Lance and Kobe

Thought I dedicate today’s post to two sports icons who made announcements that baffled me this morning.

First:  Kobe

Those of you who follow basketball and the Lakers in particular would surely know that Kobe played through an injured pinkie towards the latter part of the NBA season including the playoffs.  Even then, the doctors were already recommending surgery but being the competitor that he is, Kobe postponed the date with the surgeon until after the Beijing Olympics.  I remember admiring his competitive spirit then and I could understand the reasons why he decided to postpone the surgery.  The doctors stated that recovery would take around 2-3 months and Kobe didn’t want to miss out on what turned out to be a good run to the NBA Finals.  Participating in Beijing was also a no-brainer, Kobe wanted so bad to be part of ‘Redeem Team’ and as it turned out, he also played a big role in the gold medal game against Spain.  

NBA Training Camp opens in 3 weeks and the season itself would start the end of October.  Pretty good time to get that surgery don’t you think?  But I guess this is the reason why Kobe is Kobe and we are who we are….. Kobe just decided that he will not have surgery at all…….He said that the 12-week recovery period was just too much sacrifice and he wanted to use the training camp as a time to bond with his teammates, etc.  I don’t know, but I’m not sure I’m with Kobe on this one.  I mean his shooting hand is one good slap away from a total fracture and what will happen to the Lakers then?  PLEASE KOBE, GO GET THAT FREAKING SURGERY DONE AND LET’S LOOK FORWARD TO A WORRY-FREE NBA CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON FOR THE LAKERS, MAN!!!!!!!  

Next:  Lance

Lance Armstrong just announced that he’s coming out of retirement to do the Tour de France in 2009.  I guess running marathons just isn’t the same, huh?  7 Tour de France victories are not enough, huh? Hanging out with Kate Hudson is not enough, huh?  I guess this is the reason why Lance is Lance and we are who we are.  I have mixed feelings on this one.  Sure, I’m happy for Lance and want to see him climb the Pyrenees once again but then he was already at the pinnacle of the cycling world when he retired.    Just don’t want to see another Michael Jordan who just didn’t know when to quit.  

So there you go…. 2 bull-headed competitors throwing caution to the wind….This calls for Cheers! I guess?

But, what the heck, the 2008-2009 NBA season and 2009 Tour de France couldn’t start soon enough 🙂

Gearing up for O3

Nope, am not doing the long-distance triathlon for August 2 at Subic 🙂  Signed up to do the standard (the International Olympic Committee discourages the use of the word ‘olympic’ to describe a sport) distance which is 1.5k swim, 40k bike and 10k run.  Although, I’ve been doing triathlons for a year now, my experience at doing standard distances leave much to be desired.  Both of my attempts at the standard distance were at Subit (Subic International Triathlon) in 2007 and last May 2008.  

In 2007, my time was 3 hours 50 plus minutes.  The bike course then required the participants to do 3 loops up Binictican Hill.  Binictican is a 2km category 2 (don’t know what this means) climb.  Pamatay talaga, especially for a novice biker like me.  What made matters worse was that I had a flat tire when there were still 10kms to go.  I still remember telling myself then not to quit and just finish the race because sayang naman ang registration fee 🙂  So you could just imagine what Binictican was like with a flat tire.  Climbing up was not the hard part this time, instead, it was the descent which was pretty scary.  I had to hold on to the brakes all the time to prevent the bike from descending too fast because my rear wheel was skidding.     

Subit 2008 presented a different challenge.  Although Binictican was no longer part of the course, I was still trying to incorporate the Total Immersion technique in my swim and I wasn’t confident I could maintain my form in open sea for 1.5k.  True enough, sighting became a problem and if not for the kayaks roving around to guide me back to the buoy lines, I would have been swimming into the South China Sea already.  As mentioned earlier there was no Binictican, but 20 plus kms of rolling hills took its toll on me and I bonked on the run portion of the race.   Mostly walked the last 7km of the run.  My time was 3:18.  I consoled myself that it was still an improvement over 2007’s finish.  At least, there was no flat this time.  

As you can see, confidence issues linger in my quest to do a decent standard distance triathlon.  Am in the midst of training to make sure I don’t bonk again in O3 but you never know…  To use an analogy with basketball, where I am now is pretty much where the Lakers was in 1985 versus the Celtics.  Up until then, the Celtics OWNED the Lakers, especially in the 60’s.  Of course, it didn’t help that in Game 1 of the 1985 Finals, the Celtics routed the Lakers 148-114 in what eventually became known as the Memorial Day Massacre at the Boston Garden.  But then, the Lakers eventually did triumph over the Celtics that year (first time that the Lakers beat the Celtics in an NBA finals) and winning at no less than Boston’s homecourt at that, the fabled Boston Garden.  Hoping I too can conquer my own Celtics demons at O3 in August 🙂

Cheers.

Still, a Lakers fan…

It’s been two weeks since my favorite team got beat in beantown via a 131-92 thrashing in game 6 of the NBA finals.  Still a Lakers fan even though the bandwagon is right about empty at this point.  But what a ride huh? From Kobe’s trade demands in June 2007 to a place in the NBA Finals in 2008.  Can’t wait for the new season to start in November.  In the meantime, win the gold Kobe.  Heal up Andrew.  Sign up Sasha and Ronny.