Archive for the ‘Sport’ Category

Earlier this month I ran the Abbey Dash for the second time. It was their 30th birthday, making them even older than me. The photo above is me the next day. I did not look like that after the race. I looked more like an shrivelled old man about to have a heart attack.

The weather conditions were not ideal. It rained before the race, leaving us stood around for an hour in the cold and wet. Once the race started (at which point you actually want the rain to cool you down a bit) it backed off.

I was 22 second slower than last year, coming home in 1:07:58. Not brilliant, but I trained harder last year, so to get such a small difference entires de-values all the work I did for the 2014 Dash. It certainly wasn’t the nightmare that my friend Howell had, running a 32:10, over 6% slower than his target time. I’ll give him some tips for next year.

I made the mistake of putting 70 minutes as my expected time which bumped me down to the slowest starting pen. Next year I think I will bump it up as I have never run a 70+.

I am not sure they are quite as well organised as Run For All. There is only one water station and I had to skip that because there was a queue. There was no big banner for the finish line so I did not know when it was time for that very final push until it was almost upon me. I was unable to spot some of the kilometre distance markers either. Finally I did not get my time until more than 24 hours after, whereas Run For All text me in under a minute of finishing (which I was very impressed at, later in the day would have been fine).

July saw Leeds Samurai travel over to Manchester for a conference flag day. Ironically, despite it raining on every game day we have had so far, it was only when we went to Manchester, the place where it never stops raining, to have a dry day.

We lost our games to the Honey Badgers and Manchester Crows, but came up good against the Manchester Titans, taking our second league victory of the year with a last minute interception that secured a one point victory for us.

I really enjoy international women’s football because it punishes countries with high gender inequality more than anything the UN could ever do.

The Ivory Coast’s 10-0 drubbing at the hands of Germany is a classic example.

It is interesting though that whenever I asked anyone whether they had “seen the world cup?” the response was usually “oh the women’s football?”. In fairness, most of them had seen it. And why not? England did brilliantly! We should really look at this as our best opportunity to win a trophy.

We were (as an Englishman, and a supporter, I’m part of the team of course) unlucky to have lost to Japan and could easily have been in the final. That showed with our first ever victory over Germany – 21st time lucky!

April saw the first game day for the 2015 flag season. We played two games, one of which we won and one of which we lost. The win was particularly good as last year, the first year Leeds Samurai existed, the team didn’t quite manage to win any (though many of them were very close), so a great result for the team.

Also, I think I look very “snazzy” in my new jersey.

This was the first competitive game I’ve attended so it was a bit of a shock to the system. It took probably most of the first half for me to get into it and everything to stop moving so fast. It should be better going forward as I and the other new players adjust.

So, it’s happened then. For half a decade of working in sports betting I have gone no more into golf than my every-other-year concession to watching the Ryder Cup. However, I’m currently working with Sky Sports and it it is impossible to ignore not to get caught up in the buzz. This year I actually sat down and watched some of The Masters.

I say sat, I was really lying in bed. However, I managed to get through nearly an hour of it without failing asleep, which I suspect means I am getting old.

Not like Jordan Spieth. 21 years old and now a Master champion. I should point out at this point that he is ageing, he hasn’t found some magic cure for that. However, his fresh young face puts even Sebastian Vettel to shame. He dashed any hopes of Rory McIlroy completing his set of all four major championships (not that McIlroy even managed second), and now aged 25, it’s probably game over for him…

The 2015 Formula One season has arrived. What’s changed?

Team changes

The ten “big teams” remaining the same this year, but there are two changes further down the field. Caterham entered administration at the end of 2014 and never made it out. Their property is currently being auctioned off. Marussia did make it out of administration under the name Manor, but failed to make it in to the Australian Grand Prix.

Driver changes

The following drivers have not returned:

• Kevin Magnussen drops from McLaren’s front line to their test driver slot
• Jean-Eric Vergne leaves Toro Rosso
• Sauber drops both Adrian Sutil and Esteban Gutierrez (who has gone to Ferrari as a test driver)
• Kamui Kobayashi has no team left after Caterham folded
• Max Chilton has not survived Marussia’s change to Manor

Sadly, Marussia’s other driver, Jules Bianchi, remains in a coma following his crash during the Japanese Grand Prix.

Earlier this month saw NFL Super Bowl XLIX take place in Arizona. Normally I would have supported Seattle because they are great organisation, but I was so annoyed that they had knocked out the Green Bay Packers, I was on the side of the Patriots. Of course, now it’s over, you’ll just have to take my word for it.

It was certainly more interesting than last year which finished with a 35 point difference. This one finished with just 4 and when Seattle were driving in the last few minutes, it looks like they would take it. Only a strange decision by the Seahawks to throw, which ended in an interception, saved the Patriots.

That is not to take anything away from the Patriots though. The Belichick Brady team have now won 4 Super Bowl titles making them the most successful coach quarterback combination in NFL history.

Katy Perry’s halftime show was fine.

The crowning glory of the evening was Elina’s Super Bowl cake, featuring a Moomin making a field goal.

The Abbey Dash is 10km race that takes place in Leeds each year. It is in aid of Age UK and you literally run out to Kirkstall Abbey and back. It is also older than I am – just. This was the 19th annual dash.

I decided it would be less depressing to start right at the back this time and found it easier than the Run For All. I had enough energy to pick up the base for the last kilometre or two, rather than wondering whether I would live to see tomorrow.

That said, I came in at a slightly slower time of 01:07:36, which put me 8,459 out of a field of 10,000. Mostly retired women in my speed category. I don’t know how everyone else does it…

Recently I ran the Leeds 10k. I think it was the hardest run I have ever done. I was not expecting it to be that difficult as I run 10k quite regularly. However, it proved much more of a challenge doing it as an organised event.

That is not entirely unsurprising as my Parkrun times are usually slightly slower too. However, why it is, I am not entirely sure. The race is later in the morning and has less shade than my usual route, so I think heat had an effect. Also possibly lack of familiarity with the route.

At the start, you also spend half an hour crammed in with 10,000 other runners too, which was quite anxiety-provoking, so that probably took a bit out of me,

I finished in 1:06:14, which is about 8 minutes slower than my personal best when out running by myself. Not the complete disaster I was expecting though, from my pace on the home stretch I remember thinking I was on for a 1:20:00!

The event was well organised. They had water stations along the route, lots of volunteers to hand out goodie bags and you were texted your result within a minute of crossing the finish line.

I was very grateful for Elina coming to meet me too. I felt really ill after I ran 10k last week before attempting to run up to the park, so it was awesome to have someone bring me drinks and snacks.

Like many football fans, I have an incredibly complex system of national prejustices to work out what football team to support. Take Iran v Argentina for example. Which team am I supposed to support in this match? Iran has a terrible human rights record. However, Argentina was the last country to invade British soil, and worse cheated their way to a World Cup win in 1986.

How is one supposed to decide?

Ideally, someone would come up with a formula for working it all out. Geographic proximity, ancestry in a certain country, what you think of their politics, and how cool you think their flags and shirts are are all potentially important factors in deciding.

Once England are out, Germany are usually my B team (it is an unfortunate reality that being English you have to have a B team for when England get knocked out, but that is also true of all but a handful of countries) as having a Germanic name, it is the closest thing I can trace my ancestry to.

After that it is a question of geographic proximity. I hope France do well for example. Of course, I am supposed to hate the French, but it is very difficult to maintain such levels of casual racism against them in the 21st century. This then expands out in a circle in a “kilometres from me” fashion working out who to support.

It’s not quite that simple however. There are exclusions. I would not support Saudi Arabia for example, at least until they de-classify atheism as terrorism. Nor will I be supporting Qatar until they stop executing gay people.

Then you have to factor in the underdog level as well. We have been conditioned by decades of Hollywood films to support the underdog. In many ways it just glory supporting as if these films have taught me anything, it is that the underdogs always win. Plus it is just nicer when they do. Of course this runs in direct contradiction to the geographic rules as most of the best football teams are in Europe whereas the underdogs are on the “edge of the world” – Australia, Japan, South Korea, USA, Costa Rica, etc.

How do you balance it all? These first world problems just seem to go on and on…