sportsdrenched

About five years ago I had four front license plates for my truck; Kansas City Royals, Kansas City Chiefs, Colorado Avalanche, and a KSU PowerCat (not to be confused with an Eco-Kat).  However, I sold the truck that had the front license plate holder.  The new one didn’t, and I didn’t care enough to install one.

Recently I purchased a new truck that does have a front license plate holder.  I rounded up the Avalanche and PowerCat tags.  The Chiefs and Royals tags were lost, destroyed, or stolen.  Ok, stolen is unlikely.  Either way, I don’t have them anymore. I’ve been rolling with the PowerCat tag since I bought the truck in December.  However, KSU’s revenue sports seasons are over, and we’re a week away from the start of the regular baseball season.  It’s time for a Royals tag.  A good metal tag, not the cheap plastic ones I used to have.   

This summer's Royals tag

Back in the day I had a rule.  My sports team tags stay on the vehicle until they were eliminated from playoff contention.  Baseball is my favorite sport, the sports year rotates around baseball season.  I would place the Royals tag on the truck in the middle of March.  Keep it there until the Royals were eliminated in April late summer, then place the Chiefs tag on the vehicle as soon as their training camp opened, and so on.  The problem is, most summers the Royals are really terrible.  The Royals usually aren’t eliminated from the playoffs before Chiefs training camp is open. But they were so terrible that I was embarrassed to have the Royals tag on my truck.  But rules are rules. However, there is a solution to this:

Hopefully Royals fans won't have to sent a distress signal this summmer.

As if to say: I know I my team sucks, I’m not happy about it, but I’m still a fan.  But as soon as the season changes that bad boy is being replaced.  So, the next time your team is going through a rough season and you’re not happy about it.  Don’t be a snake and disavow your allegiance, send a Distress Signal.  Hopefully the Royals have improved to the point that I don’t have to do this anymore. 

I’ve been watching NASCAR since the latter half of the 1997 season. I don’t even remember what drew me to the sport. Going to college in Daytona Beach was probably a contributor, but plenty of my classmates hated NASCAR. I didn’t grow up watching it as a child or teenager. I guess it was one of those things that once you’re exposed to it you might find that you like it. Maybe it was the entrenched passion of the fans I talked to when discovering racing. Maybe it was this music video. Whatever it was, I got caught up and I’ve continued to follow the sport with different levels of interest for the past 15 years. To some old timers I’m still one of those “new” fans that the sport doesn’t need. But when I make statements like this year’s Daytona 500 is one of the wildest races I’ve seen, there is legitimate racing history for me to make that discernment. The problem is the wildness wasn’t from the actual racing.

Obviously the biggest story of this race was the weather. Certainly there have been rain delayed races before. When it’s a random race at Michigan or Pocono in the middle of June no one seems to notice in the national media. The people affected are the fans, race teams, and sponsors. The problem is the Daytona 500 has adjectives and phrases attached to it like; “The Great American Race” and “The Super Bowl of NASCAR”. I don’t particularly care for that type of hype. I look forward to the Daytona 500 because it’s opening act in a sport that I enjoy watching. It’s “Opening Day”. It’s the emergence of what I call the summer sports. From now until next winter there will be at least one event per weekend that I care to watch.

I stated in my previous post that I was disappointed that the race had been postponed. We had a Daytona 500 party planned Sunday afternoon. We had the party, and the weather where we were was awesome. The lack of a race did not stop us from having a good time. I was disappointed I would not get to watch the race during the day on Monday. I like NASCAR, but paid time off is reserved for other Opening Days. The rain takes away, the rain gives back. When I learned the race had been moved to prime time Monday evening that disappointment turned into a little excitement. Finally summer would get underway on mild evening in February. (As a side note spring is here, the tornado sirens made thier debut this evening)

I guess finally is a bit of misnomer. You see I’m enough of a NASCAR dork that given the opportunity I will watch the Truck Series and Nationwide Series races. In reality point paying races began last Friday evening. If you’re a NASCAR newbie consider the Truck Series the AA of minor leagues, and the Nationwide Series the AAA. Anyone who watched those races knew to expect lots of wrecks and expect the unexpected in the Daytona 500. It’s the nature of the track. Racing is unpredictable as it is, the racing at Daytona and Talladega is even more so. That’s part of the reason NASCAR’s season finale race is not held at these two tracks. For the most part the racing in this Daytona 500 reflected that trend. There was a wreck at the end of lap 1, there were two wrecks in the closing 20 laps. I expected that. What I did not expect was for Juan Pablo Monotya’s car to hit a jet dryer causing a huge fireball and a fire that took several minutes to extinguish, a truck load of Tide detergeant, and a 2 hour red flag to clean-up. I’m familiar with red flags at this race track. I was in attendance for this race. Not to mention the pot-hole incident in the Daytona 500 two years ago.

Some will say that last night’s red flag was a black eye for NASCAR in it’s highest profile race. However, I thought last night was a good reflection of why NASCAR is so popular. Driving machines at high speeds on the edge of control is why we watch. When control is lost, it gets lost spectacularly. As we saw last night spectacular loss of control takes a while to clean up. It’s the nature of the sport. In that regard baseball and NASCAR are similar. There is a lot of mundane stuff that happens. It often lulls even their most diehard fans asleep. But when something riveting and exciting happens, you’re sure to remember it for the rest of your life, even if you watch it from the couch.

Speaking of sitting on the couch, something happened during the “Jet dryer red flag” that I absolutely loved and never seen before. @keselowski, better known as NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski, began tweeting from his car. I began following @keselowski on twitter and as a driver last August. Before the Daytona 500 Keselowski had 65,000 twitter followers, by the end of the night he had 200,000. I could write an even longer post on the use of twitter while watching sporting events. Sports is the only reason I have a twitter account. I find it interesting that the NFL and other sports are suppressing the use of twitter by their participants. Yet, on a night and weekend when things were not going right for NASCAR, a driver tweeting during the event became a major positive.

I should have noticed NASCAR’s embracing of social media while watching the truck race. On the back of every crew members’ fire suit, any time a driver, official, or reporter was mentioned on television, so was their twitter handle. In 1997 when I started following NASCAR it was beginning to emerge from a regional southern sport into the mainstream of the American sports landscape. It peaked in popularity in the mid-2000’s and has since been regressing. (Interesting how this follows the US economy as a whole.) You can call NASCAR a lot of things, but what they are really good at is promoting their events. It should surprise no one that they are ahead of the curve concerning social media interaction with their fans. There was speculation that NASCAR may slap Brad Keselowski’s hand for tweeting during a race. However, this afternoon NASCAR released this statement:

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — NASCAR will not penalize Brad Keselowski for his use of Twitter during Monday night’s Daytona 500.

We encourage our drivers to use social media to express themselves as long as they do so without risking their safety or that of others.

Good for NASCAR.

Lost in all this crazyness is the actual winner of the race: Matt Kenseth. It seems Matt Kenseth gets lost in the national media. He’s not a 5 time Sprint Cup Champion like Jimmie Johnson. He’s not NASCAR’s most popular driver. However, if you look at Kenseth’s numbers he’s put together a nice little career. He is a past Sprint Cup Champion (2003), and now he has two Daytona 500 wins. I know he’s not real exciting. But he’s always in contention, and every once in a while he wins. That’s more than “the most popular driver in NASCAR” has done, there’s something to be said for that. By the way, you can follow @mattkenseth on twitter too.

Now that the hoopla and the hype is over Matt Kenseth will make the media rounds today. He will eventually catch up with the rest of his crew in Phoenix later this week. Kenseth and the rest of the Roush-Fenway team do well at Phoenix, don’t be surprised if he wins two in a row. Now the real season begins.

I should be writing a post about the Daytona 500. However, it was postponed until tomorrow. Since I have to work tomorrow this means it will be the first Daytona 500 I will miss since 1997. That was the year before I got into NASCAR. Sure I’ll DVR the race, but there’s no way to avoid learning who wins until I get a chance to watch it. I’m disappointed, but if you’re going to be a fan or participate in sports that are held outside you should expect this stuff to happen from time to time.

Since I can’t get my NASCAR on I would like to talk about is this logo:

As some of you know I write a weekly post at I70 Baseball about the Kansas City Royals. There has been a lot of discussion among Royals fans about how the front office is attempting to turn one of the laughing stock franchises in professional sports into a world class organization. Results have been slow to come to fruition. Any time the Royals front office is doubted or second guessed the fans and media have been told by Royals General Manager Dayton Moore to “trust the process”. This reply has been uttered so often that fans have begun endearingly putting “The Process” in quotes. “The Process” has achieved noun status and taken on a life of it’s own. James Tyree, another Royals fan, is also a graphic designer, and I decided that “The Process” needed it’s own logo. And so it does. In the future when writing about the success, or failure, of the Kansas City Royals this logo is sure to be visible. It’s like our own inside joke.

First off, my last post The Frozen Tundra of Wyandotte County has had the second most hits out of anything I have written since I started this site in August. Thanks to all those for reading and providing encouragement. When I was losing the majority of the weight I mentioned in that post I blogged about that process frequently. Through discussion with some friends I’ve decided I’m going to start incorporating fitness and nutrition related posts along with my normal nonsense about the world of main stream sports. After all, part of sports is being in good enough shape to play them. In case you’re wondering. Yesterday I registered for this Half Marathon. If you’re interested in the most viewed post on this website: It’s this one.

On April 6th this spring will be unleashed!

In the first post on this blog I outlined why September and October are my favorite times in the sports world. There is so much going on that interests me it’s hard to keep track of it all. I’m not big on the winter sports. I enjoy college basketball, but not as much as I enjoy summer sports. The NBA is non-existant to me. Although, the OKC Thunder might change that if a they make championship run.

Despite it being mid-February this past weekend I watched and listened to baseball, golf and NASCAR. All warm weather sports. The baseball was of the college variety. Friday night I watched the University of Florida defeat Cal-State Fullerton. I also listened to parts Wichita State’s opening series in San Marcos, Tx. I’m sad to report that did not go very well for the Shockers. In between I watched a golf tournament and NASCAR’s Bud Shootout both of which had exciting conclusions.

This weekend begins my second favorite part of the sports calendar. Between now and the beginning of April; Major League Baseball will begin and complete spring training. NASCAR will open their season with the Daytona 500 go through the first six weeks of it’s season. College Basketball will finish it’s regular season, have it’s conference tournaments, and finish with one of the greatest spectacles in all of sports The NCAA Basketball Tournament. Our family and I will open up our camping season. And as I mentioned above, College Baseball has started. All of this leads up to one of my favorite days of the year: MLB Opening Day. Once Opening Day has passed my favorite sports will be spooled up and running until the fall. Spring will be sprung!

To top it all off I’m a weather geek, when does the most exciting weather occur in Kansas? That’s right, Spring. I’m sure Snow Miser has a few tricks up his sleeve, but snow storms are a lot easier to deal with when you’re favorite sports are in session. Regardless of what the weather does it’s a good time to be sportsdrenched.

I have not been updating this blog as regularly as I’d like.  One of those reasons is I have been training for the 2012 Wyco Psycho Run Toto Run Trail Race (10 Mile).  Running is not as main stream as football or baseball, and trail running is an even smaller sub culture among the running community.  Running does not translate well into a spectator sport.  From a recreational stand point it’s pretty easy.  All you need is some shoes, and be a little nuts.

Wyandotte County Park Lake

I’ve been running off and on a little over two years.  I’m not fast, in fact, the first 5K I ever entered I finished dead last and it wasn’t even close.  The next closest runner came in 10 minutes ahead of me.  In that regard running is a lot like golf.  Unless you’re one of the best you are competing against yourself.  Trail running appeals to me because you have to be even crazier to do it.  I’m a large dude, I used to weigh a 340 lbs.  I’m about 5058 pounds (I must have left some of that on the trail) lighter now and in much better shape.   If you subtract 50 58 from 340 you can figure that I’m still not a small individual (in my best Cartman voice: “I’m not fat, I’m big boned!”  Doc says I’m fine.  In fact I would say I’m in the best shape of my adult life).  That I can run for any length of time or distance is still novel to me, even though I’ve been doing it for a while.

I’ve ran in several 5Ks, and three 10Ks.  I registered for a Half Marathon once, trained for said half marathon. A few days before the race I came down with a virus so nasty I spent 72 hours in bed and missed the race.  I’m still pissed about that.  This means 10 miles is the longest race I have ever attempted.  It just so happens to be on a trail with lots of elevation gain, and it’s winter time.  You can read the trail profile here.  When you register for a race you know that weather can be a factor.  Mike Molina, a co-worker decided to run this race with me.  If nasty weather presented itself this winter we ran in it so we could be prepared for anything come race day.  I found it fitting that after what had been a mild winter, the coldest air of the season arrived for the 3 hours we planned on spending outside.  The car indicated temperature when we got out to head for the start/finish line: 7 degrees.

You know if you enter a race with the term “psycho” in the title that you might see some crazy stuff.  I didn’t see anything too crazy at the start of this race.  Just a bunch of runners bundled up and displaying nervous energy that’s typical before the start of any running race.  At this point I had phased out the weather conditions.  I could expect some sweat to turn into ice as the race went on, but if I kept running I wouldn’t feel the cold until I stopped. Unless wind was a factor, in which case anything wet would feel like being poked with a thousand needles.

Mike and I dancing out the pre race jitters, either that or it's cold

I should mention that this was not my first race on this course.  Last August I ran this race.  I was anxious to see what this course looked like in the daylight.  I made a mistake in that race.  I charged up the hills too fast at the beginning of that race and had absolutely nothing left at the end.  This time I had a different strategy.  Take the uphill easy, let my weight (there is a lot of that) take me downhill, and run on anything in between.  I’m not sure what Mike’s strategy was, he’s a lot faster than me.  I didn’t plan on seeing him after the first hill until the finish.

Bad Ben (he’s the race director) announces that there are 5 minutes till start time.  It’s 7 degrees, we wouldn’t be offended if the race started early.  The horn finally goes off and the event that’s been circled on my calendar for three months is finally underway.

Run Toto Run Start (I'm wearing yellow gloves)

The first part of the race is similar to what I remember from Psych Night.  Waiting in line to climb the first hill and taking about a mile for the starting field to spread out.  The trail was frozen and very bumpy from use when wet.  Because it was frozen it was as fast as such a trail could be.  I ran the first 2.8 miles according to plan.  Slow chop/walk on the up-hill, run on everything else.  It was going well.  2.8 miles is the first aide station.  This is where the forgotten temperature became apparent.  Unlike the middle of August; the fluids in the Dixie cups were partly frozen.  This aide station marked the beginning and end of The Wynadotte County Triangle.  This part of the course had switch backs so tight that you could grab a tree and swing yourself around a corner.  It was a lot of fun. It’s also when some sweat got in my left eye and it froze shut for a few seconds.  Never had that happen before.

Myself and another runner about to enter the Triangle

Coming out of the triangle the course was level for what I guess to be a mile before descending to the bottom of the dam. The descent was long, windy, and fast.  However, on at the bottom you had to climb to the top of the dam.  I should mention this was the north side of the course and the wind was out of the north.  The wind got between my fleece and under-armor and the needles began poking me.  Guess I should run faster, but I was beginning to tire.

This is the point in the race that I saw some crazy stuff.  By now some of the 50K competitors began to pass me.  They were going over this course 3 times, I was just going once.  Their race started an hour before mine.  One of the 50K guys had enough ice from frozen sweat in his hair and beard he could have been confused with Frosty The Snowman.  I reached up to feel my beard.  Sure enough, I broke ice out of my beard into my glove.  It’s about this time I reached the aide station at the top of the dam.  Halfway.

From reading previous year’s race reports and looking at the map I knew the next part of the race would be the toughest.  I switched hats, the one I started with was frozen to the point it could have been a helmet.  I’d never had a Gu packet before but one of the volunteers suggested I have it.  I took it and headed back out on the pavement.  There was a catch to this pavement, it was straight uphill.  The course hit the trail again and went down-hill.  I was close to losing control here but managed to stay on my feet until the bottom of the hill.  Maybe I should have kept my helmet on.  Then it was straight back up.  I spent a fair amount of time in the Ozarks as a kid.  These next few hills were every bit as steep and rugged as those.  Next jerkwad I hear mention Kansas being flat I’m going to drag them through these hills by the ear.  The next two miles are probably the toughest physical thing I have done.  My HRM had my HR over 190 just walking up the next two hills.  At one point I thought I was going to pass out. I know race volunteers were probably looking for ways to stay warm, but lugging my big torso out of the woods probably wasn’t what they had in mind. So I willed my self to not pass out, and continue running.

Straight up!

Coming into the last aide station I remembered an important characteristic about myself.  I have asthma.  Since I’ve been running my asthma has been mostly dormant.  I carry my inhaler just in case even though I had not used it in several months.  At this point two hours of breathing ultra-cold air began to take it’s toll.  My lungs were on fire.  Like those blasted needles.  I took a puff of my inhaler…except the stuff in the inhaler had frozen.  It was like blasting sand paper into my throat and lungs!  Some water took care of the initial burn.  Slowly my lungs opened up.  Then remembered I had brought my balaclava with me.  Helmet #2 off, balaclava on.  This allowed my lungs to breath slightly warmer air, which was all the warmth I needed.  Maybe I should have started with the balaclava?

The last 2.8 miles were kind of a blur.  There were hills but nothing like I had just passed.  Even though the temperature never got above freezing, parts of the trail in the sunlight began to thaw and became a little muddy.  This is where I took my only spill.  Good thing I landed in more soft mud.  No major damage, I got up and continued. I could hear the start/finish line before I saw it.  I would like to say I had a burst of energy when I realized how close I was to the finish but ther