Run Tom, Run

45 Hours And Counting.....

Well kids, its now only 45 hours until I hop on the plane for my annual trip to Cardinals Spring Training!!!! I'm in desperate need of a vacation right now and I can't think of anything more relaxing then sitting in the sun at a minor-league ballpark, watching my beloved Cardinals play ball! God bless America!!! It just doesn't get much better then that! Here's a shout-out to Joey & Chris - need to get back on track with our trip next year, but we'll have to make it to a west coast park at least for this year. Spring Training is a must for any baseball fan! You get grab autographs, chat with players, see AA & AAA guys fight for a spot, watch BP, and just be closer to the action then you'll ever see at a major-league park.

I know many of you (those of you who pay attention to baseball) will think I'm nuts when I say this, but I'm predicting the Cardinals to finish in 2nd place and win the wild card this year. We have the best line-up (same as last year except Sanders for Drew)in the National League and possibly all of baseball (#2 in run production last year), 4 Golden-Gloves in the field, the best NL short-stop, the best 3rd basemen, PUJOLS!!!, solid bullpen, strengthy closer, etc. Our biggest weakness is the starting rotation, but don't count the Cards out - they'll be there in the end.

Cheers

The Great Zoo Stampede!

This weekend was my second race of the year. This was a 10K that started in the Cameron Park Zoo. I ran it a couple years ago and was a pretty fun run. This year was a touch bit on the EXTREMELY HUMID side of things, so it wore on me a bit. There were only about 150 runners or so, so I lined up at the front of the line for the start. This is never a good thing for me because I always end up starting too fast when I do this. That's pretty much exactly what I did this time as well! They sounded the start and off I went. For the first quarter mile a stayed stride-for-stride with the top runners. I exited the zoo portion and into Cameron in 10th place!! Well, 10th place was short lived. Over the next 5 miles I would be passed a few times, but tried to hold my own in the race. I hit my first mile in about a 6:40 mile. NO BUENO - I would end up paying for this in later miles. I actually held up pretty well though and stayed in the top 15 for the first half. After mile 4 and coming up on mile 5 some woman was standing on the side yelling out our positions as we ran by. I was running in a group of 3 guys and as I passed her I heard her yell, "19, 20, 21", as we passed. Holy crap! I'm in 20th place (this is really good for me). Unfortunately as I was thinking this #21 passed me. No bueno. I picked it up again and moved up to secure my current position. Coming into mile 6 (only .2 to go) I had 4 guys in my sites. This could move me into 17th place quickly! I start to surge and pass two of the four runners. Right then disaster struck and I was once again getting ill (see Ben's blog for a visual from the Bearathon). This was the same thing that happened to me in the Bearathon - I tried to hammer my pace and pushed too hard. A friend at work has aptly named it The McCarty Surge and Purge. The 2 I passed went by me again and luckily I was able to recover quickly and get across the line before someone else passed me. I think I have issues with this. This time I think it was the high humidity, fast start, and the attempt at sprinting almost a quarter mile at the end of a 6 mile run. We'll see though - I've got a 5K in two weeks.