Monday, December 6, 2010

Strike One!

Ok, so the Western States 100 lottery didn't work out for me this past weekend. Once again, my name wasn't drawn, so back into the pool it goes for next year. Oh, well. Tough to be too disappointed when friends Tammy, Mike, and Ric all got in though -  I look forward to cheering for you all next June. Congrats, Everyone!!!

Despite the continued lottery losing, the weekend wasn't a total bummer for me. I joined up with crew of my in-laws out in Dallas to cheer Nebraska in the Big 12 Championship game. Even though the game ended about as well for Nebraska as my WS lottery did for me, we all had a great time...Not to mention the fact that I was in complete awe of the JerryDome out there in Cowboys country. Holy Cow, that thing is HUGE!

 Blurry iPhone shot of 4 of us (Me, nephew Spencer, Paul & Jon - Jeff was taking the shot), but check out the insane size of that stadium!

  
 That HD scoreboard is 180-feet wide!! In fact, look out your window right now at home, you can probably see it from there!


 SO MANY Nebraska fans made the 700 mile drive from their home state...I bet the number of them in the stadium eclipsed the number of Nebraskans actually left in the state itself that night!

The casual observer might think Spencer is staring in awe at the football game, but I know the truth: He couldn't take his eyes off the Chick-Fil-A blimp (in the shape of a cow) flying around the inside of the stadium dropping free chicken sandwiches on parachutes. In his defense, it WAS pretty cool!

With the WS100 & Nebraska losses behind me now, I can rekindle some hope for Wednesday night's Massanutten lottery results. This is my best chance to get into one of my Big Three 100s for 2011 (along w/ WS and Hardrock), so I'm really hoping my luck changes in a couple days!

Since I should probably mention something about actual running in this post, I'll mention I took the day off work on Friday to enjoy a great 28-30 miler on the Bull Run course. The cold weather has its benefits when I can get that many miles in without re-filling my Camelbak. I enjoy that kind of freedom to explore out on the trails without worrying about resupply. I was happy I decided to wear my Hokas out there as well...the extra cushioning helped protect my feet from 43 million of the leaf-covered rocks/roots I stepped on. I don't think I could wear them all the time (still not 100% confident on the most technical & rocky terrain since I've rolled my ankle once or twice in them already), but I was happy to have them on Friday's run, that's for sure!

4 comments:

Amelia said...

I am so jealous you got to see the dome in person. Did any kick off end up hitting the giant screen? In other football news, Alexis and I are going to watch the Pats game together tonight. You should come!

Dan Rose said...

Not sure if they raised that Big Screen up since the initial reports of it being too close to the field, but after watching the game with all sorts of situational punts, I can say with almost 100% certainty that no one will hit that thing during the course of normal game play. It's waaaay up there.

Of course I should mention the punters from both teams were trying to hit it during warm-ups, but the stadium announcer came on the PA and told them to stop!

Amelia said...

Ha! That is quite amusing. In other amusing news, did you see that Malone's Revenge scored 49 points this week? Too bad you don't have a Wade Phillips around to fire immediately. At the very least I think the team needs some sort of inspirational speech to get their lazy selves back on track.

Ric Munoz said...

Thanks for sharing the pix of the Jerry Dome -- excellent quality, as per usual. I hope the disappointment of the 'Huskers loss was assuaged a bit by the thrashing that the Pats gave to the Turbo-Props, err, Jets last night!

And thanks for linking Tammy's WS lottery story -- it was great!