The Boston Marathon was last
Monday, and I was delighted to see
how the race ended. Well, I would
have liked to see Ryan Hall finish
three seconds earlier so that he
could have stood on the podium,
but that’s just splitting shoelaces.
If you didn’t catch it, the
overall winner of the race was a
21-year-old Kenyan named Robert
Kiprono Cheruiyot. There is nothing
surprising, I suppose, about
the victor hailing from Kenya, but
what was surprising is the time in
which he finished – Cheruiyot finished
the Boston course in 2:05:52.
For those of you who are not
able to appreciate that fully, he ran
26.2 miles with an average pace of
4:48, a record in the 114-year-old
Boston race.
What I love about him is that
he picked up $150,000 for winning
and an additional $25,000 for setting
the record… and he’s a farmer.
I grew up on a dairy farm, so I
couldn’t help but smile a bit when
he was asked what he’s going to do
with his earnings.
His answer? “I am going to
buy some cows.” Not a bad way
to reward yourself after winning a
marathon.
Speaking of marathons, the
Boston Marathon also welcomed
71 marathoners from Greece to
celebrate the 2,500th anniversary
of the Battle of Marathon in, well,
Marathon, Greece.
The distance of current-day
marathons celebrates the jaunt
that Pheidippides took from
Marathon to Athens to inform the
Athenians of their victory. There is
speculation as to whether or not
this event actually occurred at all,
but people also forget to mention
that this supposed messenger ran
much more than just this.
He supposedly ran to Sparta
from Athens to ask for Spartan
assistance against the invading
Persians. And since he ran to
Sparta, he obviously had to run
back to Athens to tell them the
Spartans were going hold off.
After this, he returned to
Marathon to fight, and then made
his commemorative run to Athens
after victory. Most people assume
he ran the “short” 25 miles from
Marathon to Athens, but he clearly
ran over 300 miles in a stretch of a
week. Nothing unusual there.
And speaking of a week,
what a week it has been for Ben
Roethlisberger. Since I am a bit
of a numbers guy, it was kind of
nice to see that Roethlisberger’s
reported suspension will initially
be six games for this
upcoming year. How will this
suspension affect his secondfavorite
item in his pants, his
wallet?
The six-game suspension
means he will miss out on just
over $2.84 million. But, just like
we saw last year with Mike Vick,
the suspension will probably
drop by a few games. Vick’s
suspension changed to only
two games after initially being six.
We will just have to see what happens
to Ben.
My favorite find was on my
new sports information gatherer:
Twitter. On Wednesday, Packer
player Will Blackmon tweeted
with classic football-player grammar,
“To have a sexual assault
charge against you must mean
you have No game.” I thought that
was a classy way for a peer of
Roethlisberger’s to put it.
There were also reports
that the Steelers brass – weird,
isn’t it? – were looking to shop
Roethlisberger for an earlier pick
in the draft – the Santonio Holmes
route of “good riddance” – but, as
of writing, there were no reports of
any takers of Ben’s baggage.
For those not interested in sexual
harassment or long-distance
running, here’s the sports news of
the past week in soundbite form:
LeBron James is still LeBron James,
Big Papi is now “Big Pop-up,” Ray
Allen still has that stroke, a very
strange goal bit the Sharks in overtime,
the Penguins really know
how to play on ice, Scott Podsednik
is still one of my favorites – as is
his wife – and Kobe never commits
a foul.
Hope to see a good turnout at
the party at Sigma Phi Epsilon on
Saturday. Still, if there is a game on
the television, you will probably be
able to find me there.
Ramble on the roof
