Bends Toward Justice

I went for a run today, probably about four miles. I walked to Woodford's corner, ran down to and around the Boulevard, then walked home. It was just chug, chug, chug the whole way: no spring, no zip. Heavy headwinds the first and last half-miles. But I feel good because I went out there and put in the time and put the miles under my feet. Last Saturday I thought someone was gonna have an aneurism or heart attack or stroke when five of us went to the school yard and played two-on-two. All morning these guys are talking about their cholesterol and their blood pressure, then they run for five minutes and their heads turn red and they can't catch their breath. It was scary. Maybe I should learn CPR. I'm in second place in one final four pool. If Ohio State beats Georgetown, and Florida wins it all, I think I'll have the victory. It'd be nice to fold up those bragging rights and tuck them into my pocket.

It's all just in fun, since wagering is illegal, but with the fresh start of the sweet sixteen only hours away, here are my picks: I'm still calling UCLA, Fla, and UNC for the final four, but switching my allegience from Ohio State to Texas A&M (though I think Ohio State might get serious about trying to win games earlier after that last scare. Then again they might be too cocky to see it as a scare -- I hope so). Actually I wish I could believe that UNC could get knocked off by Georgetown, but I don't. So what's left? UNLV beats Oregon before losing to Fla. and So Ill sadly must fall to Kansas. Fla prevails over UNC in a bruising final. Good thing I'd never do anything illegal, like bet on any of the above. If I did, by now I'd be thinking that as long as I'm going to lose money anyway, I might as well bet so I can root against the teams I'd like to see lose (UNC OSU, UNLV) and for the teams I'd like to see win (Fla, Georgetown, Texas A...

It's just a good thing wagering is illegal, or I'd be losing money on my not-quite-good-enough choices of teams in the two pools I'm playing "just for fun." I have five teams still alive in the pick-eight pool: Fla, UCLA, Tex A&M, S. Ill., and Tenn. But someone else has seven teams left, and a bunch of people have six, so they all have to be really wrong about the sweet sixteen while I have to be really right for me to catch up. In the other pool I've fallen about ten points behind the leader. Here's a killer about the whole thing: even with no money involved I'm emotionally invested in my choices, so when a UNLV or a USC plays really well, I can't bring myself to root for them because I chose the other team to win. Then when a team like UNC plays...well, I'd love to have seen Mich. St. knock them off, but my only interest was to know they'd won (by that late I couldn't even concentrate to follow the game).

Huge Winter Storm. Some decent games last night; I hung in right to the end. My afternoon was happy, and in the evening things continued to go pretty well. I got out of Thursday with only one loss, but as yesterday went along things slid a little. Winthrop was my big pick to upset, and they did, but Georgia Tech let me down, then Villanova let me down, Arizona let me down, and to finish off the night Arkansas let me down. From now on I don't pick any teams whose names start or end with "a." I played that bracket with a very small number of people, so I may still be in the running on it; five losses in thirty-two games doesn't seem too bad. I play another pool that involves picking eight teams, two in each region, no two with the same seed number. I have all eight teams alive in that one, but I'll probably lose one or more today (BC and/or Mich St) and could easily get spanked hard before the end of the weekend. It was hard to drag myself out of bed to go pla...

I was full of despair about VCU when I wrote the earlier post; I ended up having to leave to get Sadie before I wrote about how they seemed to be hanging on by their fingernails, how foul trouble was going to take them out of the game, how my anti-Duke bias had made Duke seem more vulnerable than they really are. VCU pulled it out! What a great game! Eric Maynor! Oh my goodness! The first upset of the tournament and I picked it. Oh! I'm so excited. And Michigan State won, too (I don't think a 9 over an 8 is really an upset). My Xavier over BYU isn't looking so hot right now, but there's a long way to go. I've only actually taken one loss so far.

Quick update on my tournament standings: We've just returned to Ohio State v. C Con State, a game everyone in the gym and everyone watching on TV knew was going to be a blowout after the first six possessions. It is nice to see and get to know Ohio State's players, but they aren't being tested, so we aren't really getting to know them. VCU-Duke is at halftime.

For the next few days any blogging I do will probably be March Madness related, but here's a last Mary's Walk note. Click on the header to see many photos, but here's one of some of my favorite Mary's Walkers (the three in the background).

I printed out a bracket, read a web page that offered odds on each team winning each game each round, looked at the power rankings (I don't even know what those are!). Read an analysis by somebody on Yahoo, looked back at ESPN Mag's giant killers article, and made most of my picks. I want to believe that a year's experience and maturity will only help, and I loved the way Florida played last year, so I'm favoring them as my #1 of #1s. North Carolina looked really good while they were crushing Duke last week, before the nose-smashing. As corollary, Duke looked really bad. An aside: Bill Simmons says a basketball fan has to choose between UNC and Duke, but I'd just as soon see them both lose -- the only historically good program I continue to root for is UCLA; I like their chances this year. VCU got high marks as a giant-killer from ESPN and I'm picking them (maybe wishfully) to knock off Duke in the first round then stay hot to beat Pitt. My even more sketc...

Pete paced me again. Much faster than last week. Meg ran also. As did Unca Phil. Sadie and the rest of the family walked Mary's Walk. Results: 58 16/41 M1518 20:29 6:36 Jason Decker 18 M 226 Shapleigh ME (A former student) 116 22/70 M4049 22:17 7:11 Philip Vezina 47 M 290 South Portland ME (Unca Phil) 126 26/41 M1518 22:34 7:16 Madison Moody 16 M 547 Porter ME (Another former student) 228 20/55 M5059 24:58 8:03 Jeff Lyons 50 M 502 Portland ME 229 21/55 M5059 24:58 8:03 Pete Lyons 51 M 613 Portland ME 434 30/58 F4049 28:48 9:17 Meg Lyons 45 F 503 Portland ME Click on the post title for a link to complete results. My time was more than two minutes faster than last week's, so I'm feeling pretty good about running right now. Later in the day I flopped on the couch to watch Ohio State, and fell asleep. I've watched par...

The Irish Road Rover got my Irish up. Yesterday it just seemed too cold to get out and run, but this evening Meg and I went to the SP Rec and ran on the track there. I felt good, and while I was doing it I daydreamed about improving my 5K time and/or upping my mileage enough to run a 10K or more this year. Or maybe I'll just manage to lose a few more pounds and get up and down the floor with more alacrity at basketball.

Sad News for all adventurous drinkers: Beer's "Indiana Jones" researched worldwide By Douglas Martin The New York Times Article Last Updated: 03/01/2007 10:24:54 PM MST Alan D. Eames followed beer to 44 countries. (The Denver Post)Dummerston, Vt. - Alan D. Eames, who cultivated his reputation as "the Indiana Jones of beer" by crawling into Egyptian tombs to read hieroglyphics about beer and voyaging along the Amazon in search of a mysterious lost black brew, died Feb. 10 at his home. He was 59. His wife, Sheila, said he died after suffering respiratory failure while he slept. Eames called himself a beer anthropologist, a role that allowed him to expound on subjects like what he put forward as the world's oldest beer ad, dating to roughly 4000 B.C. In it, a Mesopotamian stone tablet depicted a headless woman with enormous breasts holding goblets of beer in each hand. The tag line, at least in his interpretation, was: "Drink Elba, the beer with the heart ...

These pictures were all at the results site on cool runnings . Here's Pete and me finishing in stride, as I said before. This is my friend Bob from Wallyball. I think this is like the only race he runs all year. Early in the race Pete pointed these women out a little in front of us, and claimed he'd never lost a race to a greenhead before. He can't repress his competitive fire. We did eventually pass them and finish ahead of them. TJ Hesler teaches with me, and is pretty serious about his running. In the second picture he's holding his age group award.

I had a great time at the Irish Road Rover today; I didn't post a good time, but I had a great time. Pete ran with me; I think staying near me helped keep his racing instincts in check so he didn't go into the anaerobic zone except while whe were climbing the big hill. We saw TJ, Bob, Unca Phil, and a bunch of runners Pete knows. Pints of Guinness, Harp, and Smithwick's are $2.50 at Brian Boru' on Sundays, so we had three after the race. Here are our official results from Cool Runnings : place # name time avg. mi. 302 451 Jeff Lyons 27:44 8:57 303 469 Pete Lyons 27:45 8:57 It stinks that it's published this way, because Pete was waiting for me the whole time, like I said above, and I think both of us were trying to finish in stride, and did. I'm guessing this is Unca Phil: 133 521 PHIL ZEZIAZ 23:19 7:32 Now I'm psyched for the Kerryman next week, for the Seadogs' race on Mothers' Day, and for more running.

Did my walk/hoop/walk today. I actually hustled maybe a little more than usual in the games today. Then walking home I helped some people get their car out of their icy driveway. Afterward they offered me a ride. I said, "No, thanks. I'm walking for the exercise." Which made me feel very altruistic (and healthy, like pushing the car was part of my workout.)

and the snow is piling up outside :( The Brian Boru/Habitat for Humanity race is day after tomorrow. I think the last time I ran 5K in one straight shot was December, maybe early January. Argg! I went for a run on Wednesday, but I don't think it was more than 2.5 miles. I'll just jog along, and concentrate on the drinking afterwards; you gotta love road races sponsored by pubs. Next weekend it's the Kerryman Pub 5K in Saco.