I’ve been running for about a year now and have done 6 races in that time. There is one thing that never ceases to amaze me during any given race. That is, how much a simple cheer from a stranger can push you to run faster, harder.
During any given race there are multiple times where negative thoughts will creep into my head. Something like Oh man, I’m dying, I should have trained more, or I started out too fast, I’m not going to have a good time or Why on earth am I doing this?! But just as my energy starts to deplete there will be a spectator along the course. It could be a race volunteer, a passerby, a family member of one of the race participants, it could be anyone. But they’ll inevitably clap for you, shout words of encouragement, or honk a car horn. EVERY SINGLE TIME this happens, I feel my pace pick up. I get a sudden boost of energy. Where this energy comes from I have no idea, but goes to show you how much of running is in your mind.
So if you ever find yourself as a spectator to race, don’t be afraid to clap or tell the athletes they’re doing a great job. I guarantee you its always appreciated.
If you’re a sports fan you’ve probably seen ESPN’s 30 for 30 series. “Inspired by ESPN’s anniversary, 30-for-30 is an unprecedented documentary series featuring thirty films from some of today’s finest storytellers”.
If you haven’t seen them, They. Are. Awesome.
Anyways, I just found out an upcoming episode will feature Terry Fox, and will be calledInto the Wind. And it has been directed by Steve Nash.
That. Is. Awesome.
I can’t wait for this episode:
In 1980, Terry Fox continued his fight against bone cancer with the pursuit of a singular, motivating vision: to run across Canada. Three years after having his right leg amputated six inches above the knee after being diagnosed with osteosarcoma, Fox set out to cover more than a marathon’s distance each day until he reached the shores of Victoria, British Columbia. Anonymous at the start of his journey, Fox steadily captured the heart of a nation with his Marathon of Hope. However the 21-year old BC native’s goal was not fame, but to spread awareness and raise funds for cancer research. After 143 days and two-thirds of the way across Canada, with the eyes of a country watching, Fox’s journey came to an abrupt end when newly discovered tumors took over his body. Two-time NBA MVP, proud Canadian, and first-time filmmaker Steve Nash will share Fox’s incredible story of perseverance and hope.
Steve Nash’s comments:
I remember being a six-year-old boy and waking up every morning and rushing to the TV to see where Terry was that day. To see him running or hobbling across our country for the spirit of community and looking out for others was something that has stuck with me ever since. To see his face hiding the pain and to hear his words disguising the sacrifice was as motivating and as educational an experience as I’ve ever had. To be able to tell this story again, to Americans who love an underdog and a story of overcoming and struggle, is something any new filmmaker would love.
http://30for30.espn.com/http://30for30.espn.com/
I’m really happy ESPN decided to profile a Canadian icon and hero in this series, and even better that another great BC athlete gets to tell the story. Should be great.
By now you’ve probably seen this amazing goal celebration put on by an Icelandic soccer team:
I don’t think there’s much debate, its the best goal celebration ever. In honor of such a great moment in sports history I thought I’d compile a list of some of my all time favorite goal/ touchdown celebrations. Enjoy:
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers give us a flash-back to kindergarten with a li’l duck, duck, goose:
What Canucks fan doesn’t love this one from Tiger Williams:
Teemu Selanne practices his skeet shooting:
Chad Ochocinco has numerous memorable celebrations. Riverdancing, taking control of the on-field camera, giving the football CPR, putting with the endzone marker, cheerleader proposal…. most of them are in this compilation video:
Chad’s new teammate Terrell Owens also has a laundry list of great TD celebrations. My favorite (as a biased 49ers fan) is the disrespect he showed the Cowboys by running the the mid field Star not once, but twice during one of their games:
This Owens compilation has the rest of his celebrations (poms poms, the Sharpie, the popcorn, Raw Lewis impersonation, etc):
This one might just be my favorite. Not only is the celebration the most ridiculous thing ever, but the score at the end of the video is epic. (Not entirely sure this one is real):
One for Team CoCo. David Anderson does the ‘string dance intro’:
The Hamilton Tigercats go all “I’m on a boat!”
Back when I used to be able to watch an entire baseball game on TV – Joe Carter’s run around the bases after hitting the ’93 World Series winning home run is forever etched in my mind:
Jumping back to hockey, a memorable one from Theo Fleury:
Can’t leave basketball out. Maybe this isn’t a ‘celebration’, but Iverson walking all over Lue (literally) in the ’91 finals was priceless:
This one is a celebration FAIL but couldn’t be left out. After rushing for a touchdown, Winnipeg QB Kerwin Bell spikes the ball and sacks himself, get knocked over by the player he’s taunting, and then gets penalized for taunting. I’ve watched this clip 10+ times and it doesn’t get any less funny:
And just for good measure, here’s ESPN’s Top Ten premature celebrations:
While I have the World Cup to satisfy my soccer thirst at the moment, I’m really looking forward to the Vancouver Whitecaps’ move to the MLS. And with good reason. There’s been a lot of buzz around the Whitecaps the last few weeks.
First, on June 8, they announced their new logo:
The logo incorporates the snow-capped North Shore mountains with their reflection in the water below. The reflection of the mountains can also be interpreted as V’s for Vancouver or as a W for Whitecaps.
Second, the new jerseys were revealed on June 10:
For their opening season as an MLS team the ‘Caps will be playing at Empire Field. The B.C. Lions are also using this stadium, and after last week’s preseason games I spoke to a few people who were really impressed with the stadium and atmosphere it provides. Apparently the grandstand style seating allows for a good amount of noise to be created by stomping your feet, and a few waves went around the stadium this way. Miss604 got a sneak-peak and has a post with lots of great photos. The only downside of the new stadium I’ve heard about is a bit of controversy over pre-game tailgating.
In their second season, the ‘Caps will be moving to a renovated, open-roof, BC Place Stadium.
The Whitecaps ultimate dream would be to build a Waterfront Stadium, which sounds truly spectacular, but as far as I know it holds an uncertain future.
My buddy is a current season ticket holder, and I was able to get first dibs on some season tickets through him. I’m anxiously awaiting the 2011 kick off. My son will just be turning 3 and I’m stoked to be able to bring him to some games, and see what kind of interest it sparks in him for playing sports, which was a huge part of my upbringing. Watching this video gets me doubly stoked:
Overall, the Whitecaps’ move to MLS is going to be great for this city. I think it will really inspire a new generation of soccer players to get into the sport and push themselves competitively. It may take a decade or two, but this will help increase the quality of soccer players our province produces, and help create a lot more interest in the beautiful game. Will the ‘Caps ever compete with the Canucks as the city’s favorite child? Not a chance, but I’m really excited to watch some MLS!
If you’ve watched any amount of World Cup action, you know what a vuvuzela is. They’re plastics horns that make a mighty loud buzzzzzing sound. They are also are pissing enough people off that there is a website dedicated to banning the vuvuzela (http://banthevuvuzela.blogspot.com/) , and a Facebook group with close to 300,000 fans. FIFA considered a ban, but decided not to proceed. Some online sports betting platforms are still taking bets on whether or not they will be banned. The vuvuzela even has its own Twitter feed.
One North Van business owner missed out on a big opportunity when he ordered 15 vuvuzelas before the World Cup and they all sold out within 3 hours of hitting his shelves. The creator of the vuvuzela has found an opportunity to branch into the earplug business, which must be big in South Africa at the moment since the vuvuzelas sound is loud enough at 127 decibels to do hearing damage. A South African woman ruptured her throat in a vuvuzela contest. Broadcasters have begun filtering audio to reduce the vuvuzela buzz.
Perhaps worst of all, Hitler is clearly not happy about the whole mess:
Although not everyone finds the vuvuzela annoying. This guy in particular seems to quite enjoy them:
@iamelectro posted a version of the vuvuzela concerto in B flat:
There are even some great compilation CD’s hitting the market:
There is the techno version….:
…and the orchestra version…:
……and even Vuvuzela Hero for the Wii:
You can play the vuvuzela game, where you turn your speakers up loud and see how many seconds you can bear the madness.
The hatred of vuvuzelas doesn’t appear to be limited to humans:
I volunteer with the North Shore chapter of KidSport. KidSport’s aim is to provide financial assistance to families who would like to register their children in organized sport, but would otherwise not be able to. It’s a great program, with the really simple aim of making sure no kids are left sitting on the sidelines. ‘So ALL Kids Can Play!’
Anyways, last week there was an annual BC chapter meeting held dowtown, and I was fortunate enough to be able to go, learn about some of the best practices from other chapters and listen to some speakers that were brought in to discuss various topics. One of the speakers was discussing branding, and the KidSport TV ads came up.
Last year KidSport was awarded funding to use for marketing purposes (a cool $3 million!) and they contracted DDB to do a series of TV spots. A series of ads I find totally hilarious. This one makes me laugh every time:
Apparently, not everyone thinks they’re so funny, however. Members of some of the chapters actually were quite mad with the direction they went with the ads. One chapter even lost a valuable donor who stopped his contributions after seeing the ads. “They make people who don’t play sports look like losers” he had said.
Which is a point I can see, but putting my business student hat on, I have to stand behind the ads. The speaker brought up some great points that I would have to agree with:
1) The ads weren’t targeted at people who don’t play sports. People who don’t play sports are not KidSport’s demographic. “Nobody’s out there saying ‘Man, I HATE sports! I’m going to cut a cheque for $500 to help kids play sports”. The people who see the value in what KidSport does are, most likely, those who play sports themselves, and this was the target group for the ads.
2) The ads need to grab attention and set KidSport apart from other non-profit organizations. “We’re in competition with every other charity out there. Competition for donations”. As KidSport is a grass-roots, volunteer run organization, I think this struck a lot of the people as a bit cut-throat. But its true. Even as a non-profit with the best of intentions you have to have some business-like mentality to achieve your goals. If KidSport truly wants to help the most children possible, they have to compete for those dollars. They have to brand, differentiate, and strike people as an organization that deserves their support.
A good example was brought forward. Do you know the ad where the kid applies for a job a bakery, the owner says ‘Shouldn’t you be out playing hockey?’ and the kid says ‘Thats what I’m trying to do’? Excuse me while a grab a Kleenex and wipe the tears from my eyes.
Its a great commercial, it really is. The problem is 9/10 people you ask a day after watching that commercial ‘what organization was that commercial for?’ they won’t remember. Do you know the commercial? Can you name the organization?…. Any guesses?
Its for Canadian Tire’s Jump Start program.
The humorous KidSport ads, on the other hand, are more likely to stick in your memory.
My nipples are going to bleed. That’s all I can think to myself as I scan the crowd for my uncle. Its 7 am and we were supposed to meet near the gear check, but I can’t find him in the mass of people. He was supposed to give me some nifty nipple protectors to prevent chaffing. Oh well, Plan B is the Band-Aids I have. The same ones that have fallen off and failed me on every one of my long training runs.
It’s now 5 minutes until the race begins, I’ve been drinking water since I woke up and I need to use the port-o-pottie but the lineups are worse than an outdoor concert. Do I risk missing race start? Yeah. I get it over with and make it to the end of the start line just in time for the 15 second count-down. 15…14… Ok, I’m ready for this, I’ve trained. No sweat…. 5….4… No biggie, I got this… BANG!
We’re off, it’s drizzling, and I’m about to run the furthest distance of my life, 42.2km. I’m near the back and stuck behind mass of people, but I’m happy to start at a slow pace because its going to be a long day.
Whoa that guy is flying. 3km mark: The race leader has doubled back on the opening stretch and is already at roughly the 8km mark. We’ve just started and he’s already gone more than double my distance. How is it humanly possible to keep that pace for 42km? All I can do is applaud as he passes by on the other side of the street.
We are all Kenyan. 6km mark: I see my favorite sign of the day. Then in small print: “But some of us are just more Kenyan than others”. Tell me about it.
“Hey Rudy!” 7km mark: I spot my uncle as I turn back on the opening part of the course. He sees me and laughs, “Hey KJ!” before vanishing around the corner.
Cool, that’s Martin Parnell! 8km mark: I spot Martin, the ultra-inspiring figure behind Marathon Quest 250, who is single-handedly attempting to run 250 marathons this year in a bid to raise $250k for Right to Play.
“Good work Martin, keep it up!” “Cheers buddy, thank you!” he shouts back as he flashes me a smile and gives the thumbs-up. Grumble, grumble. 10km mark: My stomach starts to grumble. Why did I eat that ‘healthy baked cookie bar’ this morning. Or is it the yogurt? This might not end well. Thankfully, the pain quickly goes away and doesn’t return.
Damn, my nipple is bleeding! 12km mark: I look down at my shirt after a sharp tweak of pain. Blood is running down my shirt from my left nipple. Band-Aid brand is definitely not stuck on me.
Rain, rain go away. 14km mark: The drizzle is now a full Vancouver rain. Not good, but not much I can do about it, just keep running.
Sweet, home-field advantage. 18km mark: The course enters Stanley Park, where I did every one of my long training runs. I feel like I know the seawall around the park like the back of my hand. Every nook, cranny and corner is expected and I get a bonus shot of confidence.
“How you doing buddy?” 19km mark: I ask a guy who looks like he’s hurting as I slowly pull even. “Great….but I could use one of those Canadians” he says referring to my Molson toque. “I think those are at the finish line“, I say. “Really? I better hurry” he replies before dashing ahead of me. 5-10 minutes later I catch back up. “I’ll meet you at the pub” I say as I pass. “I’m gonna beat you there!” is the response I get before he kicks it into high gear again, zooming ahead. Not a great use of energy I think to myself. 5 minutes later he’s walking and I pass by. The turtle wins again.
Halfway there. 21.1km mark: My cardio is fine, but my legs are getting heavy. ‘But it doesn’t matter‘ I tell myself, following what my training book advised. This race is as much mental as physical, and there’s no room for negativity here. As any negative thoughts creep into my head, I finish the sentence off with “…but it doesn’t matter”. It’s raining, I’m tired… but it doesn’t matter.
WTF, a pace bunny!? 23km mark: I’ve actually caught up to a pace bunny. I don’t have a time goal. I didn’t want to set one, miss it by a minute and feel like a failure. My goal is to finish. Pure and simple. But I’ve just caught up with the 4:15 pace bunny! Holy cow I’m actually pulling a decent pace.Is it possible I could I keep this up? I try to push the thought aside. My goal is to finish, that’s all! …. But, 4:15 would be pretty sweet.
I dislike this bridge. 27km mark: The Burrard Bridge. I used to like it. A true Vancouver landmark perched over False Creek. But now it’s just a huge mound of pavement that I have to make my way up and over.
G’ah, my other nipple is bleeding. 28km mark: Now my right nipple has opened like a leaky faucet. At least my left has scabbed over and stopped… but it doesn’t matter anyway.
Karl, meet wall. 32km mark: The wall. I’ve read about it. I was ready for it. It sucks.
Uncle Rudy Part II. 34km mark. I’ve made my way out to Jericho beach and am on my way back downtown. The final 8km!! No problemo! Easy-peasy! I increasingly say these things to myself, but man I’m in pain. Then I spot my uncle on his way out to Jericho. We pass by, a quick high five, and an extra boost of energy.
Cramping. 38km mark: My right quad is starting to go. I’ve slowed to what feels like snails pace, but I’m still passing people who are walking so at least that’s something. I refuse to walk.
I hate this bridge. 40km mark: Back over the Burrard. I used to dislike this bridge, now I hate it.
The final push. 42km mark: This is it, any reserves are in full gear. Run. Run. Run! I push my hardest the last 200m. Now my quads, hamstrings, groin and muscles I didn’t know existed feel like they are about to seize, but after 4 months of training I’ll fight for every second!
Finish. 42.2km mark: That’s it! A huge rush of relief. I hobble to the side and try to stretch, but can hardly bend my legs before they start to seize on me. I get my medal, some water and limp into the sports expo to grab my bag. Mission accomplished, scratch it off the bucket list.
But this feels better than other bucket list items I’ve accomplished. This one wasn’t bought with money, but with sweat and (nipple) blood. I couldn’t just pay the bucks and jump off a bridge, for example, like I did for previous things on my list, I had to fight for this one. It feels great.
Oh, and my final time: 4:14:25 and 1215/1879 males. I’ll take it.
Like any good Canucks fan I have a few playoff towels. They sit in a box in the basement and make an appearance during the playoffs where I’ll bring them to a game (in the rare, rare chance I get to go), or over to buddy’s house while we have a few beers and watch the post-season action.
My most cherished towel is from the 92/93 season, when the Canucks were the Smythe Division champions. I was 8 at the time. Since then, the towel has taken its fair share of abuse (ketchup, chip and beer stains) but I’ve never washed it for fear of bad luck.
The other day I came home from work to find the towel lying outside on our patio next to (gasp!) a bowl of soapy water. Apparently my 2 year old had taken an interest in cleaning our sliding door so my girlfriend grabbed the closest towel for him to use (‘I just thought it was a regular towel’, she says). So indeed, my ’93 towel was dipped in soapy water, but fortunately my son got distracted before taking to wiping the dirty glass with it.
Since Miss 604 had recently posted on whether or not a fan touching the Stanley Cup was bad luck, I have to wonder if this ‘tainted’ towel might bring some bad luck to our beloved team. What do you think?
With just .6 seconds left on the clock in a NLB League final game, the Croatian basketball team nailed a 3-pointer and cinched a narrow victory. Naturally, celebration ensued. That is until Serbia, with just .5 seconds left, threw up a miracle half court shot and took the game right back.
The terrible (or most hilarious) part of this video is that Serbia didn’t just ‘steal the game’. Croatia didn’t finish playing the game. They scored, and with time on the clock (a mere .6 seconds, but still), starting celebrating! They’re running and jumping around, hugging each other, and they let their guard down. All 5 Crotia players were in their own half of the court, and not a single person put any pressure on the Serbian shooter. You can see the coaches frantically pointing and yelling. Any athlete, especially at this level, should know “it’s not over until the fat lady sings”. The lesson: keep your composure and play till the end. Save the celebrations for the buzzer.
A lesson I’m sure none of these players will ever forget. Ouch.
The best part is the stunned silence of the crowd. And also, just at the shot goes in, it sounds like the stadium announcer was about to start saying something, but loses his words as the ball goes in.
I wish I knew what the players were saying at the end. Anyone speak Croatian?
