To some extend he’s right. Unless you’re a fan of one of the dominant teams, you almost always root for the underdog and even that’s not very satisfying most of the time. The Giants caught fire right around week 17 and won the Super Bowl despite finishing the regular season with an 9-7 record. But was anyone really that surprised? If I’d told you a week or two into the season that the Giants were going to hit their stride going into the playoffs and tear everyone apart on both defense and offense, you’d probably say something like, “yeah, I could see that happening.” Maybe it’s not likely, but it’s not unbelievable. However, if I were to tell you a week or two into the NBA season that Jeremy Lin was going to come off the bench and start draining game winning threes in order to save the Knicks seasons, you’d probably ask, “who the hell is Jeremy Lin?” And that’s when it gets fun. When something happens that wasn’t even remotely on your radar.
In 2001 everyone was rooting for the Patriots in the Super Bowl. They were the classic underdog story with an unheard of backup QB who saved a team on the brink of disaster. In 2012 everyone hates the Patriots. Why, what's changed? The second biggest reason is simply that now they’re good (the first biggest reason is that they cheated to win their Super Bowls). They’re supposed to win. Today, that unheard of QB is dating a super model, doing cameos on Entourage, and is destined for the hall of fame. We all liked him a lot more when he was Drew Bledsoe’s backup (go cougs!).
Amazing insight right? We like surprises, root for underdogs and get enthralled by anything resembling the storyline to a Disney movie. So what, isn’t this a Tim Tebow fan site/running blog? Don’t worry, I’m getting there.
Generally speaking, my favorite sport is whatever I’m currently watching. The Broncos and the Sounders are the only teams that I really care about, but I love sports and can appreciate the merits of pretty much anything where one team wins and one team loses. The lack of commercials in soccer is awesome. It’s great knowing that when the game starts, you’re going to have 90 minutes of uninterrupted action with just a quick bathroom break and beer refill in the middle. But I also realize that by having the final two minutes of a football game last 20 minutes, it allows for a lot more suspense to build up, lets us over analyze every play, and gives us more time to refill our beers and take the additional required bathroom breaks that go along with more beers. Both sports are great for different reasons. But if you’re looking for surprises and performances that no one saw coming, running is actually the sport to watch (I told you I'd bring this around).
For most mainstream sports, players and teams can be analyzed by a bunch of statistics and we’ll have a pretty good idea of how well they’re going to do. Sometimes they overachieve and sometimes they underachieve, but it’s extremely rare to have the Jeremy Lin outliers. For runners, you can look at someone’s PRs and have a sense of how well they’re going to do, but not if they haven’t raced recently. Running has a very distinct correlation between input and output. If you train harder, you’ll run faster. That’s not as true with other sports. You can practice to improve yourself during the off season (I’m sure hoping Tebow learns how to throw a football before next season), but it doesn’t necessarily translate to measurable results the way it does in running. That means that when a runner hasn’t raced for a couple months, he or she can seemingly come out of nowhere to shock the running world (all twelve of us!).
I’m notorious for saying everything was one of the greatest sports moments I’ve ever seen. It’s not that I’m lying, I just get so caught up in the excitement of whatever I’m currently watching that at the time, it feels like one of the greatest sports moments I’ve ever seen. But still, being in Boston last year and watching Desiree Davila come within seconds of being the first America woman to win the Boston Marathon in a gazillion years was one of the greatest sports moments I’ve ever seen. The yo-yoing during the final mile, the three or four times when I was sure she was done only to see her surge back to the lead. It was incredible, and it came out of nowhere. I mean it came out of months of dedication and hundreds of miles of hard work, but to the viewer, it came out of nowhere.
That’s what’s great about running. So much of the race is is already won or lost before anyone even toes to the starting line. It’d be like if the first three quarters of football games were played behind closed doors (how great would Tebow seem if no one saw the first three quarters of ineptitude?). To beat this analogy to death: it’s an Olympic year and the first quarter is winding down with meet, collegiate, and American records all falling last weekend, some more predictably than others. If you like surprises and underdog stories, this summer in London is the time to watch. Odds are, no American will win a gold a medal in any distance event. We never do. But doesn’t that sounds like the start of a Disney movie? Except I guess in Disney’s version Galen Rupp would be played by a golden retriever. “Where in the rule book does it say a dog can’t run the 10k?”
Weekly mileage recap:
Sunday: 5.77
Monday: 4.22
Tuesday: 0
Wednesday: 4.1
Thursday: 4.22
Friday: 4.1
Saturday: 8.2
Total: 30.61
Slightly higher than last week and keeping my ~30 mile per week goal. I’ve finally found a 4.22 and 4.1 mile loop that I don’t mind too much and my Saturday 8.2 mile loop is great. Gonna continue with this same basic plan for another couple week and see how I feel. Only 49.9 mile “in the red” now.
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