all tempo, all week

I was going to allude to the fact that it's primary election day in the title of this post, which really is the big news today, but I remembered that would be a violation of the self-centered spirit of blogging, so I opted for something more about me. However, since it's been brought up, yeah it's primary election day and I'm pretty stressed. Hillary has been ruthlessly attacking Obama, and you have to wonder what the effects will be on the day's outcome. I'm hoping Obama can pull through in Texas and keep it close in Ohio so the pressure will be on Hill to hang it up. But these election things seem to never the go the way I hope. I'll put in my vote at the caucus tonight (so I'll at least know I did my part) then go home and wait it out. Fingers crossed...

(Note: At some point, I'm going to talk about today's Arsenal/AC Milan game, so if you recorded it and don't want to know the result, stop reading now.)

OK, now on to the important stuff: my running. I skipped circuits today and decided I needed (as certain rocker dude might say) some "quality" miles this morning. I wasn't sure whether to do 5 or 7, but then I remembered how annoying all the construction on the north side was and figured I could do 6 (plus a little extra to cool down) running out to the east side from RunTex. Perfect.

While last night was cold and so windy there were white caps on Lady Bird "Lake", this morning was just lovely. The winds had died down, the sun was out and reflecting off the water, it was a little chilly but you only noticed it for about 2 minutes while warming up. It was so lovely that I felt sorry for anyone who might have chosen to run yesterday instead of today.

My goal was to run at about a 7-ish pace, which I did... kind of surprisingly (usually the first mile is so slow that it's hard to make up for it later in the run). The only caveat is that I did stop to use the bathroom at miles 2 and 4. I know two bathroom breaks on 6 mile run is a lot, and it probably helped my performance a little, but one can you do? 7:48, 7:30, 6:52, 6:53, 6:44, 6:25. Thanks to the never ending construction, I had to stop before hitting the mile marker just past the stinky bridge, but I added 8 seconds on to my last mile to try to provide an accurate estimate.

I'll follow today's quasi-tempo run up with the real deal on thursday, and then the Starflight 5K on Saturday morning. That should give me enough "quality" miles to get by for a while. I'm pretty sure today's run will have a negative effect on thursday's tempo, and today's and thursday's runs will join forces to undermine my performance in Saturday's 5K. But, I'm trying to think long term here, so that by April I'll be in better shape to put in a decent performance. Plus, now I have a built in excuse for running poorly on Saturday, and who wouldn't want that? It kind of takes the pressure off. (Of course, the current forecast for Thursday is really ugly --- cold, rainy and windy --- so it's possible I might sheepishly decide not to run on Thursday and thereby ruin this rationalization that I'm already counting on.)

The second leg of the Arsenal/AC Milan matchup in the Champions League was today. I followed the first half on the internet, and it sounded suspenseful. It sounded like Arsenal was getting there asses (or arses, as they would say) handed to them for the first 15 minutes, but then they turned the tables and dominated for the rest of the half. Despite all the action, the first half ended 0-0. I hadn't had lunch, and my house is only 2 miles from the office, so I figured I'd run home and catch the second half. Arsenal was once again dominating for first 20-25 minutes, but then the game seemed to settle down and you could tell both teams were just running out of gas. It was still end-to-end and exciting, but things got a little sloppy. Arsenal seemed to have a little more control, but their grasp on the game seemed fragile. It was still 0-0 and all, so all it would take is for them to give up one sloppy goal.

Finally, with less than 10 minutes left, Fabregas (who is pretty much a 20-year-old midfield genius, and who is much more inclined to pass than to shoot) uncorked a long range shot that caught the goalie off guard (perhaps he was tending to his hair) and slid in perfectly just inside the left post. It totally came out of nowhere and while it was an incredibly well-placed shot, you can't help but wonder if the goalie should have been able to do more to keep it out of the net. After that, I Milani were in panic mode throwing everything forward but with no luck at all.

There were 4 minutes of stoppage time, thanks in part to the Arsenal goalie lying on the ground and pretending he was in extreme pain. (Perhaps he was, and it's certainly possible that he had learned this behavior from watching the Italians perform similarly throughout the game, but it sure looked a little overdone to me.) Once the action resumed, someone fed a long ball up the right side to Arsenal's Theo Walcott, who is blazingly fast and had fresh legs since he came in as sub about 15-20 minutes earlier, and he easily outran the tired Milan defender. Here is one thing about Walcott that distinguishes him from other players (other than his speed), he doesn't seem to like to play for penalties. He seems to try to avoid situations that will lead to him falling to the ground, and when he gets tripped it up, instead of he trying to make his stumble look like The Most Dramatic Fall Ever to win some sympathy from the ref, he tries to keep his balance and keep running. (I'm sure someone's going to point me to some counterevidence on YouTube, but I can assure you that Theo keeps running when most people would be lying on the pitch waiving there arms in incredulously.) Anyway, so the tired Milan defend makes a pretty good effort at a desperation slide tackle and actually does get a teeny bit of the ball, enough that Walcott totally loses his balance and falls to his side. The problem is Walcott instantaneous popped back and is still at full speed, and the defender didn't get enough of the ball so it happens to still be right in front of Walcott. At this point, it's Walcott versus the goalie, with the only problem being that Walcott is so far out to the side that he doesn't have a good angle, fortunately his teammates were still involved and follow him with two cuts. Walcott dribbles the ball towards the goal, one of his teammates (Flamini) flashes to the goal as he crosses it (not sure who it was), but it's passed beyond him in favor of teammate Adebayor who comes out of nowhere (at least on the TV screen) to easily tap it in. It was textbook play --- perfectly passed and perfectly converted. Game over. I need to see if I can find that pass on YouTube. OK, there's a really low-fi replay (is there any other kind on YouTube) here. (Arsenal is wearing the white shirts and cute stripey socks.)

Whew, this was long. I really don't know how I manage to say so much about so little.