Tressel

It's a real shame Tressel ended up quitting. If you think about it the whole situation it kind of childish. It seems like some players trading autographs for tattoos wouldn't be such a big deal. Yes, it was wrong and Tressel should have punished them when he found out about it, but the media has made it a bigger deal than it needs to be.

College football is going to lose a good coach. And as a side note is anybody else sick of the way NFL/NCAA football is dealing with all their current situations such as the lock out and this.

congrats Hines

new missouri QB

well it looks like the race for the QB spot is now done. Tyler Gabbert decided to transfer, leaving the job open for James Franklin. I'm actually pretty relieved, because of all the options he's probably the best fit. He seems to be able to run the spread offense of Mizzou fairly well. From the few games that I've seen him play in, I've noticed a few things.

Positive: he's really good under pressure in the red zone. They had to bring him in a few times this past season when Gabbert couldn't get the job done in the red zone. He's a great runner, and I think given time to get stronger he'll be able to break tackles really well. Granted the NFL doesn't particularly look for that in a QB, but he's only going to be a sophomore and has a few years to improve. Negative: he's got a pretty good arm, but it's not a "cannon" yet. Over this next season I believe that he'll be able to build that up. Aside from that I don't know a whole lot about him, because he's only made a few appearances. But, as a tiger football fan I'm relieved that he's got the job. His few appearances have been positive and I have confidence in his abilities to grow over the next season or two.

tiger basketball

All of us Mizzou basketball fans are happy to see this. I've never seen Tyrek Coger play in person, so I'm trusting the stats on this one. But it's a relief because we need a forward after the leaving of our senior Justin Safford. The fact that his main downpoint is conditioning is a welcome relief, because conditioning is significantly easier to improve than anything else. Hopefully he is good from the 3-point line, because it's safe to say that 3 point shots aren't exactly the tigers strong point....at all. Word is that the new head coach Frank Haith is a good recruiter, so lets see what he brings here next year.

new Cards addition

Lance Berkman is a great new addition to the Cardinals lineup, and evidently I'm not the only one who thinks so. Though he's potentially injury prone, given his past injuries, he's definitely worth keeping. I'm sure I speak for most of the Cards fans in saying that we're excited to see how he progresses through the season. I mainly want to know if this strong streak will last up to and through the all star break.

trizou results

Today was trizou triathlon day. It was so much fun, and I'll definitely be doing it in future years. My stats were:

Division place (Female 20-24): 11th out of 29

swim (400 meters)/run to bike/transition 1: 11:04

Bike (14miles)/transition 2: 1:04:05

Bike rate: 14mph

Run (3 miles): 27:42

run pace: 9:14

finish: 1:42:51

I realize these aren't spectacular stats. But I wanted to finish in 2 hours, so finishing 17 minutes quicker than that makes me happy. Next year I'm aiming to get in the top 10 if not the top 5 of my division. This race wasn't for time or perfect form, it was just to figure out how the world of triathlons work. Next year I'll focus on time a little more. The only thing that was a problem was the swim start. Because it was in a pool, people started one at a time, according to how fast they could swim. So given that I'm a super slow swimmer I was literally one of last people to start (there were probably only 50 people behind me in line). So with 700ish people starting I had to wait almost two hours to start. By the time I ran out to my bike some people were already done.

But, enough of the bad and let me tell you about how amazing it was. The thing about races is that training is about 1000x worse than the race itself. When we got there at 6:10 am this morning people were already there and things were in full swing. It's such a cool atmosphere at races (specifically this tri). There's people riding their fancy road bikes down the street, others in their one piece body suits, and some setting shoes and bike helmets in their transition area. Plus during the race there's other people there doing the same thing you are so it makes it seem so much better. I can't even tell you how appreciative I am of encouraging volunteers on the course. It's just clapping and general encouragement that they give to everybody, but it's always helpful.

The whole thing was actually easier than I thought it would be. But, it helps that it was 55 degrees and cloudy, which I thought would be horrible but it's perfect weather because it's warm enough not to freeze from the pool, but cool enough to not feel like you want to collapse. The running part was easier than I thought it would be. I'm thinking it's because my legs were already so tired from biking, that I couldn't feel the pain. Usually I'm a 9:30 mile, and I'm confounded as to how I was able to run faster after biking 14 miles and swimming 400 meters than just running 3 miles straight up. Or maybe it's because I was thinking about pacing myself the whole time.

But, probably my favorite thing about races is the people. It's like races make it completely normal to become good friends with that stranger standing next to you. When you're sitting/standing there for two hours you find a lot of things to talk about with these complete strangers. Secondly I was amazed at the age range. I figured the ages would be from 18-50 and oh was I completely wrong. There was a group of 8-12 year olds, I only wish I was kidding. They could just zip through the course because they had no body weight to carry, plus they have a never ending supply of energy. Than there's the really old people, that was even more surprising. There was actually a guys age group from 75-90.....yeah. I think I passed that guy during the run and of course had to tell him how amazing he was for doing it and his response was "quitters never win, winners never quit" Wow, I hope I've got that mentality at 80 years old when running a triathlon.

Moral of the story: it was awesome and if you ever get the chance to do a sprint triathlon than do it.