to that some fantastic, wicked fast mood swings. fold in the desperate needs to exercise and get out of the house. bake in the hot sun for over an hour, and you get a brain that gets so wrapped up in its own little calculations and problem-solving scenarios that it forgets that taking that one road takes you for an extra 2+ miles. oops.

honestly though, since i've been more thoughtful about how i train, my runs have improved quite a lot. i am very deliberate about my pace and heart rate. i still refuse to buy one of the polar monitors, but i do know what my specific target heart rates are, and i'm doing a pretty good job of staying in the appropriate range. it's amazing what a little capitulation to a little common sense can do for your health. hehehe.

so, happily, i did the charles-northern-roland loop, with some side streets thrown in. took it easy and was out there fore ~75 min. so, that was awesome. we'll see if i join up with the pacemakers on saturday for the dru hill run..... don't know if i want to tackle those hills yet. i haven't gotten my crazy cap on just yet. :)

i feel pretty good, considering.

Custom Fitness Concepts

Hi, everyone. I just thought that I'd let you know that I am now a trainer with Custom Fitness Concepts, and the company is working to expand in the Baltimore metro. We offer outdoor conditioning, small group fitness, and personal training, among other things, and we partner with several health professionals to round out our well-being programs. Most importantly, we come to the customer, instead of the customer having to travel to us.

For further information, please refer to our website (see the link above) or call 877-598-0530.

I'd love to help you meet your fitness goals!

oh. my. lord.

some mgt. company is trying just a little too hard to rent their apt. units:


"Washer & Dryer in Every Home...Swimming Pool & Sunning Area...Located In Prestigious Catonsville..."

running over a new leaf

so this past weekend, i got trained. to be a trainer. more on that later. but back to running. with everything i learned this weekend, i've been thinking a lot about my runs and workouts. i've decided to modify my methods because i need to address some medical issues, and i haven't been seeing the appearance and performance results that i've wanted to.

as far as the medical issues go, i've had some flare-ups with bipolar disorder, and it's affected my training. as in i didn't train. what usually happens is that i have a TERRIBLE day and then i crawl under the covers. OR, if i try to run, i get overly worked up and either go too fast or just quit. so. remedy: start out with the idea of only going 10 minutes and go slowly. by and large, by the time i've reached the 10 minute, i've relaxed and keep going.

for appearance and performance results, i had to make a major mental shift. i've never really paid attention to target heart rates and fat burning vs. cardio zones; i should have, especially with the way my breathing has been lately. fat burning zones help people lose more weight because, since you're running slower to stay within a specific range, you can run longer than you can in the cardio and anaerobic zones. this, in turn, helps build my endurance for the races i've planned this summer.

so all in all, i did ~50 minutes, with a stop at rite aid toward the end to pick up my Rx. i went up the trail and down roland, and i tried to keep my HR in the fat burning zone. i felt pretty good afterward, and hopefully i'll keep this habit up.

excellent.n

a cat with balls

yeah, that basically says it.

i stood barefoot in the middle of a city stream. ewwww. but it felt great. my shins are in revolt, and the rush of cold water felt a-ma-zing. anybody who has suffered the splint of shins can literally feel my pain at the description. anyway, it felt really good, and i think i did well by trying to stay off concrete and asphalt as much as possible. of course, that mostly means that i'm running the same trail through the park All The Time, but i haven't tired of the lush canopy and green air. i don't know how else to describe it... i cut my teeth running trails up in PA, so this little path is a great respite.

anyway, i did ~4 miles today, making sure to take it easy and not manage to hurt myself. i really should be keeping better track of my runs. saturday, i ran about five (doing about half on the trail again), and that hurt because when i wandered back up to roland, the grade was steeper than i was ready for. ouch. sunday, i knew that i needed to mix it up, so i did a brief warm-up on the trail (~1.5 miles) and then did 6 hills on a branch of the trail. that felt really good, again with a very controlled but concentrated pace. afterward, i sat on a rock in the middle of the stream, and then i ran home. all in all, i must have done ~2.5 miles. awesome. tomorrow, i plan on 4 miles (2 loops) at umbc. thursday is the great run with kim, and then friday will be either 2.5 or 5 miles at centennial park. depends on how many loops i want to do.

and i'm still uncertain about the philly marathon. i have all of my other races selected, and i just can't decide if i want to add the marathon. i don't know...

calling, opportunity & resources

my sister-in-law has this uncanny ability to give eerily insightful advice when i am in most need...

for the past month or so, i'd been debating as to whether or not i should pack up and leave baltimore, mostly due to job frustrations (no potential employers care if you're an expert on Beowulf...). it was tough because there were dis/advantages to staying and leaving, so i called maria to talk to her about it. her advice, as given to her by a close friend: you know it's time to move when God provides the calling, the opportunity and the resources. that was a few weeks ago. and there was nothing.

one day, on the way home from my temp job, i was saying to myself, well, i'm just going to give up on this one job possibility around DC because the guy just doesn't seem interested in hiring. that night, i got an email from him, saying that he really wants to meet me. that has since evolved into me attending employee training next weekend and being contracted for at least some part time work, at something i really want to do.

so, that's great. but what about a place? yesterday, i was talking to a coworker about my situation, and he said that he & his fiancee need somebody to sublet their place so they don't have to buy out their lease. i'm not necessarily going to take it, but it's amazing that a place just popped up so suddenly.

this job? running coach & personal trainer, something that i know i'd be very good at and love thoroughly. this apartment? closer to DC, chris and some friends. and the timing? unbelievable.

this isn't all to say that this process has been easy. far from it. but i think it might be time to pack my bags and head south...