Continental Airlines Fifth Avenue Mile

I had no idea this even existed until the New York Times posted an article on Sunday about its results. The Continental Airlines Fifth Avenue Mile is pretty self-explanatory as it is a race that is a mile long going south on Fifth Avenue from 80th street to 60th street. Two Olympians fresh from competition in Beijing took part in the race -Bernard Lagat and Shannon Lowbury- both finished in second place. While the participation of these two athletes is what prompted the New York Times to feature the article, I didn't really care too much about them.
What caught my attention about this race other than the fact that it was in New York City, was the result times. They were ridiculously fast. The winner of the men's mile race timed in 3 minutes 50.5 seconds, and the winner of the women's race timed in 4 minutes 18.6 seconds. New York Times writer Frank Litsy explained the course as "it runs slightly downhill for the first quarter-mile, significantly uphill for the next quarter-mile and slightly downhill again for the last half-mile." With so much downhill running, the speed is obviously faster, but I was shocked still. Could you even imagine running that fast?
What also seemed really cool about the race was that it was open to anyone who wanted to run the mile. It was reported that people of all ages came and did the mile, including a 98-year-old man who walked it, taking 22 minutes 10 seconds to complete it.

Big Changes Ahead for the Minnesota Vikings

Big changes are being made for the Minnesota Vikings, in preparation for this Sunday's game against the Carolina Panthers.  Coach Brad Childress has decided to bench his 25-year-old quarterback  Tarvaris Jackson, for Gus Frerotte, who according to the Associated Press has played with seven teams in his 15 years in the NFL.  

I'm sure there are many out there who really could care less about such a switch, with the Vikings being such a hopeless team for quite sometime, not winning a single superbowl and not even having played a superbowl game since 1977.  Yet for as long as I can remember, I have been a Vikings fan.  I have Jerry Ball and Randy Moss jerseys hidden in the back of my closet and have been to a number of Vikings games- not one of them resulted in a victory.   So needless to say thanks to my dad's random love for the team, I too have grown to care.  

I'm not going to lie and say I read stats and study the team, but I check out what's going on with the Vikings at the beginning of each season and watch them when I can.  Before this season started, it seemed to me that they were looking pretty good, and I was excited to see how they would turn out during the first couple of games.

 Now facing an 0-2 record, I agree that the Vikings need to make this change.  With Jackson having accuracy issues and only completing 51 percent of his passes, Coach Childress pinpointed what needed to be done.  In a recent interview with the New York Times, Childress comments on the switch he decided to make.  "'I'm just not seeing right now the aggressiveness from Tarvaris that I saw throughout the off-season, training camp, the two preseason games that he played in,' Childress said.  'And part of it may be experience. I know Gus will give us that.  And I know his approach will also lend itself to that.'"

It's hard to say whether or not this is a good decision, but it definitely is a ballsy one, especially since Childress seems pretty set with it.  This could be a smart move just for that fact that the Panthers are 2-0 and I mean what's the worst that could happen?  They've already lost two games, might as well test out new waters.  All I know for sure is that this Sunday's game will definitely be very interesting (at least for me) and the pressure is on for the Vikings to prove that they have something to show for the rest of this season.  

Lance Armstrong Is Going For Eight: Can He Do It?

How would Lance Armstrong handle defeat? He was victorious in his fight against a violent strain of testicular cancer when the odds were against him. He was victorious seven consecutive times at the Tour de France against countless competitors. He was also victorious in creating LiveStrong and the Lance Armstrong Foundation. So why now at the age of 37, after already having announced his retirement from professional cycling, is Armstrong coming back into the game? The answer is easy, because he was defeated. Armstrong finished 2nd in the Leadville 100 “Race Across the Sky” back in August. In an exclusive interview with Vanity Fair, (to whom he announced his comeback), Armstrong comments about his finishing second. “This kind of obscure race totally kick-started my engine,” he told writer Douglas Brinkley, “I’m going to try and win an eighth Tour de France.” Later on in that article Armstrong also admitted his disdain for failure. “I fear failure,” he said, “I have a huge phobia around failure. And that’s probably a good thing.”
It seems with Armstrong’s attitude that the question of how he would handle defeat seems trivial; he will not be defeated. While many wonder if he has enough time to train for the 2009 race, (he has already begun training), the real issue appears to be in the fact that Armstrong is not the young cyclist he once was. Yet the 2008 Beijing Olympics helps conquer that worry as a number of athletes over the age of 35 medaled, some earning the gold medal. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens in the next year with Armstrong, but I for one believe that if he could defeat cancer and then go on to win the Tour de France seven times-in-a-row, I’m sure one more is very possible.

For more information on the Lance Armstrong Vanity Fair article, check out vanityfair.com or click this link- Lance Armstrong Rides Again