Running for the Olympics

This race combines three of my loves:  1) running, 2) the Paterno family, and 3) Beaver Stadium.  The fact that it benefits Special Olympians is just icing on the cake.

But I need your help.

I’m okay with the running part.  Three miles is a warm up for me.  I don’t even need you to bring me water.  Or bananas.  (Beer and donuts would be great, but I don’t NEED that!)  I don’t need you to stand on the sideline and cheer me on, but you are welcome if you so desire.

No–what I need is your financial support.  I have set a goal to raise $1200.00 for Special Olympics. As of writing this blog, I have raised $745.00.

If you can afford it, and think the Special Olympics is a great cause, then donate in my name at my home page.

I thank you for your support!

Here is a photo of me crossing the finish line last year just to prove I can do it!

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Franco and I

Eye doctors in picture may appear shorter than they actually are!

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Wasn’t That Special?

Today, I participated in the Beaver Stadium Run sponsored by the Paterno family, with proceeds benefiting Special Olympics of Pennsylvania.  I was able to raise $1,450 to benefit Special Olympians.  Last year they raised over $400,000 but I do not know the total for this year.  As a result of my fundraising efforts, I was invited to a reception with Sue Paterno, Jay Paterno, Franco Harris, and Pat Chambers, who is Penn State’s basketball coach.  I know!  I didn’t even know we had a basketball team!  James Franklin wasn’t at the reception but he and his family were there for the race.

I’m in there somewhere!  Maybe.  It’s last year’s photo.  I was there.

Anyway, after the Blue-White Game, a free football scrimmage that marks the end of Spring practice,  and the private reception they had accommodations at a hotel in State College for runners that wanted to stay overnight before the race.  I only live about 40-45 minutes away depending on how many cops are alongside the road, but the reception ran till 8:30, and the race was the following morning at 11:00.  I could save gas by not driving back and forth.  It seemed like a win-win situation for me and the environment to stay in the hotel.

Until one o’clock in the morning.

That’s when the smoke alarm in my room started to chirp every minute or so.  After listening to this for a few minutes, and quietly hoping it would just STOP, I got up and removed the battery.  Hey!  It’s not like I’m in an airplane bathroom here.  And it’s not because I wanted to smoke.  I just wanted to sleep!  I have a race to run the next day!

Finally, I called the front desk.  They came relatively quickly, although my room is physically as far away from the front desk as you can get.  They gave me a map to help me find where to park.  I had to stop and ask directions.  I was afraid I might need a passport, but fortunately, I did not cross any foreign borders on the way to my room.

They replaced the battery and . . . . silence.  They apologized profusely, and excused themselves.  I turned out the lights and tried to return to my racing dreams of crossing the finish line first to be congratulated by the entire Penn State cheerleading team . . . but I digress.

Within two minutes, the chirping resumes.  WTF?!

I again call to the front desk, but there is no answer.  I guess the two who made the Lewis and Clark journey to my room haven’t returned yet with Sacajawea.  So I listened to the bird chirping and wondered if it was a finch or a blue jay?  After finally contacting the front desk duo again, I waited for their arrival and let them in.

They played with the battery some more.  He thinks perhaps he put it in wrong.  (That’s what she said.)  She just seemed distressed or perhaps she knew the entire hotel was at risk because there was no one at the front desk right now.  She suggested cutting the electric wires to the unit–which makes you wonder why it needs any battery after all except as a backup for power outages and this seems like something that could wait until say, 10:00 the next day.  He asked her if she wanted to electrocute him.  She does not answer (but smiles.)  I was sensing some tension between these two.  Or I might just be TIRED!  He pushed a button to test the unit.  Long, loud chirp.  Okay, I am fully awake now!

Finally, the chirping stops and the two apologetically removed themselves from my room again.

Sleep at last!

I have set my phone alarm to go off at 8am.  I’m only 10 minutes from the race location, but I’m pretty sure I am gong to need to eat something, but I can’t run right after I eat something, so I figure three hours is a good compromise.

Unfortunately, the previous occupant of this fine hotel (“we’ve had no fire in 117,497 days!”) room set the alarm for 6 am.  And it dutifully awoke me at 6 am.

I should have just gone back home!

Humor aside, I don’t think it affected my performance.  Maybe the two beers I drank at the reception did.  Or the two creme filled donuts I had on Friday.  Or the double quarter-pounder with cheese and fries before the Blue White Game.

Whatever,  I did not win.  There were no cheerleaders.  It was only a dream.

But I did place 64th out of 1900 runners, and fifth in my age group (old farts.)  I beat my time from last year (22:43:82) with a new personal record of 20:59:01!

But I have to admit I was humbled a bit.  As we lined up before the race, they attempted to group people by how fast they run.  I moved to a point just ahead of the sign that read 7:00 to 8:00 pace (my official pace was 7:00!)  NAILED IT!  I stood near a young woman (and quite frankly, they all look young to me anymore except for my cataract patients.)  I find it helpful to have something to focus on while running.  She was wearing very short, very skin tight gray shorts, and a tank top.  She was very focused.  She would be the rabbit to my greyhound.

However, as the race started, she was more like a turbo charged super ninja rabbit on steroids, and was out of my sight before we reached the one mile mark.  I never saw her again.  I ate her dust.

Worse yet, the person in my age group that beat me out for third place and a possible medal (by 12 SECONDS) blew by me about 3/4 of a mile before the stadium.  I know this because my first thought when he went by me was, “that guy is old.”  He was.  Gray hair (not tight gray shorts) and everything.  He had on a gray T-shirt with words on the back.  “Ask your doctor if getting off your ass is right for you.”

This is what losers see.

The shirt distracted me.  Not the same way the gray pants did.  I had to think about this–it had words and humor and everything.  The shorts only had a Nike Swoosh.  (And that’s what they did.  Swoosh!)  Meanwhile, he’s sprinting ahead of me like I’m standing still.  I’m doing 8.57 miles per hour in a 7 mile per hour zone!  He only beat me by twelve seconds, but I never recovered from that shirt.

It had to be that shirt!

Although it might have been the smoke alarm keeping me up all night.

Or the donuts and beer.

Whatever.

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Beaver Stadium Run

I have signed up for the annual 3 mile Beaver Stadium Run, which courses through State College and ends at the 50 yard line of Beaver Stadium.  Proceeds from the race benefit Special Olympics of Pennsylvania, and the run is sponsored by the Paterno family.

This race combines three of my loves:  1) running, 2) the Paterno family, and 3) Beaver Stadium.  The fact that it benefits Special Olympians is just icing on the cake.

But I need your help.

I’m okay with the running part.  Three miles is nothing to me.  I don’t even need you to bring me water.  Or bananas.  (Beer and donuts would be great, but I don’t NEED that!)  I don’t need you to stand on the sideline and cheer me on, but you are welcome if you so desire.

No–what I need is your financial support.  I have set a goal to raise $1000.00 for Special Olympics. As of writing this blog, I have raised $260.00.

If you can afford it, and think the Special Olympics is a great cause, then donate in my name at my home page.

I thank you for your support!

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My Light Zone

The Daily Prompt poses the following . . .”Tell us about your favorite way to get lost in a simple activity — running, chopping vegetables, folding laundry, whatever. What’s it like when you’re in “the zone”?”

There’s no place like zone . . . there’s no place like zone.

But where, for art thou, is my zone?

The obvious answer is the North End Zone at Beaver Stadium where I have season tickets.  I have spent many an enjoyable Saturday afternoon there, and a few not so enjoyable ones as well.  When the crowd is cheering–108,000+ fans–there is an electricity in the air, a power which one can only experience but not describe.  Those who have been there know it.  It simply is nothing you will get watching a sporting event on TV.  You have to feel it.

As a runner, I often find myself ‘in the zone.’  I usually listen to music when I run, and at some point I become one with the road and the beat and I feel like I could run forever.  It is very relaxing and even the tensions of my worse days melt away with the pavement beneath my feet.  I have never ‘hit the wall’ as some runners claim, but I have run into a few cars, sign posts and the occasional tree.  I’m just kidding about that, although I have been close to getting run over by cars and buses.

I despise–no loathe–construction zones.  I know they are a necessary evil on our roadways, but necessity does not breed acceptance.

I really don’t like the O-zone, not the protective layer but the football site.  It’s too bad hydrochlorofluorocarbons can’t put holes in that as well.

I liked the Twilight Zone, the original series (the movie was OK), but for better or worse, I have never been in the Twilight Zone.

But of all the zones, I think the one I like the best is my light zone:

Here I am–in the ZONE!

There is just something very relaxing about floating on cool water while basking in the heat of gorgeous sunshine.  I could float for hours, just California day dreaming, reading a book, sleeping, or making Vitamin D.

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A New Outlook

For the first game since the mid-seventies, I sat in a new section in Beaver Stadium.  Last year, in their infinite wisdom, the powers-that-be at Penn State decided to move the student section fully into the south end zone, necessitating relocating the only seats I have ever sat in for football games.  Cue the violins for my pity party.

But you must realize that I am not a creature of change.  Oh, I change my clothes daily.  Mostly.  I might wear a shirt two days in a row if it passes the sniff test.  I wear clean underwear each day, unless it is game day and it’s my lucky pair and my team is winning.  But you really don’t want to read about that.

I don’t like change.  I don’t even like it at the grocery store–I hate the coins jingling in my pocket, and just what am I supposed to do with them when I get home?

So it was with considerable trepidation that I entered Beaver Stadium this past Saturday.

In years past, my parking spot was about six rows from the stadium.  We entered Gate B and rode the escalator up to the next level.  Our seats were four rows down, and about 10 seats in the row.  For my 75 year-old parents who often accompany me, everything was perfect.

But now, my seats are approximately the exact opposite side of the stadium, and a few rows lower.  Since we had to walk halfway around the stadium either way, we went in the same gate as before and took the escalator.  That saved some climbing.  But now, instead of being four rows away, we are the length of the stadium and closer to 16 rows down.

Lousy cell phone picture of our new view of the stadium.

Hard to tell from the photo, but the sun is out.  Damn it, Jim, I’m just a doctor.  And it’s a phone!  Not a camera.  You can make out most of the details.

I felt like Moses wandering through the desert as we circled our way around from the southwest corner of the stadium to the northeast corner.  But there was no manna from Heaven, only nachos–and you had to pay for them.  The crowd wasn’t too bad–after all, we were only playing Indiana State and they barely have a football team–so I didn’t need a staff to part the sea of fans streaming before us.  We actually had to go past our section and circle back since you couldn’t get there from here.

Once we got there, though, things weren’t that bad.  I have eight seats, four on the aisle in adjacent rows.  Before, we always had to climb over people to get to our seats.  Now, people climb over us.  It’s kind of inconvenient, particularly when someone else’s bladder or stomach is crawling over you during a really exciting play on the field, but for now the plusses and minuses equal out.

The view is about the same we had before (about 10 rows lower) but it will take some getting used to since everything is reversed–it’s like watching a game in bizarro world.  During pre-game, the band is marching toward us, not away from us.  The home team isn’t warming up below us–the away team is on this side of the field.  We were in the shade, and for this game, that was great.  We saw a couple of folks being taken out on stretchers, presumably because of heat stroke or related problems.  For those rainy games, we are now protected from the elements by the north upper deck.  Another plus.

All in all, I guess the new seats are okay.

But I ‘d rather be back were we were, sunburn or rain fall notwithstanding.

But that’s me.  I don’t like to change.  And since Penn State won the first game, I can’t wash my lucky underwear for another week at least.

Don’t worry, though.  We have to play Alabama next week.  I’ll probably be washing the loss out of them next Sunday.

I just won’t be washing them in TIDE.

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