Pride comes before...the epic fail

This video and photo don't do this moment justice.  Seeing the moment from this angle doesn't communicate the utter hilarious failure of the runner in the orange jersey - read on, friends -  



Too soon to cruise...



This race was part of the Big 12 Indoor Track and Field Championships last weekend.  (I was fortunate enough to have tickets on the finish line! – Thank you, Johny!)   This is a photo of the finish of the men’s mile run. 

Let me set the scene: 

Indoor track meets are interesting events in and of themselves because there are twice as many laps in every event because the track is only 200 meters, so for the mile, there are 8 laps.  After several of these long races, and because there are six field events going on simultaneously, people get a little ADD and start not paying attention, but this, my friends, was like a visual magnet – you know, like how everything suddenly gets deathly quiet as you make a loud and awkward comment about something and then everyone looks at you…

Ok, back to the scent - the OSU kid (the runner in the orange jersey with #3 – heretofore known as Mr. OSU #3) had led the race for 7 ¾ laps, and you can see how close the other runners are to him – the pack was no more than ten yards spread the whole time.  It was a very close, very predictable and, well, boring race. 

Until…

It was the last homestretch, and Mr. OSU #3 glanced over his right shoulder, to the outside, and saw no one was competing with him for the last 10 yards, so he kicked it into cruising gear for that last little stretch.  Just then, Rico Loy (that’s really his name, poor thing – the runner from Iowa State), pushes through on the inside, just as Mr. OSU #3 raised his hand in this pointed victory gesture. The crowd of 2000 erupted in laughter and then in applause as Rico pulled ahead of presumptuous Mr. OSU #3  to win the race in the last three yards as Mr OSU #3 saw Rico pass. 

OSU #3 turned as red as I have ever seen another human being who hasn’t been at Padre Island for Spring Break, and he stayed that color even through the medals presentation several minutes later. Of course, he should have been that embarrassed for wearing such a god-awful color (I’m sure that their color blind coach or T. Boone Pickens chose the shade of hunter’s orange for these jerseys). 

It kinda served him right, though – you gotta keep it going through the finish!

This was not the only demonstration of this principle on this day – the Kansas State high jumper was trying to set the number one high jump mark in the nation, so the announcer kept drawing everyone’s attention to him before he jumped, and he made the crowd clap in unison before he started – well, every time he did this, he failed miserably.  Every time no one seemed to be watching, he was marevelously flawless in his approach and in his form – it was like watching the sun shine it was so natural and perfect.  Until he tried to show off for the crowd. 

So, what’s the takeaway here? 

Pride comes before the fail –

and don’t rest on your laurels
if your laurels are still 10 yards away. 

http://www.cyclones.com/mediaPortal/player.dbml?catid=-2&id=849912
this link is to the video of Rico talking about the race - he's not a great interview, but hey, not everyone can be stellar at everything -

Someday May Never Come

My to-do app on my phone has three time designations – Today, Tomorrow and Someday.  I wonder about the Somedays.  I mean, it really does sound like an honest to goodness day of the week.  It would sound even more like a day of the week of we used it a little differently.  Instead of “Someday, I’d like to eat Sushi there,” it might be easier to think of Someday as an actual day of the week if it was said like this, “Does anyone want to eat Sushi there for lunch on Someday?” (It works better if you give the ‘e’ a little black Baptist preacher getting-uh worked up-uh about-uh Jesus-uh in her sermon-uh sound like “sum-uh-day”).

Someday, I would love to climb a fourteener in Colorado.  Someday, I would love to tube down the Guadalupe.  Someday, I would love to tour Viking sites in northern Europe. Someday, I would like to visit a city and only eat at places featured on “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” (and then spend time becoming acquainted with a cardiologist and a personal trainer).  


Someday, I would love to do all kinds of exciting things like this and more, but most of these really are the kinds of things that are best experienced with other people.  Someday, I’ll pitch one of these activities and someone will actually say they want to do it too and then we’ll actually make plans and actually have a really great story to tell! My Dad has always said that Someday, he wants to go to Alaska, but he has always been waiting for Someday to roll around.  The truth is that Someday may never come.  It’s not a real day of the week, though I tend to treat it that way.

I don’t know when the Someday tasks on my app actually roll over onto the Tomorrow screen, and then Tomorrow becomes Today. (Dont you love how it is sunny and kind of dreamy on Someday?) I don’t have anything entered on that screen, as you can see.  I think you have to actually intentionally move those Someday tasks onto an actual real day in the actual real future.  Otherwise, Someday will always just be out there in the Land of Intentions, which I imagine to be like the neon graveyard outside Las Vegas where all of the once glitzy and flashy neon signs are now rusting, broken and forgotten.  


So this leaves me with a decision.  I can plan tasks and other adventurous excursions for Someday, or I can really actually plan them for Tomorrow, or even better – for Today.  Now that puts a smile on my face.