I may watch this every morning until the Stanley Cup Playoffs are done.
Uncle Crappy
words. pictures. beer.
Filed under Sports …
blutarsky time.
We’ve started racking up points in the Seventh Annual Uncle Crappy NCAA Final Four Challenge (Brought To You By Bocktown); we’ve also figured out that we have a pretty good number of entries that just ain’t going anywhere.
I’ve broken these down by points and those who have more points to earn. Let’s take a look:
Six points plus plus (otherwise known as The Driver’s Seat):
Grandpa not only picked his three of the Final Four correctly, but he has his full title game intact. I haven’t done the math, but I’m comfortable in saying if his picks (Ohio State beating Kentucky for the championship) hold up, he cannot be caught.
Six points plus:
Mrs. Crappy, who can earn a couple more if Kentucky advances to the title game. Her champ, UNC, is done for the year, though.
Four points plus plus (Yinz guys have your title game intact):
- Casey
- AAA
- Otimemore
- Larry
Four points plus (You all have more points available)
- Crappydad
- Curl Girl Michelle
- Large
- Kim Z
- Jaci
- Barb
- Gina
- Kewyson
- Carla
- Mr. Burns
- Calipanthergrl
Four points but done (No more points possible):
- Clif
- Jill
Two points plus (Don’t give up hope yet):
- Mom
- Tim
- Adam Music
- Michael
- Ethel
- Garrett
- Fuzzwad
- John
- Cindy
- Carolina Boy
Two points but done:
- Spoon
- Kimly
- Hellpellet
And that brings us to the annual Blutarsky award winners. In the immortal words of Dean Wormer:
Zero. Point. Zero:
- Uncle Crappy
- Shadow
- Susan
- Juan
Yes. I am a basketball genius.
nipples.
I — we — had a good morning.
Mrs. Crappy and I set off from the parking lot along the North Shore Trail a little after 9 this morning.
Eight and a half miles later, I returned to the car. Mrs. Crappy? She did five miles, running most of the way.
I am pleased, for a couple reasons. First, this is my longest run to date, and it’s already helped me deal with The Voice I wrote about a few days ago. When the nice woman from Nike Plus told me I hit seven miles, I realized that I was more than halfway towards a half marathon, and I still felt great. Barring an injury, I’m going to get there on May 6.
Next, I did this all on my own. My Saturday running friends have been great at pushing me to distances I probably wouldn’t have tried had I been running by myself, and part of my frustration that bubbled up last week was with my ability to find reasons to not go out and run five or six in the morning before work — even though I can. Getting to 8.5 on my own felt like I was clearing a huge hurdle.
And finally, I’m so proud of Mrs. Crappy. We didn’t run together — she’s still getting back into it and wants to do that on her own — but she picked a course along the North Shore and ran most of it. And when we got back, we found she had done just over five miles.
There were two things that kept the morning from being perfect. First, the groin continues to be an issue. It was tight from the start, despite extra stretching; I stopped and stretched it several times during the run, and I think that helped. But wow is it sore now.
Aaaand then there’s the title of this post. I mentioned after we volunteered for the 2010 Pittsburgh Marathon that we didn’t see any cases of bleeding nipples at our water station at mile 7.8, although friends told me they saw plenty later in the course. I had thought about the possibility that I might need to take preventative measures once it got warmer and I stopped wearing compression tops under my gear.
Did I do that today? Of course not. And about the time I ran off the 16th Street Bridge and back to the North Shore Trail, I noticed that my chest was stinging, on the right side at first and then on both sides. I knew what it was — and had I been wearing white instead of red, it would have been obvious — but I didn’t look until I got back to the car.
Yep. Bleeding nipples. And let me tell you — bleeding nipples in the shower is a pain quite unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.
So. Band-Aids. Nip Guards. And an extra degree of caution until the weather cools again in the fall.
This running stuff is crazy — I hurt, I have injuries and annoyances I never imagined — and I love it.
answered.
Let’s go back to September 1999, when I was faced with a tough decision.
No, it wasn’t whether I would marry Mrs. Crappy; I went ahead and did that on Sept. 25 that year, and I’m still happy I did.
The decision came a week earlier, when OU, the Crappys’ alma mater, sent its football team into Ohio Stadium to play the Buckeyes. My decision: Rah, rah, rah be true to my school? Or jettison the notion of ever setting foot inside the building wearing anything but scarlet and gray.
In the end, both Mrs. Crappy and I stuck with our school. We snuck into an alumni party at Fawcett Center, we cheered for the Marching 110 and we even might have been a little excited when OU led Ohio State in the first half.
We’ve done that drill two other times since. It’s fun, because there is very little pressure; no one expects OU to win, and if the Bobcats play well, we can walk away feeling good.
OU’s run into the NCAA tournament brought Mrs. Crappy to a similar decision. She grew up in North Carolina, even living in Chapel Hill for a couple years. Just as I’ve been a Buckeye for as long as I can remember, she’s been a Tar Heel for her entire life. And once OU beat South Florida on Sunday, she faced the same question I did in 1999.
I asked her when I got home from work Sunday night.
Her answer?
“I’m not sure.”
I couldn’t blame her for her indecision. Turning on a dime and cheering against the team that’s been yours pretty much since birth isn’t easy. I didn’t bug her about it, because I knew she’d had to make up her own mind.
And she did.
Decision?
Let’s go Bobcats.
doubt.
About a mile into my run tonight, I started feeling a pain at the top of my right leg.
Actually, that’s not right. At first, it just felt tight. That turned to a pain, and got sharper and sharper by the minute.
It was warm tonight, warmer than any day I had run on since I was in the Army, I guess. I didn’t have any water with me, so I detoured towards my house to get a drink before continuing.
And as it turned out, that was all for the day. I came back outside after getting the drink and started off down the street again, but with that stop whatever muscle it was in my groin turned from annoyed to pissed. I hobbled back to the house, threw a minor tantrum and grabbed the frozen peas for an uncomfortable icing session.
* * *
I took that picture tonight, after my fit. I sat on the landing of the stairway up to the second floor, staring at my shoes. Thinking.
Actually, not thinking. Listening to the voice, the one that wonders what the hell a fat 45-year-old is doing trying to run 13.1 miles.
And on days like these, I don’t have an answer to that question.
There are lots of reasons why running is a good idea for me — to be less fat, to be less susceptible to the heart issues my family has experienced, to spend time with friends, to do something I’ve come to enjoy since I started in October — but on the bad days, I don’t have a response to the voice when it says “You can’t do it.”
And what can I say? I don’t know if I can do it. I haven’t run thirteen miles. Most of the time it doesn’t seem terribly long, but on days like today it seems like an insurmountable number. Thirteen miles. I’ve managed to get past seven miles twice — with some walk breaks — most recently last Saturday. This weekend, with the help of my coaching staff, I’ll try to get to eight. And while I probably won’t be in the same frame of mind then, at the moment, even eight seems like an impossible distance.
I know — runners have bad days. I usually can shrug off a bad run, but once in a while, I spend too much time listening to that voice. And I find myself staring at my shoes while I sit on the stairs.
I can deal with a pulled muscle. But I look at the calendar and see that I have a 10K in about two and a half weeks and a half-marathon in just over six. I don’t have time for doubts. I shouldn’t listen to the voice.
But I’m not sure how to make it go away.
