Running, my love, I hate you

Running (not sprinting) can be cool. I swear.

When I was a freshman in high school, I wasn't an especially good runner. I headed to the regional meet that my team had qualified for to watch them and watch my brother run for his school. His team was racing in the toughest division in the state, and probably wasn't going to make it out, so it was almost certainly going to be his final cross country race.

I ended up not really watching my brother. His race, which featured the best three teams in the state, also featured the top two runners in the state, the only guys who had a chance of winning the Ohio Division 1 race a week later. Their names were Levi Fox and Jeff See, and they had a rivalry of sorts that probably existed more in my head than in real life, because their schools were not rivals in any sense. Those two had placed first and second in every common race they'd run that year; See first, Fox second.

So while See went into the region as the overwhelming favorite, there was just no way you could count Levi (this is what everybody called them at the time: See by his last name and Levi by his first. This doesn't indicate preference or familiarity for me, it would just feel weird to refer to them any other way) out; he had that incredible long hair flopping in the wind and was running unbelievably fast times.

You especially couldn't count Levi out once the race had started. 400 meters after the start, Levi Fox was 75 meters clear of the field. After months of running with See and slowly falling back, Levi had had enough. He decided to go for it, and see if See could reel him in. He'd be running alone, making it more difficult on himself, but at least he would make See work for a win, and know it.

By a mile, he had to be 200 meters ahead. It was unbelievable. The best runner in the state looked like he might lose.

Of course he wouldn't stay ahead by that much. Going out so fast meant he would be trying to hold on, not win going away. This is the nature of distance running. See started reeling him in. Still, past the two-mile mark, Levi had the lead. You could see his tactic had had an effect. See was working harder than normal, it was visible from his facial expression.

Jeff See ended up catching Levi Fox and winning the race by about 15 meters. Levi was so spent at the finish line he looked like your run-of-the-mill half-marathoner who went out too fast and paid the price at the finish. He might as well have lost his legs 100 meters back. But he finished.

That remains among the most excited I've ever been watching a sporting event (we'll call running a sport for simplicity's sake). Watching those two go at it, and watching Levi go for it, even though he failed, was thrilling. There's no comparison for that type of decision in any other sport. But it was amazing to watch.

We rarely see this type of thing in elite running these days, where the accepted style is to go slower than most runners are capable of running for most of the race, then turn it into an unbelievable sprint over the final 100/200/lap (American Leo Manzano probably benefited from this type of racing in the men's 1500-meter this Olympics, in a shocking result for him).

That's why distance running is boring. Unless you're a huge fan, you didn't appreciate Galen Rupp's fantastic final 800 to grab silver in the 10k at these Olympics. For the most part, that race was run in a tightly-packed group. While it spread at the end, it was easy for a great deal throughout.

Nobody had any guts. Nobody wanted to make a move and take a chance. Evidently it's much wiser to sit back and try to out-sprint Ethiopians and Kenyans. That has worked a few times in these Olympics, but not very often otherwise.

There's a reason Steve Prefontaine is the most well-like and revered American runner ever, even though he won nothing. Prefontaine took races out from the start and made everyone kill themselves trying to keep up. That way, all he had to do was out-gut them over the final lap. He made races a battle and wasn't scared of anybody. Today, professional distance runners are in a type of condition I can't even imagine. But none of them are interested in using it. It's a shame, because if they did, people might start to realized the 1500 and 5k are way cooler races than the 100 or the 200.

I'm a distance runner, I'm probably biased. But I do think I appreciate the speed and power generated by sprinters. One of the best sprinters in the state went to my high school. He was running the 100 about a second slower than it took Usain Bolt to finish. While a second is a long ways on the track, seeing that power up close (which I did many times) is still amazing. It was something to marvel at, something I would never be able to duplicate.

It's just that the sprints, while cool, are more home-run derby or dunk contest. They're fun, but not as good as the actual game. Middle-distance and distance running is the actual game.

All the sprinting I've seen in person and on TV has never had the effect on me the race between Jeff See and Levi Fox did. See and Fox haven't amounted to much as runners at the international level. Imagine the show their counterparts in the Olympics could be giving us.

Bolt Strikes Again

Why did anyone think Usain Bolt was going to lose?

Because he had lost in the Jamaican trials to Yohan Blake?

Because he had been disqualified in a previous race for a false start?

Did we all forget about that race in 2008, where Bolt ran six-hundredths faster than Blakes personal best time by celebrating the final 10 meters?

Come on. Usain Bolt is 6-5. Blake is 5-11. Justin Gatlin is 6-feet even and Tyson Gay is 5-11. In an event where a tenth of a second is an enormous amount of time, Bolt's height advantage (and lengthier stride) is making all the difference when he can turn his legs over as quickly as all the other guys.

Only a false start or injury was going to make a difference in this race. As it happened, Bolt got the worst start of the four men in the race who mattered. And then he blew them all away.

What about the last time we saw Bolt at the Olympics, when he ran unlike anything we'd ever seen before in sprinting, made us think 2012 would be any different?

The Majesty of the Olympics

There have been some ugly happenings in these Olympics. Korean swimmer Park Tae-Hwan was given a phantom disqualification in the qualifying rounds for the 400-meter freestyle (in fairness, he was allowed back in after an appeal. That should never have been necessary, though). Then Shin A Lam, also of Korea (hopefully just a coincidence), was cheated out of a medal opportunity by judges feeling lazy or something.

Now we're getting this nonsense about badminton players being disqualified because they were losing to try and influence who they played later on. Let's be clear, though. This isn't ugly because players were trying to lose. It's ugly because the Olympic committee embarrassed itself in overreacting to the low level of play.

Supposedly those badminton players "violated the Olympic ideal and the spirit of fair play." I'm not sure how that can be. To me, the ultimate goal when going to the Olympics is to win the gold medal. This is a new format for Badminton. In past Olympics, Badminton was a single elimination tournament. This year, a round-robin preliminary round was introduced. The disqualified teams (which included the Chinese world champions) were simply trying to utilize it to give them an easier path to win gold.

Let's flip the scenario. Fast-forward to the 2014 World Cup, where the U.S. has won its first two games in group play and is now playing Brazil, also 2-0. Meanwhile, in another group, Germany gave up a late goal in its first game to take a tie, and then suffered a stunning loss to the Ivory Coast in its third game. With four points, the Germans are moving on, but lost the group to Le Cote d'Ivoire.

With a spot in the round of 16 secured, the U.S. decides to sit several starters and delivers a pitiful performance, losing 5-0 to Brazil. As a result, Brazil plays Germany in the round of 16 while America gets Ivory Coast...is any American soccer fan upset with this result? Is anyone made the U.S. chose to lose in order to play a weaker opponent? NOOOOOOOO! Why is it any different for these badminton players? Sure, those games with both teams trying to blow it must have sucked to watch, but they didn't matter. They weren't going to tank it anymore. And with some of the best badminton doubles teams out of the tournament now, it's an even bigger joke than their pitiful matches were.

That's why it's nice to remember why the Olympics are actually pretty awesome. Despite the IOC being about as bad as the NCAA ("If you wear that shiny teeth thingy on the stand Ryan, we won't give you your medal. You may have earned it, but not if your teeth aren't normal."), there are always going to be these really cool moments coming from the Olympics.

Like this one. Kayla Harrison became the first-ever American to win a gold medal in Judo. I know nothing about Judo, and watching a replay of her match was the first time I'd ever seen it competitively. But Harrison's medal ceremony was incredible. The Ohio native (yeah!) tried to contain her emotions, but couldn't manage it once the notes from the "Star Spangled Banner" began.

Harrison was a world champion in Judo already, but somehow the Olympic championship has more meaning to just about everybody. It sure does to me. Watching Harrison (who, like so many Olympians in this super-fringe sports, is just a normal person who also works really, really hard at her sport on the side. She's hoping to get selected as a firefighter when she gets home. Not go be in a CrossFit ad or get sponsored by Nike for her badass-edness. No, she's going to put her life on the line. Come on!) break down at the beginning and end of our national anthem had me tingling all over and tearing up. I can't explain why I was so affected; it was just an amazing moment.

Seeing the Packers win the Super Bowl didn't inspire that type of response. Hearing the national anthem at the Olympic medal ceremony and watching an everyday, down-to-earth young woman from Ohio, who I probably won't ever see again, celebrate a judo championship did.