Thursday, July 10, 2008

RANDOM THOUGHTS

A hard workout and a happy hour last night means I slept in today. I’ll get a run in later tonight. Here are some random thoughts;

I’m not sure if it’s because the Olympic Trials were taking place or because of all the doping scandals last year, but I nearly forgot the Tour de France was taking place. Let’s see, we had the Trials in late June/early July, then the Tour. After a 2 week break the Games will be here. Then summer will be over.

I was reading an article in Outside magazine the other night about a bike team that’s taking a proactive approach to cleaning up the sport. Rather than focusing on drug testing that detects the drugs, they create a profile of each rider and then continuously test them to monitor for the effects the drugs would have on their body. Not a perfect system, but it seems like a step in the right direction.

Any other USATF members out there? Anyone else thing their Fast Forward magazine is pretty lame? The pictures are the best part. However, the info is usually 2 months old. For example, the latest issue has a recap of the women’s marathon trials. And the “articles” are very short recaps that aren’t very exciting. Here’s a sentence I found interesting in one particular recap;

At four miles, Abdirahman pulled away from Browne at five miles and extended his lead to four seconds at the finish.

Huh?

Finally, even though I grew up in Wisconsin, it took about 15 years before I realized that the old glove logo on the Milwaukee Brewers hat was made up of an “m” and a “b”.

Quote of the day;

“In 2004 (Olympics), I felt very lonely. The Olympics is not what is used to be. It doesn't have the power. People are getting caught up in winning the gold medal, the silver medal, the bronze medal, the endorsements. It's too commercial. People are losing sight of what the Olympics is about.” - Anthony Famiglietti

9 comments:

Bill said...

Chad, I wondered the same thing when I got my Fast Forward
magazine Yesterday. Among the outdated an Olympic Trials preview with the televison schedule. Nice!

Anonymous said...

I never picked up on the "m" and "b" thing either. I'm going to quiz Brewer fans to see how common this knowledge is.

Double

Eric said...

When I was a kid, I couldn't figure out why the Montreal Expos logo looked like 'elb'. I thought, 'what the hell is elb, and what does it have to do with baseball?". Much later, I realized it was a tri-colored 'm'.

Is that the sign of a good logo, or a terrible one? The Brewers' logo is pretty clever, though.

crossn81 said...

I agree with the Fast Forward being pretty lame, but it is fun to see all the pictures. You would think they could produce a top notch magazine or maybe just make it a photolog of recent major events. I'm surprised Runnerville hasn't picked up on it yet.

Anonymous said...

I love logos that have "tricks" like that -- I think they are very clever. Two other notables that I've seen are the logos for
The Big Ten Conference and Fed Ex. I did not notice either of these until someone else pointed them out to me.

Chad said...

Bill & Cross, if it weren't for the local racing scene, I don't know if I'd even be a USATF member. Seriously, what are the benefits?

Double, maybe it was too confusing and that's why they changed logos.

Eric, I'd agree, the Brewers logo is clever, while the Expos isn't.

Brian, I know the Big Ten logo has the "hidden" 11, but I don't see anything in the FedEx logo. What am I missing.

Anonymous said...

The white space between the "E" and the "x" forms a forward-pointing arrow.

Sunshine said...

Isn't this an incredible weekend?!
I have been so tired of the heat (even though I grew up in Iowa.)
Sweet Pea and I enjoyed 8.6 miles on Gateway.. in that fresh breeze this morning.

Wayne said...

I agree that the best part about Fast Forward are the pictures. By the time we receive the magazine, we've already read a ton of articles on the races.