Not Just A Hat Rack

Oriole Magic, Feel it Happen!

OK, it took me a month to post this article about the Baltimore Orioles, but it really struck a chord with me.  After all, there were years when my allegiance to the Birds was stronger than the Giants.  (Say it ain’t so!) 

I spent five formative years in Washington (6th – 10th grade, ’79—84) when the Orioles made two World Series appearances (I was there in ’83) and missed the playoffs on the last day of the season (I was there, too, in ’82).  These were the teams of Palmer, Martinez, Flanagan, McGregor on the mound… Murray, Dauer, Ripken, DeCinces … Lowenstein, Roenicke, Bumbry, Singleton… some of my favorite players of all time.

Prior to that, my first exposure to baseball on a full-season basis was in the early 70’s, when I have fleeting, but important memories of Brooks Robinson, Belanger, Hendricks and Doyle Alexander.

Anyways, the point of this article is that it’s been 25 years since the Orioles won a World Series game, the fans have deserted, businesses that rely on the Camden Yards are suffering and the only thing that everyone agrees upon is that “the Oriole Way” used to mean something – and still could some day.  

How times have changed though.  I miss the innocence of being a teenage sports fan with a great baseball team to follow.

My turning point with the O’s?  Two years managing their Class-A affiliate in High Desert, when player development director Don Buford made the most of a bad situation (from their perspective) and banished every malcontent, retread, drug-addicted trouble maker to the Mojave Desert where they could count out the final days of bygone baseball careers.  Plus, during my one visit to Camden Yards – as GM of one of their six minor league affiliates – they stashed my family and me in the last row of the upper deck in right field – in the visiting team player’s family section.  Whatever.  That whole trip was doomed from the outset – but we don’t need to go there.

Thanks to Hannah Buchdahl for sending the article – she’s quite proud of her 12-year-old nephew who’s quoted in the story – he’s no doubt the smartest guy of the bunch.

29 hours of running to go, 29 hours to go...

How to summarize 29 hours, 5 minutes of running with my wife and 10 (mostly new) friends in a pair of vehicles?  Hmmm, here goes.

The race was the Ragnar Wasatch Back Relay... 181 miles from Logan, UT to Park City, UT.  We gathered at our house in SLC at 5am... Louie, Corey, Mary Ann, Binh, Mrs. 'Hat Rack and me.  Louie provided the company SUV, which we promptly filled with sleeping bags, running clothes, water, gatorade, snacks, books and Teri's knitting (don't leave home without it!).  Louie also raided the company pantry for some goodies - apparently that's acceptable there.  Louie is best described as a 5-hour marathoner who wears tie-dye shirts, buys pallets full of furniture on line for $100 (and donates it refugee organizations) and has developed a powerful concoction of pre-race nutrition that includes double espresso GU, ibuprofen, albuterol and beer.  It helps him run (and makes the desert colors more vivid I imagine).  Corey, a very cool dude, Teri and I talked about life in Czech - he went there as a missionary, I went there to teach English and Teri, well, she just knows more about it than you'd think.  Mary Ann said "I'm sorry" a lot.  She had no reason to!  She has great spirit and wasn't afraid to put me in my place on more than one occasion.  Binh rocks.  I am sure he was the only person out of 600 teams of 12 runners to run legs of this race in a floppy hat - he defied runner's convention to post some of our most blazing splits.  Anyways...

We set off from Logan at 8am ... our team name was "Better DFL than DNF." Some people got it. Many did not. Corey, Louis, Mary Ann and Binh helped us race through the flatlands south of Logan (pretty farm country) before they handed me the baton for a 7.5 mile climb to the top of Avon Pass (an ascent of 1,200 feet).  I trudged up a dirt road, choked by dust kicked up by passing SUV's, up, up, up.  (You'll notice a pattern here.)  Around Noon, I passed the baton to the lovely Mrs. 'Hat Rack who barrelled down the other side of the pass into Eden like a runaway gazelle - bounding over rocks, boulders, narrow passages and switchbacks.  Rock on.  In Eden, she passed the baton to Van #2.  One of the curiosities of this race is you have two vans with 6 people that comprise a team - except you basically never even see the other half of the team other than a handful of five-minute exchanges.  And since they were all sickly - we kept our contact with them to an absolute minimum (Just kidding, Dave & co. - we were sympathizing with you).

We presume they ran their guts out until the passed the baton back to us at Snow Basin Ski Resort south of Huntsville, UT late in the afternoon.  Corey took the lead leg again on a knee-crunching 8+ miles descent to Mountain Green - no doubt putting some distance between us and teams like the Moms n' Mission, the Moms with 57 & 1/9 kids, Wasatch My Back I'll Watch Yours, Human Test Subjects and The Incredible Holts.  (In the interest of full disclosure, we did get whooped by two hours by a team called "In Memory of Our Friend Ed Casmer, Who Couldn't Give Up Ding Dongs, And Was Too Lazy To Run This Year.")  So we cruised through Morgan County chewing up miles in 5-ish-mile increments until it got dark and Binh handed me the baton and, guess what, it was time to climb another mountain pass!  This time it was up East Canyon. As always, our van was extremely supportive and made the hour-long trek go by quickly as I chalked up four more road kills (passing another team on a leg).

So we get to East Canyon, it's 10:08pm and we dispatch Van #2 into the night to run to Kamas.  We ate some pasta (you don't want to see a hungry Louie devour pasta, trust me) then headed to a high school (I slept through a lot of this) although I have no idea which one - only that I woke up, stumbled to a shower, put on clean dry clothes, threw my sleeping bag on a mat in a darkened gym (surrounded by hundreds of other runners) before being awakened at 2:30am to get back in the SUV and get Corey to the start of our third portion of the run.  (Some other stuff might have happened in here, but I was seriously tired.)

Corey and Louie ran, I think, before I veered our SUV into a 7-Eleven at 4:50am and bought a fresh cup of coffee and suddenly woke up!  Whoa, what a difference being awake makes.  Mary Ann ran a killer leg and then handed me the baton as it was ... time to climb another hill.  (I'm such a martyr!)  This time it was up above Jordanelle Reservoir, where the road summited - and I got to run DOWN to the outskirts of Heber.  I was flying... wheeeeeee!  I passed the baton to Binh who continued a sub-8:00 min/mile pace all the way to town, where Mrs. 'Hat Rack grabbed the baton and triumphantly carried it to some middle school.  We celebrated the end of our run, handed the baton to the game, gallant, aggressive and completely ill Van #2 and wished them well.  We followed them for hours cheering their sickly souls forward - wait, no we didn't.  We abandoned the course as quickly as possible and went out for $78 worth of pancakes, chicken-fired steak, omelets, french toast, more coffee, and tons of potatoes (good carbs, good carbs!).  We were so stuffed when we were done at Chick's Diner that we almost forgot the other van was still slogging its way through the brutal sun - wait, I mean, nobly carrying our cause forward...

We raced to Park City to meet them at the finish... where we waited... and waited... and Corey ate more food... and so did Louie ... and we hid from the blazing sun... and we watched other teams finish... and we called Van #2... and we waited... and we debated leaving... and we talked about signing up for next year... until finally, word came they were only minutes away.  Then, 45 minutes later, Liz camed barrelling around a turn in the desert and raced down a steep tricky hill across an artificial turf field where a dozen of us joined in the final, triumphant 50 yards and we FINISHED!  29 hours and five minutes after we started.  We averaged 9:38/mile for 181 miles - not bad for a bunch of amateurs.

You can see photos of the amazing Better DFL Than DNF here at Snapfish.  

My new job... not my new job

I'm excited to announce that I have accepted an offer to become the new General Manager of USA Team Handball... one of about 40 National Governing Bodies for US Olympic sports, and the first summer NGB to set up shop in Utah (joining US Skiing and US Speedskating).  You won't find me (or us) at Beijing this summer - our men and women both failed to qualify.  We will do our utmost to rectify that before London 2012.  Go USA!

Simultaneously, I must admit that I am NOT going to be the new Anything at the Chicago Fire... They haven't decided who they're hiring, they just told me today it's not me.  Good luck to them - maybe I'll try out for Chad Barrett's spot on the roster - or I could go back to my roots as Sparky.

Off to the races tomorrow... 178 miles from Logan to Park City... on foot... we're a team of 12.  See you in PC around mid-day on Saturday!

I'm Published!

Look what I got in the mail today… the first edition of Fodor’s Guide to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks… It’s available for pre-order at Amazon.com and the cover price is just $10.95.  Look for it at a bookstore near you!  PS,  I just agreed to a contract to write a Zion/Bryce Edition for 2009.

US Open Cup

If you want to follow America's oldest soccer tournament, you have to visit www.usopencup.com. 

It looks like a big night for RSL alums - with Chris Brown, Jamie Watson, Tiger Fitzpatrick and Melvin Tarley all notching goals for... Portland (USL-1), Austin (PDL but making plans for USL-1 in '09), Rochester (USL-1) and Minnesota (USL-1) respectively.  The Fire beat Columbus, 3-2, on a heroic late goal by Andy Herron in the last MLS "play-in" game played in Peoria.  As of this writing, none of the USASA amateur teams had survived.  At least one, Hollywood United, is still in action.

I rambled stream of consciousness on the Open Cup at www.ussoccerplayers.com this morning.

On another note, it's interesting to find out how many people have a comment or grade school experience regarding Team Handball.  The Sport of the Future?

Where Was I?

Sorry, friends... between a couple quick road trips, a pending job change, the end of the kids' school year and more - I haven't had the clear mind so sit and write.  But a few things of the past two weeks that really stand out for me:

 

I'm fired up about the Chicago Red Stars.  Great logo, great traditional logo and a funny "Christmas Eve" blog entry here.  (I will be even happier when I figure out why I can't upload images… which are stymieing me right now.)

I’m thrilled for Barack Obama and looking forward to the presidential race.  Why is John McCain reminding me more of Richard Nixon every day?

 

How about France, Spain, Croatia, Russia, Iceland and Poland earning the last six tickets to Beijing – in team handball.  Who knew?  I’m taking an active interest in handball you know… and checked out the sports facilities in Colorado Springs last week.  Very cool, very inspiring (and great food!)

Grrr.  This image uploading problem is killing me.  More when I figure it out.

Ogden Marathon Recap

I'm happy to report that Teri and I completed Saturday's Ogden Marathon - one of the prettiest courses on one of the nicest days one could ever ask for. In fact, about 10 Utah Team in Training alumni competed and finished, once again raising important $$ for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and raising awareness with our purple jerseys, signs and cheering section.

In a nutshell, Steve had a great day. I set out with a plan to stick close to 8-minute miles and maintain it for 26.2 miles, and it worked. I felt very strong, ran my fastest miles AFTER mile 20 and finished with a huge smile and a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.

Teri was halfway to the same great success - until a bout of exercise-induced asthma sent her to the paramedics, Eden Fire Station and the post-race medical tent. True to her nature, she said "I don't quit" and finished with a pretty respectable time despite the detours. For the first time in our recollection, we crossed a finish line together, as I headed back onto the course to bring her in.

The weekend was a little bittersweet. Steve's friend, whose father passed away of lymphoma earlier this year and inspired his run, lost her mother-in-law on Thursday. Our chapter president, Meg, lost her honored patient just hours before the race began on Friday night. We all remain steadfast in our determination to beat these insidious cancers.

That's probably what most of you want to know. Oh, and that we celebrated with burgers at Hire's after the race.

For the few of you on this list who are serial marathoners, or gluttons for detail, a couple of other notes:

- We rank Ogden as the second-prettiest course we’ve ever run – trailing only Anchorage.
- For those of you who might want to run a race here (like you want to run all 50 states or something ridiculous like that), Ogden is a great choice. Great support, well-organized, incredible course...
- Jeff Galloway spoke at the expo and was trying to run-walk his wife to a 4:30 finish and a Boston Marathon berth... And while his training methods were the talk of the weekend and many people (including Steve) tried it to some extent, it worked - the Galloways finished in 4:29.
- Steve’s highlight was before the race even started – we gathered in a cow pasture 5 miles up a canyon from Huntsville, where they had two dozen barrels filled with firewood for us to huddle around during the 75 minute wait until the start... Very unique, very warm.
- We both appreciated the selection of food on the course including licorice, cinnamon bears, gummy bears, jolly ranchers, oranges, gu, power bars and more. You had to make a conscious decision not to eat too much – it all looked so good!
- Descending into Ogden Canyon after Pine View Reservoir, race organizers lined the road with helium balloons anchored by old running shoes. It was quite a sight.
- Crowd support was fairly small in numbers but great in enthusiasm – great small town race feel. We passed many sheep, cows and llamas too – and Teri’s convinced she inspired a whole herd of horses and their colts (yearlings? Foals?) to race around their pasture
- Snowberry Inn was a great host to our team until our 4:15am departure (we awoke at 3:15am!)

Anyways, thanks again everyone – so, who’s running a marathon next?

Where I'll Be

USSoccerPlayers.com has a feature where they occasionally write live at a game and file the story as the final whistle blows. Or something like that. It's called Where We Were, or something like that. I volunteered to try it out at Saturday night's RSL game, so look for my story on the game by 9pm MT. (Kickoff is 7pm.) Just for kicks, I may do some live blogging here as well.

Storylines... Jason Kreis suspended. Carey Talley just traded. FC Dallas flying high. RSL looking good at home but "needs to go for the jugular," says Big Man Deuchar.

Tune in, we'll see what happens.

Also on Saturday, we're running in Susuan Komen Race for the Cure 5K - a breast cancer benefit event. If you'd still like to support Teri and I in NEXT WEEKEND's Ogden Marathon, visit our fundraising page. Not all donations are reflected here (just the online ones), and we're over $3,000. Thanks, all!

Container House

I had lunch with a developer who is using 35 shipping containers to build a 7-story condo complex in downtown SLC. The containers have little value after being shipped full of Chinese goods to America - we don't export enough to use them, the Asians don't want them back empty, so they are piling up by the millions. See City Center Lofts here.

Each container is 8' wide, 9.5' high and 40' long. They are designed to stack nine high and withstand turbulent seas, which apparently, makes them earthquake-safe if you happen to build a seven-layer condo out of them in the middle of a fault zone like Salt Lake. All the strength is in the corners and frame, so you can cut out the side panels and doors and voila, you have industrial strength legos that you can live in.

Many come with teak wood floors (I am not making this up), but the developer plans to pour concrete for pipes that will circulate radiant heat in his super eco-friendly complex. He has multiple deposits and a waiting list of 40 for the seven units, although he hasn't revealed pricing yet. He figures he'll either make a mint or go bankrupt. "Just breaking even doesn't seem like an option to first-time condo developers," he said.

By the way, the containers are being retrofitted out-of-state as we speak and will be shipped to Utah in February. By April, he says, the condos will be ready to inhabit.

Here's more on the architect, Adam Kalkin:

Happy Anniversary

This is what I wrote a year ago tonight.

Life throws curves. Sometimes you were looking fastball. Sometimes you just swing and miss. In my case, they called in a pinch hitter tonight. I'm out. Back in the clubhouse, I'm swigging gatorade and planning my next at-bat. Guess it will be in a different uniform. I guarantee it means more entries in the 'Hat Rack. Peace.

Mrs. 'Hat Rack and I are celebrating with a date tonight.

A lot has transpired in 365 days, including the fact that I haven't set foot on an airplane in that time. I'm pretty proud of that.

All my favorite teams have lost a lot of games, notably the Giants, RSL and Northwestern football & basketball. Mrs. 'Hat Rack completed an IronMan. We're both just weeks away from the Ogden Marathon (marking at least 25 marathons between us!). We're watching people we love battle insidious diseases and trying to do a few little things to make a difference. I write a lot for work and pleasure. I don't read enough. Our boys have learned to ski. Our "princess" has learned to chatter and disperse hundreds of pieces of (fill in the blank here) all over her room and our house. One dog proved she has 9, no, 99+ lives. And we're thankful for friends (like ones who sit through snowstorms to watch U.S. Open Cup games), running friends, cooking friends, kids' friends and family and friends.

And somehow, against all odds I would have predicted last year, we're still here... with the inch of fresh snow on the lawn and the bright/frozen tulips... on 900 South in Salt Lake City (where they really do name streets like that). And life seems perfectly normal.