Camelbacks and Tennis

So that will be the last time I ever run with a Camelback... Other than the fact that I was constantly fidgeting with it, that it was throwing me off my usual rhythm, or that it was just plain uncomfortable and in the way, my run was fine.

I was actually surprised how much the Camelback affected my running, because it's not one of the bigger models, it's basically just the size of the water reservoir with a couple of pockets on it. It's great for biking and canvassing, good for hiking, but apparently terrible (at least in my opinion) for running.

Saturday night we had tickets to the semifinals of the Legg Mason Classic, and annual tennis tournament in Washington DC that's part of the US Open series. I had never been to a professional tennis match before, and was excited to see it live for the first time. Unfortunately, Andy Roddick had dropped out several weeks ago, and Mardy Fish had also withdrawn several days before the start of the tourney, so already two of the higher seeds and well-known/recognizable players were out.

The top overall seed was Gael Monfils, a French player ranked 7th in the world, and as it turned out, he was in the match that we had tickets to go see. He was matched up against John Isner, an interesting match-up because Monfils is probably one of the the (if not the) fastest players in men's professional tennis, and while Isner moves surprisingly well for a guy who's 6'9", his game is mostly based on his huge first serve and powerful forehand. Definitely a match-up that would have been very interesting to see.

Oh wait, did I say would have been? Yeah...The one problem with professional tennis (or any level of tennis for that matter) is that they'll take the players off the court if there's any hint of rain. And wouldn't you know it, the forecast for Saturday night called for a 70% chance of rain. Awesome.

When we got there, it was sprinkling. Barely. However it had been raining relatively hard earlier so they were busy drying off the court and trying to prepare to start the match as close to the original time as they could. Unfortunately, drying a tennis court isn't as fast and easy as you may think, because apparently there can't be any moisture whatsoever on the court (which makes sense, you wouldn't want any twisted ankles or worse, and given all the movement and constant changing of direction I can understand the attention to detail).

While we waited for it to stop raining and for them to dry off the court, we walked around the complex and found a smaller court that had a canopy over the seats. This turned out to be one of the more entertaining segments of the night because not only did Monfils show up on the next court over and start juggling and playing around with a soccer ball (presumably to stay loose), there were also a group of ball boys/girls, an older man (probably a director or someone of relative importance at the tournament or complex), and a woman with a camera who were making what looked like some sort of training video or video demonstration for how to properly perform one's duties as a ball boy/girl.

It finally let up, and they finally dried off the court, so everyone went back to the stadium and they brought out the players for their warm-up. That's probably one of the coolest things about tennis that you rarely see (if ever) in other professional sports, opposing players warming up together.

Of course, they didn't even get as far as practicing their serves before it started raining again, leading to the players being removed from the court and the grounds crew once more turning on a bunch of heater-fan things (I'm going to call them that because I don't know what they're actually called and because they're basically a combination of an industrial fan and a leaf blower, and I'm assuming there's some sort of heating mechanism to help facilitate the drying of the court). Anyways, after about 10-15 minutes of this, all the while the rain still coming down, they give the signal to cut the heater-fan things, and everyone retreats from the court.

At this point we're sort of wet, but not really because it really wasn't raining that hard, just a constant amount of barely anything. We go back to the covered side-court and decide that if it hasn't stopped raining in the next 15 minutes, we'll just leave and go home. Since none of us had paid for the tickets we had, we didn't feel too bad about leaving. Well, it stopped raining just before our set cut-off time, so we decided to wait it out until they had finished drying off the court (for a third time) and watch the match.

So they finished drying off the court, the players came out and got through all of their warm-ups, and they were finally ready to start (hooray!). They got through one game, which Isner won mainly because of his serving, and three points (Monfils was up 30-15 on his first service game) when it started raining again and they promptly pulled the players off the court and back into the dressing room. We sat in the stands for little bit to see if there was any chance of it letting up, but it didn't, so we left.

It was disappointing that we were able to see so little of the actual match, but none of us really wanted to sit through rain delay after rain delay. We ended up following the score on a computer later that night and they actually got through almost two sets before they had to stop again due to the rain, at 11 pm. I have no idea how long into the night the match actually went, but all I know is that it wasn't the longest match of Isner's career (see his match last year in the opening round of Wimbledon) and that Monfils eventually at some point in the wee hours of the morning (I'm assuming) finally won it after the rain let up enough for them to finish.

Hopefully my next professional tennis experience will be better.

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So yeah... About posting twice a week, that clearly hasn't happened... But I'll keep trying, I promise.

Running has been going OK. Not too terrible, not great, just OK. I've missed a few days, but for the most part, I think I'm doing a decent job trying to stay on schedule. It's not so much that I'm having difficulty waking up at 4:45 am (It's kinda hard to ignore your cell phone blasting Van Halen's "Eruption" and vibrating under your pillow), it's convincing myself that I want/need to get out of bed and go run. In fact, I've gotten to the point where I'll wake up several minutes before my alarm even goes off, which is good, but also bad because I sometimes turn off my alarm, roll over, and go right back to sleep. Fail.

Nevertheless, I feel like I'm coming along rather nicely. I feel great, the soreness I was feeling when I first started has long since gone. Either I've just gotten used to running on a fairly consistent basis, or my decision to switch shoes has made a huge difference. I'd like to think it's a bit of both, with a majority of the credit going to my Saucony Kinvaras. Seriously, they really are the most comfortable running shoes I've even had.

Last week was one of the most exciting weeks in sports in recent memory. Not only was it the week leading up to the MLB trade deadline, but also the beginning (finally) of NFL free agency. As I predicted last Monday, the activity in the NFL was fast and furious. It was awesome. However, as a 49ers fan, it was a little disappointing because while other teams were making trades and signing (well agreeing to terms with) new players, all the 49ers did was sign a kicker (granted it was David Akers, a pro bowl kicker, but seeing how there were much more glaring needs, it was a bit disconcerting). There had been rumors that the Niners would make a serious push to sign Namdi Asomugha, considered by many to be one of the best, if not the best shutdown corners in the NFL. As nice as it would have been to have been able to land such a prized free agent, the more I think about it, the more I'm glad the 49ers didn't sign him, because they would have had to spend a large amount of money to get him, which would mean less money to spread around to sign other players.

Another exciting recent development in the world of sports was the USSF firing Bob Bradley (finally!) as the Men's National Team Manager and appointing Jurgen Klinsmann (YES!!!) as his replacement. As you may or may not know, I haven't been the biggest supporter of Bob Bradley or the US National Team in the past 4 years. I'll be honest, they probably wouldn't even rank in my top 10 favorite national teams. This of course has nothing to do with me being unpatriotic, but more with the fact that I couldn't stand watching the US Men's team play. Their shape, their organization, and just their overall strategy really never made sense to me. This is mainly due to Bob Bradley, because after all, it was his system, and it just wasn't working. Hopefully Klinsmann will be able to bring a different approach to the US National Team, not only in his tactics, but hopefully in his player selection as well.

I'm slated to run 11 miles tomorrow, which will be my furthest run thus far in my training. The 5 miles I ran this morning felt pretty good and I feel like tomorrow shouldn't be too bad, it won't be too hot and hopefully not too humid. Since it will take me longer than an hour to complete, I'm going to try running with a camelback so I'm able to stay hydrated. I've tried running with a water bottle, but it's kind of awkward holding it in your hand while running. I'll do my best to try to recap how it went as soon as possible, maybe even after I've cooled down and stretched afterwards. I'm also going to the semifinals of the Legg Mason Classic (an annual men's tennis tournament in DC) tomorrow night, so I might wait until Sunday so I can recap that as well. I've never been to a professional tennis match before, and while there won't be the biggest names there (Mardy Fish and Andy Roddick both dropped out before the tourney began, and none of the really big names in men's tennis are there), there should still be two great match-ups to watch.

If there's anything in particular you think I should talk about, let me know! Hope everyone's doing well.

That's all for now.