Monday night rewind

Monday was one of those epic days in sports where everything kind of fell into place the way everyone expected. Robert Cheruiyot dominated the Boston Marathon... again.

The Flyers went from a 3-1 lead in a best-of-seven series to a do-or-die Game 7... again.

And Chase Utley hit a home run and made some clutch plays to lead the Phillies to a victory... again.

You know - no big whoop.

Anyway, Cheruiyot won his fourth Boston against a weaker field than in past years. One reason for that is because the top American runners either ran in the Olympic Trials last November (or London two weeks ago) or will run in the track Trials in July. So unlike the past handful of years where the elite Americans showed up and ran with Cheruiyot for a little bit, this year there were other things going on.

Additionally, guys like Ryan Hall and the fastest runners in the world went to London where the course is much more forgiving, the competition fierce and fast times are inevitable. Boston's course beats the hell out the quads and calves with the undulating terrain. No, Boston isn't exactly a slow course - there is a net downhill, after all. There are parts of the route from Hopkinton to Boston where runners actually have to hold back to avoid going too fast.

In contrast, the uphill climbs in Newton come at a point where a runner's glycogen stores are just about gone. They don't call them Heartbreak Hill for nothing. Hell, I recall doing workouts through the Newton hills and attacked the famed (infamous?) Heartbreak Hill fresh and it gave me a little kick in the ass. Imagine spending miles 16 to 21 of a marathon trying to get over those hills.

Lance Armstrong, who mastered Alpe d'Huez (among others) during his seven Tour de France victories, ran his first Boston yesterday. From the sound of it, Armstrong got a little boot to the rear in Newton though it should be noted that he ran negative splits for a respectable 2:50:58.

According to the Associated Press:

Armstrong said there's no comparison between running a marathon and cycling, either physically or mentally.

"You can't compare the pounding or running with the efficiency of a bicycle," he said. "Nothing even comes close to comparing the pain, especially it seems like this course, with a significant amount of downhills ... that really take their toll on the muscles."

But Boston is not exactly a world-record course, either. Cheruiyot was on course-record pace yesterday, casually ripping through miles 3 to 19 in 4:53 or faster. That includes a 4:37 at mile 19 that obliterated the rest of the field. However, Cheruiyot "slowed" over the final 10k to finish in 2:07:43, well off his record 2:07:14 he set in 2006. Interestingly, Cheruiyot's fourth victory in Boston was only the fifth winning time under 2:08 in the 112 years of the race.

Compare that to the London Marathon this year where the top six in the 2008 race ran under 2:07 and it's easy to see why the best runners don't show up to Boston (or New York) any more. Why go get beat up when Chicago, London and Berlin have (relative) cakewalk courses?

Nevertheless, Boston and its sponsors might have to dig into the coffers to lure the big guns away from London in the spring. The fact that Haile Gebrselasie, Paul Tergat, Martin Lel, Khalid Khannouchi - and worse - Ryan Hall, have not lined up on Patriot's Day in Hopkinton proves that Boston is missing something.

Sure, runners like London because of the speedy course and the chance for fast times. But more than anything else runners go where the best competition is. That hasn't been Boston for a long time.

*** Elsewhere, it's Game 7 night in Washington where most folks seem to have a bad feeling about the fate of the Flyers.

There. That's the depth of my hockey analysis.

*** Had Chase Utley not broken his hand last season, Jimmy Rollins probably wouldn't have won the MVP Award. Chances are Utley would have been in the top three with Prince Fielder and Matt Holliday. So noting that it was Utley's injury that pushed Rollins into the MVP discussion in 2007, it's kind of ironic that Rollins' injury has the spotlight on Utley.

Then again, six homers in five straight games kind of gets a ballplayer noticed...

Plus, it's only April 22, too. There is a lot of baseball to go.

Nevertheless, Utley is off to one of those stop-what-your-doing-when-he-comes-up starts. So far he has reached base in all but one of the Phillies' 20 games, has posted gaudy numbers in categories that all the stat geeks love, and seems to have his hand in the outcome of every game.

Things happen whenever Utley is on the field. But then again that's not new.

Remember when Ryan Howard used to be that way?

Anyway, during his pre-game powwow with the writers prior to last night's game at Coors Field, the Wilmington News Journal's Scott Lauber reports this quote from manager Charlie Manuel:

"Chase Utley is a very, very, very tough player. I've been in the game a long time, and he's as tough as any player I've seen. I'm talking about old throwback players, guys like Pete Rose and Kirby Puckett. You could put Utley in that category. He could play with any of them."

So there's that... which is nice.

Notes from Boston

While the Phillies take the day off because of the weather, the Boston Marathon was full of intrigue for those of us interested in that type of thing and most of it was on the women’s side of the race.

All runners, it appeared, chucked out their time goals and simply competed, which made for a very tactical race. With steady 20-mph headwinds with 50-mph gusts and temperatures that started at 50 degrees and dropped like a rock to the bottom of a swimming pool, survival was the rule of the day. It definitely was no day at the beach.

Perhaps that’s why American Deena Kastor struggled in her Boston debut to finish nearly six-minutes off the pace for fifth place. A pre-race favorite, Kastor said her training for the race was “flawless” and based on how she dominated at the national cross-country championships, it was evident. But Kastor threw in a second straight “clunker” in a major marathon after running a 2:19 for the American record and the victory in the London Marathon last April, and victory in Chicago in October of 2005 and a bronze medal in the Olympics in Athens in 2004.

It’s a little baffling because Kastor clearly is tough. The Athens Olympic Marathon was run over a course very similar to the one she raced over today in Boston under conditions that were not conducive to running. In that race Kastor ran smart and solid to bring home the bronze.

Yet after running and winning on two courses designed for speedy, and world-record times, Kastor struggled on two “classic” styled courses by finishing sixth in 2:27:54 and today’s fifth-place finish in Boston in 2:35:09, which under ideal weather conditions might have resulted in a similar time to the one from NYC.

So is the tactical-style of racing or the undulating terrain on courses like New York and Boston that tripped up Kastor? Who knows. All we know is that running is a fickle mistress – some days you have it and some days you don’t. That’s really deep, I know, but what else is there to say? There is no such thing as getting “hot” in running, meaning it’s conceivable that I could hit a home run off Roger Clemens or get “hot” and finish a round under par in golf. But there is no way I will ever be able to run a 2:10 marathon no matter how hard I train or if I have a good day.

Unlike other sports there is no such thing as luck in running.

note: The New York Times reported that Kastor struggled with stomach cramps during the race. Her plan, before the weather report turned from bad to worse, was to go out hard from the start. Later she changed plans to race tactically before making a move at Heartbreak Hill. Instead, when it came to make a move Kastor went for one of the many port-o-pots lining the course. Except for the cramps, Kastor says nothing else bothered her during the race.

“I knew coming in here that the competition would be great and I could conquer it,” she said. “That wasn’t the case today. We marathoners can get pretty hard on ourselves, but I felt I had the drive to push forward and the will to win the race. So I’m definitely disappointed knowing I was good enough to come here and win this race. I’m disappointed that didn’t happen.

“Usually, you can learn a lesson from a marathon. I’m not taking anything away from this one. There was no learning experience. A fifth-place finish is a fifth-place finish.”

So yes, it had to be something with Kastor. She's far too good of a runner to simply have a bad day. Just ignore the second-guessing.

Certainly that was the case for Lidiya Grigoryeva and Jelena Prokopcuka, who finished in first and second place in the women’s race. Grigoryeva, from Russia, won in 2:29:18 by surging with a 5:10 mile to take her from Brookline to Kenmore Square on the point-to-point course. She smartly stuck close to Prokopcuka, the two-time champ in NYC and now back-to-back runner-up in Boston, when the Latvian dictated a strong early pace into the teeth of the Nor’easter. By Heartbreak Hill, Prokopcuka and Grigoryeva gapped the chase back and left Kastor a minute off the pace with approximately 15 kilometers to go.

Though she didn’t win, Prokopcuka may have been the best runner in the race.

Robert Cheruiyot didn’t have the problem of being the best runner in the race and falling short. Like Prokopcuka, Cheruiyot set the pace as if to tell the other racers that, “It begins and ends here, fellas. Hang on if you can… ” In the end, Cheruiyot finished in 2:14:12 – way off the 2:07:14 he ran to set the course record last year, for his third victory in Boston.

As a side note, while watching the race I was struck by Cheruiyot’s running style and how he gobbled up ground with a powerful stride that was contrarily efficient and smooth. Then it hit me… he ran like Moses Tanui. You remember Moses Tanui, the two-time Boston champ from the Nandi District in Kenya who was the first human to run a half marathon under an hour? Of course.

Tanui was so tough that he won the silver 1995 World Championships in the 10,000 meters even after one of his shoes fell off.

Tanui ran two of the bravest races I had ever seen, coming from more than a minute off the pace at Heartbreak Hill to chase down two runners in the final 200 meters to win the 1998 Boston followed by the great 1999 Chicago Marathon where Tanui and American record holder Khalid Khannouchi dueled at world-record pace from the gun.

In that one, Tanui surged from the pack at the 17th mile to build a 60-second lead with five miles to go. That’s when Khannouchi decided to go after Tanui to catch him with about 5k left. The two took turns trying to break one another until Tanui reached for his water bottle at the 25-mile mark. That’s where Khannouchi really threw down the hammer using Tanui’s slight hesitation as the thin window of opportunity.

On TV, Khannouchi and Tanui disappeared into a tunnel together where cameras couldn’t send out a signal or the helicopter offering a bird’s eye view couldn’t hover. But when they came out Khannouchi was alone and blazing to set a world record in 2:05:42. Tanui finished in 2:06:16, just off the record Khannouchi had broken.

Anyway, it dawned on me that Cheruiyot’s gait was eerily similar to Tanui’s until the announcers revealed that he is coached by Dr. Gabriele Rosa – Tanui’s old coach. Then it all came together… it all made sense.

Nevertheless, Cheruiyot won his third Boston and he’s just 28. Wait until he gets to his prime.

And wait until you read this story...

Wet and wild redux

Perhaps the best thing about the two consecutive weather postponements for the Phillies is that Freddy Garcia gets that much more time to rest up before taking the mound. Of course Garcia hasn’t pitched all season and is on the mend from biceps tendonitis, which isn’t good, but you get the point. Tendonitis typically occurs because of overuse and the best remedy to fix it is rest.

No rest equals bigger trouble.

According to the Phillies, Garcia is ready to go so we all finally get a chance to see Pat Gillick’s big off-season acquisition in action on Tuesday night against Tom Glavine and the Mets.

On another note, Garcia is a really big dude with really wide shoulders. He looks like he should be able to throw really hard.

***
Meanwhile, the Phillies sent out a release this afternoon stating that Citizens Bank Park won the “Best Ballpark Eats”at the first-ever “Food Network Awards.” According to the press release:

Citizens Bank Park, home of the Phillies, was honored last night for having the “Best Ballpark Eats” during the premiere of the Food Network’s first-ever awards show, the Food Network Awards. The 90-minute show celebrated achievements in the world of food and entertaining in an offbeat awards ceremony unlike any other on television.

Citizens Bank Park offers many features that make it “Not Your Typical Ballpark.” From foods with Philadelphia flavor such as Rick’s Steaks, Tony Luke’s sandwiches and cheesesteaks, Chickie’s & Pete’s Crab Fries, Planet Hoagie and The Schmitter sandwich … to eateries such as Bull’s BBQ, Harry the K’s Broadcast Bar & Grille and McFadden’s Restaurant & Saloon. Plus, there are many traditional favorites such as hot dogs and fries at the Hatfield Grill stands, pizza from Peace A Pizza, ice cream products from Turkey Hill, Bubba burgers and many local and national brews. For more information, please go to www.phillies.com.

An internal panel led by Food Network Kitchens selected the nominees for the awards; the same panel, which represents all departments at the network, chose the winners, in addition to five viewer’s choice categories that were determined by votes on www.foodnetwork.com.

Citizens Bank Park beat out the other ballpark finalists: Camden Yards in Baltimore, AT&T Park in San Francisco and Safeco Field in Seattle.

Notes from Boston
While the Phillies take the day off because of the weather, the Boston Marathon was full of intrigue for those of us interested in that type of thing and most of it was on the women’s side of the race.

All runners, it appeared, chucked out their time goals and simply competed, which made for a very tactical race. With steady 20-mph headwinds with 50-mph gusts and temperatures that started at 50 degrees and dropped like a rock to the bottom of a swimming pool, survival was the rule of the day. It definitely was no day at the beach.

Perhaps that’s why American Deena Kastor struggled in her Boston debut to finish nearly six-minutes off the pace for fifth place. A pre-race favorite, Kastor said her training for the race was “flawless” and based on how she dominated at the national cross-country championships, it was evident. But Kastor threw in a second straight “clunker” in a major marathon after running a 2:19 for the American record and the victory in the London Marathon last April, a victory in Chicago in October of 2005 and a bronze medal in the Olympics in Athens in 2004.

It’s a little baffling because Kastor clearly is tough. The Athens Olympic Marathon was run over a course very similar to the one she raced over today in Boston under conditions that were not conducive to running. In that race Kastor ran smart and solid to bring home the bronze.

Yet after running and winning on two courses designed for speedy, and world-record times, Kastor struggled on two “classic” styled courses by finishing sixth in 2:27:54 and today’s fifth-place finish in Boston in 2:35:09, which under ideal weather conditions might have resulted in a similar time to the one from NYC.

So is the tactical-style of racing or the undulating terrain on courses like New York and Boston that tripped up Kastor? Who knows. All we know is that running is a fickle mistress – some days you have it and some days you don’t. That’s really deep, I know, but what else is there to say? There is no such thing as getting “hot” in running, meaning it’s conceivable that I could hit a home run off Roger Clemens or get “hot” and finish a round under par in golf. But there is no way I will ever be able to run a 2:10 marathon no matter how hard I train or if I have a good day.

Unlike other sports there is no such thing as luck in running.

note: The New York Times reported that Kastor struggled with stomach cramps during the race. Her plan, before the weather report turned from bad to worse, was to go out hard from the start. Later she changed plans to race tactically before making a move at Heartbreak Hill. Instead, when it came to make a move Kastor went for one of the many port-o-pots lining the course. Except for the cramps, Kastor says nothing else bothered her during the race.

“I knew coming in here that the competition would be great and I could conquer it,” she said. “That wasn’t the case today. We marathoners can get pretty hard on ourselves, but I felt I had the drive to push forward and the will to win the race. So I’m definitely disappointed knowing I was good enough to come here and win this race. I’m disappointed that didn’t happen.

“Usually, you can learn a lesson from a marathon. I’m not taking anything away from this one. There was no learning experience. A fifth-place finish is a fifth-place finish.”

So yes, it had to be something with Kastor. She's far too good of a runner to simply have a bad day. Just ignore the second-guessing.

Certainly that was the case for Lidiya Grigoryeva and Jelena Prokopcuka, who finished in first and second place in the women’s race. Grigoryeva, from Russia, won in 2:29:18 by surging with a 5:10 mile to take her from Brookline to Kenmore Square on the point-to-point course. She smartly stuck close to Prokopcuka, the two-time champ in NYC and now back-to-back runner-up in Boston, when the Latvian dictated a strong early pace into the teeth of the Nor’easter. By Heartbreak Hill, Prokopcuka and Grigoryeva gapped the chase back and left Kastor a minute off the pace with approximately 15 kilometers to go.

Though she didn’t win, Prokopcuka may have been the best runner in the race.

Robert Cheruiyot didn’t have the problem of being the best runner in the race and falling short. Like Prokopcuka, Cheruiyot set the pace as if to tell the other racers that, “It begins and ends here, fellas. Hang on if you can… ” In the end, Cheruiyot finished in 2:14:12 – way off the 2:07:14 he ran to set the course record last year, for his third victory in Boston.

As a side note, while watching the race I was struck by Cheruiyot’s running style and how he gobbled up ground with a powerful stride that was contrarily efficient and smooth. Then it hit me… he ran like Moses Tanui. You remember Moses Tanui, the two-time Boston champ from the Nandi District in Kenya who was the first human to run a half marathon under an hour? Of course.

Tanui was so tough that he won the silver 1995 World Championships in the 10,000 meters even after one of his shoes fell off.

Tanui ran two of the bravest races I had ever seen, coming from more than a minute off the pace at Heartbreak Hill to chase down two runners in the final 200 meters to win the 1998 Boston followed by the great 1999 Chicago Marathon where Tanui and American record holder Khalid Khannouchi dueled at world-record pace from the gun.

In that one, Tanui surged from the pack at the 17th mile to build a 60-second lead with five miles to go. That’s when Khannouchi decided to go after Tanui to catch him with about 5k left. The two took turns trying to break one another until Tanui reached for his water bottle at the 25-mile mark. That’s where Khannouchi really threw down the hammer using Tanui’s slight hesitation as the thin window of opportunity.

On TV, Khannouchi and Tanui disappeared into a tunnel together where cameras couldn’t send out a signal or the helicopter offering a bird’s eye view couldn’t hover. But when they came out Khannouchi was alone and blazing to set a world record in 2:05:42. Tanui finished in 2:06:16, just off the record Khannouchi had broken.

Anyway, it dawned on me that Cheruiyot’s gait was eerily similar to Tanui’s until the announcers revealed that he is coached by Dr. Gabriele Rosa – Tanui’s old coach. Then it all came together… it all made sense.

Nevertheless, Cheruiyot won his third Boston and he’s just 28. Wait until he gets to his prime.

And wait until you read this story...