'I don't think the heavy stuff's gonna come down for quite awhile'

CLEARWATER, Fla.—When I went to sleep last night, the area behind the hotel was a parking lot. After a soaking rain that is expected to last all day and drop up to two inches of rain on us, that parking lot is now a nicely manicured pond complete with a walking path.

There’s also a family of alligators that have claimed the spot as a home.

OK, none of that is true, but it is raining a lot here in the Tampa Bay area. They’ll try to play baseball again tomorrow when the weather is expected to be pleasantly sunny and temperate.

Rainy days and Mondays

Just sitting here waiting for the Phillies game to be called, though it appears as if they might wait for a long time despite the fact that the radar shows nothing but a huge mass of green covering the Eastern Seaboard. Frankly folks, I’m against this invasion of our region of our country.

Nevertheless, chances are they will wait before calling the game because the San Diego Padres do not return to Philadelphia after Monday’s game. Finding a date in which to force the Padres back to Philly for one game will take some work.

So that’s why they’ll wait despite that green mass covering the map.

But remember back when they used to show the team’s yearly highlight films during rain delays? Sometimes they were better than the game itself and they definitely made the rain delay much more enjoyable.

These days though, they have shows to serve as filler, or viewers can just get up and go do something else during a delay. Back then we had the game and the highlight tape and that was it. Things might not have been better then, but we didn’t know – we liked anyway.

Speaking of rain delay highlights, how about that shot from Andre Iguodala last night? Crazy huh? At least the response to it on my mobile device was crazy. While walking to 30th Street Station for the ride home, the messages rolled in right on top of each other expressing amazement that Iguodala could make that shot and that the Sixers could rally from 18-points down.

I’m sure Marc Zumoff and Tom McGinness probably sounded a bit excited, though the guy doing the highlight below might have been brought in just for the taping:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XK_goEKYpQ&hl=en&fs=1]

* Elsewhere, there was a pretty stellar Boston Marathon with two Americans finishing on the podium. Firstly, Ryan Hall closed hard, but finished in third place with a 2:09:41 clocking. For a first time run at Boston, that’s not bad.

Hall, 26, has run 2:06:17 in London, which is the fastest marathon time ever by a man born on U.S. soil. He also owns the American record in the half-marathon (59:43 in Houston) and clobbered the field in the U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon in November of 2007.

It’s not unreasonable to think that Hall could actually win one of the Marathon Majors (Boston, New York, Chicago, London, Berlin) in the very near future.

On the women’s side, 45-year old naturalized American Colleen De Reuck paced the pack through the early part of the race with Kara Goucher, who is off to a pretty good start to her marathon career.

After finishing ninth and 10th at the Beijing Olympics in the 10,000-meters and 5,000-meters, Goucher, 30, made the jump to the marathon where she ran an eye-popping 2:25:53 for third place in last November’s New York City Marathon. For an encore, she damn-near won the Boston Marathon.

Goucher ran with winner Deriba Merga of Ethiopia and Salina Kosgei of Kenya past Kenmore Square and actually had the lead with a half-mile to go. But down Boyleston Street, Merga and Kosgei kicked away with the Ethiopian winning by a stride in the closest finish ever.

Goucher was nine seconds back in 2:32:25.

It will be interesting to see if Hall and Goucher go back to Boston in 2010. If so, I’m going after them… OK, maybe not, but we’re going to go after something.

* Oh yeah, game called... the Phillies will return to action on Tuesday night - weather permitting.

That's one down

The Phillies' first game of the spring came off without a hitch on Tuesday night here in Clearwater. Actually, it was one of those nights when the outcome was never in doubt... the players would never get out of the clubhouse. Actually, the only debate was whether the rain was going to continue to fall perfectly vertical or sweep in sideways.

Interestingly, the cooler temps and the pounding rain came right on the heels of some 80-degree heat, which I clearly wasn't ready for based on the aftermath of the morning workout (I'll spare the details).

Anyway, I'll dive in more in-depth tomorrow when an actual baseball game is played. In the meantime, here's the latest opus on Brett Myers being named the Opening Day starter for 2008. There is some school of thought out there that Myers got the nod over All-Star Cole Hamels as a reward for being a good soldier last season. As we all remember, Myers valiantly moved to the bullpen first as a set-up man for Tom Gordon and then as a closer after working as a starter for his first three starts of '07.

Anyway, according to the Chamber of Commerce, Clearwater, Fla. is known to be a city of extremes. Actually, I just made that up. I doubt any chamber of commerce would drop that moniker on its town. However, based on the weather today and what is expected for the rest of the week, we're going to be all over the map.

Still, while watching the rain pelt the ballfield, windows and landscape before pooling up wherever it could, I thought out loud, "Yeah, that's so much better than snow."

But snow melts and rain dries and so we'll get back at it bright and early tomorrow morning.

Should we talk about the weather?

Generally, I really don’t hang out with runners. Better yet, let me explain that better… I don’t hang out with runners like me, and by that I mean obsessive folks who have to complete certain workouts every day and certain mileage, etc. every week.

I hang with people who run, but not folks who base all of their training and workouts on specific times in a particular race.

People like me are weird.

Be that as it is, whenever I talk to “competitive” runners about training, race and workout times and that kind of stuff, inevitably the conversation always ends the same way: “Sounds like you’re pretty strong. You’re going to do well in (insert name of race here) if you get good weather.”

The regular runners I hang out with never talk about the weather. It’s like it doesn’t exist in the realm of running in heir viewpoint. Oh sure, they know about the weather and the change of seasons and all of that, but the idea of how it effects racing and running is lost on them. If it’s raining or if it’s too cold, they just stay in and save the workout for another day or go to the gym and run on a treadmill.

The conversation about training with my friends usually culminates with a: “Wow, you run a lot.”

Frankly, I prefer to have my ego stroked and not to worry about the weather.

But the weather is an issue for folks who train for late autumn races in the Northeast. It appeared to be an issue at this year’s Chicago Marathon, too, where the times on the lightning quick course were just a tad slower than normal. Yeah, lots of people ran well at Chicago – 44 American men qualified for the Olympic Trials in the race – but think what they could have done if the wind and temperatures had been more seasonal.

It definitely makes it frustrating when a person trains hard during the heat and humidity of the summer only to have his race messed up by windy conditions and cold air. For people like me, who need every advantage they can get just to run a respectable time, the weather is that much more of a factor.

That’s why I’m hoping the spate of coolish temps and high, driving winds is just one of those crazy snaps in the system. Hopefully, the weather is getting the rain and wind out of its system now so it will be 55 degrees with no wind and overcast skies on Nov. 12 in Harrisburg, Pa. Yeah, I expect some wind since part of the race course rolls past the mighty Susquehanna River on the way around City Island, but as long as it’s manageable…

Today the wind was manageable simply because I’m used to it now. The steady 25-m.p.h. gusts had little effect except for a few areas where there were no trees, houses or building to block the air. Better yet, the mid-40 degree wind chills were kind of refreshing. When the wind was pushing me off the road or blowing directly into my face, the crisp, nip air was perfect. It made me remember that hot and humidity stretch in late July and early August when I had to do all of my running at night.

Today I knifed through the wind like a low 2-iron shot for my typical, easy Sunday for a steady and solid 11½ miles in 1:16:41. Though I ran the first 8-plus miles faster than 6:30 per mile pace, I didn’t worry about anything other than enjoying the run. I even took my iPod with me, which is something I do when I don’t care about my focus.

Either way, it wasn’t a bad way to spend an hour on a Sunday.

Running nugget
Catherine Ndereba, or as she is better known, "Catherine the Great," is in New York City for next Sunday's marathon. The Times caught up with her at an appearance at a school, where the Kenyan who often trained in nearby Valley Forge, entertained the kids.

How good is the NYC Marathon going to be this year? Catherine the Great vs. Deena Kastor in the women's race and the deep American field with Baldini and Tergat in the men's race...

Wow!

It's a rain out!

Was it me or did it seem that Joe Buck was laughing at us when he said, “So we’ll send you back to ‘The War at Home’ while we wait out the rain delay in St. Louis.”

It seemed that way to me. Smug and pompous, Joe was taunting us as the camera melted away from the raindrops falling heavily on the tarp at Busch Stadium. Instead of watching Michael Rappaport in some schlocky sit-com, Buck was able to watch it rain. Had he just painted a wall he could have watched it dry instead of watching episode after episode of that show.

Apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks this way.

But while waiting for a game that was never to be played on Wednesday night, I did a little thinking and here’s what I came up with: “comedy” isn’t as funny as it used to be.

Yeah, I know. I’m some old guy saying, “things sure were better in my day.” Well… wasn’t it? Does any one think that half of the sit-coms on TV now would have had a chance in the 1980s? Now, it seems as if watching network television is like having a lobotomy without the surgery.

The same goes for comedy movies. Just for comparisons sake, I watched Animal House to see how it held up nearly 30 years after its release. If you want to know the truth, it’s better than anything being produced now.

The reason, I think, is there was actual character and plot development in the old-time comedies. There was a motivation and a familiarity with the characters, while in the Ricky Bobby picture, for instance, it was just a highlight film of one-liners and slick editing.

Don’t get me wrong, Will Ferrell was brilliant in Old School, which I believe is a “throwback” to the glory days of motion-picture comedy, but I’m not sure if he can carry a picture. Take Ron Burgundy -- it was funny and I enjoyed the character, but the movie stunk.

So that’s what we get with the rain out of Game 4 – bad comedy and a bad blog post.

On another note, my 2½-year-old boy has been having trouble sleeping at night lately. It seems as if we have a problem with monsters here on Landis Ave. that I’ll have to take care of soon. Nevertheless, the boy and I spent part of Monday night flipping through the dial, watching old movies hoping it would relax him and get him to fall asleep. However, when his mom got home I knew I was in trouble when he walked over to the TV and pointed at the robust and portly man on the screen.

“Belushi!” he told her. “Belushi!”

The kid is learning... maybe too much.