A tough Brazen Racing’s race this morning in East Bay. Uneven ground, very sharp up and downhills totalling over 2.000 feet ascent made running every step at points a huge challenge. Only when strolling over Nimitz Way — along my old distance out & back loop some 12 years ago — did I hit a sub 6 minutes per mile pace and developed gap to the #2 place finisher Keenan Byrne. What really made my day was perfect bay views and the sheer joy of discovering the final parts of the mountain range I had’t before entered into but just looked on the map for so many times over. A great event, with a nice award as well. Drove back stopping by at Pleasant Hill Fleet Feet to pick a pair of Saucony Mirages.

The day before a reprise of the other part the range. All the way up in 35 mins and total was about 1.05 back at Lone Oak Rd parking.

The biggest sports news around here must be Sonic’s failed NBA bid. I’ve always liked the name SuperSonics, it sounds so cool. I can’t believe how they lost the team in the first place. This is not a small town. — It was kinda adding to the tragedy to see Kevin Durant miss last night his equalizing jump shot at the final seconds of game 5 and see Oklahoma get out of the playoffs. How’s that for a fate?

I first had a major training slump probably because of first ever overtraining. What I thought over the two to three weeks — when I couldn’t even sleep — was that I’m old. I’m worn out.

Came April, started to run again bit by bit. Had a great couple of runs in California. First a memorable 2.02 effort around Torrey Pines. Then 1.40 okay Black Hill Mnts climb and a pretty good 34.48 10k at Seal Beach. Well, that looked promising.

Back in Finland both work and house remodeling projects hit my free time. Did however a “normal” Länsiväylä in 1.01.57. In 2007 I ran it in 1.01.18, in 2008 1.01.43 and in 2009 1.02.21 so it was pretty much okay. However, I finished with left calf so much worn out it still hasn’t recovered over the last 1.5 weeks. I have run just one time a 5k easy jog after the race. Yes, I’m getting old. Any injury gets more serious the more miles you have.

Talking about reference points I witnessed the major, dramatic achilles injury of the year at the Lakers home game against Warriors. A great game, and great plays. I saw Kobe Bryant, I saw Steve Nash, I saw Pau Gasol. When I went in it was my great idol Nash practicing three pointers. It looked good. But at the end it was just practice on empty court. Then we had the game. It was good, what a rally from behind. But Kobe was down, time and again. Worn out. Still fighting. Coming back and getting the game even. Until it hit the third and last time…

Kobe will come back just like I did. He just won’t be any younger.

Looking back it looks like the changing of guards for Lakers and I feel like I’m in that old point guard category myself as well. Getting age, achilles and other parts broken, being benched more and more often…

Super Bowl the other night was a hard one to swallow. I actually went to bed during the electricity break when 49ers were 22 points behind. What a comeback I missed but then again it was really tough to watch that final drive to end in a kind of series of indecisions and grande disappointment the next morning. You have four attempts at 7 yard line with less than 2 minutes left.

What do you do? I would have given Kaep the go to run the first two, and maybe the last two he should’ve just thrown it right away to somebody in the end zone. Or alternatively just done his own run straight four times. Now you can double guess forever what could have happened.

Divisional round:

Kaepernick / 49ers

I developed a warm feeling towards Alex Smith because of the last year playoffs. “Alex Smith in the play of his life.” And he did play well the first half of this season as well, before suffering something some other guy could have concealed. The first few games I saw Kaepernick it was obvious he does look more athletic than Smith, and thus physically more capable, but he looked to me also somewhat more insecure in his passing game. Either it works, or it doesn’t. So I couldn’t help but fear interception when the going gets rough, which is exactly what happened when the divisional game started! But Kaepernick came back and ran it even in the next drive, took control of the game and went to the record books. Let’s hope it works out next week again.

Peyton Manning / Broncos

Big name, but something did not tick there. He looked like playing okay but actually it was one of the worst performances of the year. Manning did nothing spectacular and did not drive it home even when he had the chance to do it in the extra time at least twice. In a way he looked like a 36-year old QB. Experience does not help you if you don’t have that sparkle in your game anymore.

Wildcards:

RGIII / Redskins

Saw the game where RGIII got injured. What a uniquely multi-talented guy, who is so much fun to watch, but also what a major coaching failure. Why did RGIII play after he slip and hurt the knee at the end of the first half? I would have changed him right there. He just couldn’t run anymore, he clearly lost confidence with the injured knee. The result was not just lost game but a lost playmaker, medical operation, and negative publicity as well.

Luck / Colts

I was wathicn Indianapolis Colts games just because of him. Number one pick, from Stanford fame. Mixed feelings. Unlike RGIII, he sorta looked more like a rookie. At some points he played quickly and determined, like you expect a young guy play. At other points it looked like he did not really belong to the fast paced, aggressive NFL yet. Colts deserved to lose that wildcard game.

First one in Red Rock Canyon near Las Vegas. It was CES time of the year again and this time I wanted to get out of the buzz. Luckily I had met with Terho at Helsinki boarding. Picked him at from Luxor at 6:15AM Wed morning and we hit the trails when the sun was rising up. What a great scenery we had. The trails are so much better than running along the strip or around the casino block. However, while some parts are really runnable and good, other parts turned out to be too rocky or then the trails just faded away. This was especially true for trails getting closer to the mountain range. While wandering on nowhere without a trail I hit a cactus, which gave some nice scars as a souvenir.

The second one was … yes, the classic Black Mountain Trail down from Stonebrook up to Montebello Road. This time uphill took 56.15, which is a lot, but the total time was 1.37. It kinda felt faster than the time shows. It must be the suffering leg muscles that slowed the climb. Before this run it was just the clafs, but now I have the muscles in pains all over…

Other runs include a 14K easy on Helsinki ice, another try at Red Rock Canyon bike trails (good surface) but now there was a storm coming and the wind was just too much. Tried also 2 x Cooper at Foothill College’s track under lights (now with $3 parking fee) but could not produce better than 3400m per stint meaning over 3.30/km pace. Felt pretty tired, both mentally and physically.