As a new runner, I need all the help I can get. Here, I’ll talk about the songs on my running playlist and what makes them — and me — tick.
Playlist Song #1
Lady Gaga — Poker Face
Look, I’m no fan of Top 40, but when I’m looking to hoof my lard ass from point A to point B, sometimes I need some motivation. Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, better known as Lady Gaga, happens to put together tunes that get me moving. Comparisons to Madonna are obvious, even trite — Gaga, seemingly a personification of New York ambition, emerged from a Catholic background to manufacture image-based, sexually charged pop music — but even with Born This Way being pretty much a carbon copy of Express Yourself, I find just as much Freddie Mercury in her work as Material Girl.
Poker Face runs at 120 beats per minute, which sites like jog.fm suggests will pull you in at about eight minutes per kilometre, but I find personally that it’s the perfect driving beat for 5:45 klicks.
Album: The Fame
Release date: 2008 Beats per minute: 120 Subject: Cards / gambling Content warning: Sexual innuendo / repeated use in chorus of profanity (so subtle is Gaga’s insertion of the f-word, however, that the overwhelming majority of radio stations do not use the edited version in their broadcasts) Video:
Week one of the 2014 MLB season brought some serious bats to the Seattle Mariner organization, and resulted in the kind of giddy, vibrating happy haps that the Emerald City hasn’t felt since… Well, since February. Damn you, Seahawks, for ruining a perfectly good blog lede. M’man John Stewart giddily shakes his way through this Week One Mariners wrap-up. On with the Boys of Summer!
Felix Hernandez walks off the mound after tossing 11 strikeouts in his first start of the 2014 season. Photo ripped unceremoniously from the interweb.
Being a Seattle Mariners fan always includes plenty of angst. One is simultaneously hopeful (Cano! Miller! Seager! Felix!) and terrified (Hart, Morrison, Ackley, Saunders, Smoak…) So many good things could happen! And oh, so many bad things could as well.
Somehow this team not only swept their opening series against Albert Pujols and the Anaheim Angels, but did so in grand style. Production up and down the lineup! C Mike Zunino, he of so much promise yet so much growing to do, came up big multiple times. CF Abe Almonte, similar to Zunino in the promise-but-growing-needed camp, showed off his speed (and inability to properly play balls in centre field, but hey, he’s learning). In each of those three Angels games we saw either six or seven Mariners with at least one hit – exactly the kind of production this lineup needs to deliver. Second baseman Robinson Cano is looking great, but you can’t expect any player (even one making that much money) to carry the team on his back. Baseball is, inevitably, a team sport.
As I write this, the Mariners have recovered from their single loss so far this season by beating the Athletics 3-1…and lead the American League West, with a 4-1 record. It has been difficult to keep both feet on the ground this week, to be honest.
All-Star second baseman Robinson Cano brings great expectations (and a whole lot of greenbacks) to Seattle this season. Photo cribbed from a random website
That loss to the Athletics could be chalked up to some of the worst umpiring I have ever seen. Sean Barber made his Major League umpiring debut behind the plate, and after this outing, the hope is that he goes back to AAA for some more work. The game also featured (thankfully) the last appearance by pitcher Hector Noesi in a Mariners uniform, as he was designated for assignment yesterday.
Another thing going well for the team is the starting pitching, despite the absence of Hisashi Iwakuma and Tai Walker. Erasmo Ramirez came up big in his first start, a welcome development given last season, and Felix Hernandex is the King for a reason (he had a shutout going into the 9th inning in today’s win over the A’s).
This Mariner team is long on promise and short on proven track record. But the American League West is a very different division from a year ago. The Rangers are hampered by injuries, the Angels’ expensive lineup is far from a sure thing, and as everyone who follows the division knows, the Athletics cannot be counted out – but also can not be counted on before the second half.
So for Mariners fans, this first week has been about as good as we dared hope. The offense has done exactly what it needed to do, the starting pitching has been frankly better than anticipated, and the bullpen has not completely imploded. A solid outing from Fernando Rodney in today’s victory over the A’s certainly did not hurt; while I don’t expect Rodney to be as good as he was last season, a productive year from him in the closer role will go a long way toward keeping the Mariners competitive.
The Mariners need to make it through April and at least keep it close. With Iwakuma and Walker coming back (hopefully some time in May) the rotation will only get better. And if the offense can continue to produce at anything close to the rate they did against the
Angels… well, it’s going to be a fun year.
It was my longest run yet. 19.34km. And holy hell, is it ever a long way.
About 17km into the run, I said hello to Mr Oppenheimer at the entrance to Stanley Park. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
I went out early Sunday morning in order to get my body used to pre-breakfast activity. Normally I hit the trail in the middle of the day — teaching classes that either start at 8am or end after 10pm doesn’t lend itself to morning runs — but with the half marathon in May I’ll be out the door before sunrise and through the starting line at 7am. If I haven’t done at least a handful of runs at that time of the morning, it’ll be hard to motivate on race day.
The Vancouver Whitecaps looked to continue their string of unbeaten play in the 2014 season, up 1-0 in the 77th minute and coming hard at the injury-depleted back line of the Colorado Rapids. Then Matías Laba, pushed roughly to the turf by Rapids midfielder Nick LaBrocca, corralled the ball with his right hand as he appealed to the referee for a foul. Unfortunately for the Caps, the man in yellow whistled at Laba, not LaBrocca, and the intentional handball garnered the Whitecaps midfielder an automatic yellow card. Double alas, it was Laba’s second yellow of the match, meaning that card had to be traded in for a red card.
Miller: “You know, you got away with one there.” Irwin: “Yeah, yeah.” Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
Within three minutes of Laba’s ejection, the Rapids had not only erased the Whitecaps goal advantage, but scored a second time to take a 2-1 lead themselves.
“If you miss the first call, you don’t penalise the second player with a yellow,” said Whitecaps coach Carl Robinson after the loss, lamenting the official’s role in deciding the outcome. “Unfortunately the 20,000 fans leaving here today won’t be talking about the football that was played here today — and it was a good, tough game played between two very good teams.”
While it’s true LaBrocca could easily have been called for his takedown of Laba, it’s a fact that the Whitecaps haven’t capitalized on long stretches of 11-on-10 play — most notably against Chivas USA in their second game of the year. That Vancouver so quickly capsized after going down a man to Colorado doesn’t speak well to their ability to adapt to unpredictable situations.
Kenny Miller is probably right when he says it should have been 2-0 by the time Laba got his red card anyway. Pedro Morales missed a glorious opportunity just minutes after Mattocks had made it 1-0 in the 65th minute; his shot glanced off Colorado keeper Clint Irwin’s right leg and trickled wide of the far post. Long before that, in the first half, Miller himself was tripped up by Irwin in the box. The referee waved off appeals for a penalty kick, despite clear replays showing the keeper interfering with Miller as he ran for the ball. Let’s not even get into the half-dozen quality scoring chances lost to a poor final touch on this day. Russell Teibert alone wasted four free kicks in dangerous territory and at least two corners by alternately skying the ball well over every attacking Whitecaps player and toeing short passes directly into the shins of Rapids defenders.
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Highlights:
Carl Robinson post-match press conference:
After a six-game road swing that saw the Abbotsford Heat play .500 hockey, they return to the AESC in the Valley to host the dirty rotten stinkin’ no-good Rockford Ice Hogs. The games mark the chance for local fans to get their first look at Calgary Flames first-round pick Morgan Klimchuk, who scored 74 points in 57 games with the Regina Pats in junior this year, and Collin Valcourt, an undrafted player who had 72 points as an overaged WHL player with Saskatoon and Prince Albert.
Captain Martin St Pierre brings his Rockford Ice Hogs to Abbotsford to play the Heat Friday and Saturday. No word on whether he’ll ask Brendan Morrison for an autograph. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
Abbotsford won both games in Rockford earlier in the season, winning 4-2 and 4-3 in OT; recently, however, the Ice Hogs have been on something of a tear, moving from non-playoff contention two months ago into seventh place in the West.
The Heat currently sit in fifth in the Western Conference; if the post-season started today they’d match up with the fourth-place Chicago Wolves, AHL affiliate of the St Louis Blues.
Abbotsford has back-to-back games against the Chicago Blackhawks farm team tonight and tomorrow, followed by a Friday/Sunday doubleheader against the baby Edmonton Oilers from Oklahoma City. They’ll finish the season with three games in three nights the following weekend before opening the 2014 AHL playoffs.
I’m totally stealing most of this information from the Abbotsford Heat website, but everything above is at least paraphrased. In honour of some of my writing students grappling with citation and plagiarism, the following sentence is word-for-word ripped from www.abbotsfordheat.com: Max Reinhart (2-5-7), Derek Smith (0-6-6), and Ben Street (4-4-8) are all riding five game point streaks into this weekend.
Vancouver Whitecaps FC is undefeated after four matches, and have played damned entertaining soccer in exactly half of those games. Sure, the draw against Chivas USA on the road was disappointing, but let’s be honest — if we asked you if you’d be happy with eight of a possible twelve points to start the season, you’d have salivated all over us. And while we don’t have a drool fetish, exactly, let’s just say we’re damned happy with the start to the 2014 MLS season.
Jordan Harvey and Kenny Miller scored for the homeside, putting home the first two goals Houston has conceded this season.
Darren Mattocks continued his tradition of coming this close. Methinks he spent too much of the off-season watching Canucks games. He had one glorious chance on a short cross in the first half; he got the ball in perfect position, at the top of the six-yard box just shy of the left post. He one-timed his volley, his eyes on the back of the net, his form perfect as he levelled his foot at the incoming pass. The result? So high over the crossbar the ball hasn’t come down four days later. Mattocks is working hard, at least — goals will come, one assumes — but so far he’s had to settle for close calls and a sweet assist on Kekuta Manneh’s goal against those goats in Los Angeles.
Below, thar be pictures. (I’ll add more as I get round to the editing.)
By the way, David Horst, a Houston defender who features in this photo gallery, at one point during the game, wiped out a Whitecaps forward two metres from the right sideline, then took umbrage when the whistle blew. He stood inches away from the linesman, screaming over and over, “WHAT IS THE FUCKING CALL!” That’s right, ladies. He’s a charmer.
After finishing dead last with a dismal 44 points just a year ago, the Vancouver Giants made massive strides, improved by 31 points and nabbed the seventh seed in the WHL Western Conference. The season featured a brutal 1-9 start, a remarkable run through the middle of the schedule that saw the G-Men threaten the top four for home ice advantage in the first round, and a home stretch full of injuries and inconsistent play.
Such is the way of the world in junior hockey during a rebuilding phase.
So what does a seventh place finish get you? A dance card full of scoring leaders, defensive stalwarts and Team Canada representatives, that’s what. The Portland Winterhawks are the defending WHL champions, and despite losing stud blueliner Seth Jones to the Nashville Predators, they’re an absolute juggernaut when they’re firing on all cylinders.
As many of you know, I’m a member of the Vancouver Southsiders’ Board of Directors. As Director of External Communications, I’m responsible for responding to media requests we receive. Last week, I got an email from a young, aspiring journalist who was looking for a supporter’s perspective on the current state of the league. Continue reading Whitecaps Wednesday – Musings On The State Of The League→
It started, last year, almost as a lark. Running, that is. I’ve already cursed the good doctor Rob as loud as I can, but I have to admit: I’m not hating every minute of it. The Central Valley Greenway is actually quite pleasant (when it’s not so flooded that ducks take to its surface, that is), and I’ve found the few times I’ve taken to circuitous routes (short city routes or even 400-metre tracks under lighting) much more calming for the repetition than I had predicted.
So here’s the public presentation of my goal. It ain’t much in the grand scheme of things; some people do ultras, and others travel the world entering multiple marathons and raising outrageous amounts of money for charity. Me, I’ve just challenged myself to run 1,000 km during the 2014 calendar year.
My running goal is to complete 1,000km during the 2014 calendar year. I’m 20km ahead of schedule as of St Paddy’s Day.
After an impressive season opener last Saturday, the Whitecaps will look to continue their strong play in California tomorrow. They’ll take on a Chivas USA team that also turned some heads in their 3-2 victory last weekend. In fact, these two teams have a little more in common than simply opening the season with wins.
The USA Goats, much like the Caps, have undergone an off-season of change. Both clubs promoted MLS assistant coaches to manage their teams – Chivas found their man in former Colorado Rapids assistant Wilmer Cabrera. Vancouver’s hire of Carl Robinson has already been well documented in this town.
Carl Robinson focused on retooling the Caps midfield to encourage forward movement from the middle of the park. Chivas recruited playmaker Mauro Rosales, formerly of the Seattle Sounders, to solidify their midfield.
The Whitecaps newcomers, Seba Fernandez and Pedro Morales (amongst others) both had stunning debuts for their club, as did Rosales. He assisted on Chivas’ second and third goals versus the Chicago Fire to secure the win. You say Morales, I say Rosales, let’s call the whole thing off. Continue reading Goats ‘N’ Prose – Whitecaps FC VS Chivas USA→
