Churchill Cup Recap

Earlier this summer (Sun 21.Jun.09 to be exact) I found myself soaking up some rays and watching rugby at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, CO.  The Churchill Cup had come to town and how could I miss a triple header finals day? Long time readers of OpenKimono will recall I’ve written about rugby in the past and that I’m a big fan of the game.

Dave at Dick's

Rugby still doesn’t gather the interest in the US it should: my buddy Todd and I were able to walk up to the ticket counter and snare a pair of seats about 15 rows up from the pitch at midfield.  $40 apiece.  Inside, it was evident a sell-out of this relatively small 18,000 seat stadium wasn’t going to happen that day even though the matches featured:

• Canada vs. Argentina Jaguars A (a regular, national team against an “alternate”, development team)
• England Saxons vs. Ireland A (both of these are the “alternate”, development teams)
• USA Eagles vs. Georgia (both of these were their regular, national teams)

Although none of the Tri Nations big boys from the southern hemisphere (AUS, NZL, RSA) or the Six Nations national sides from Europe (ENG, FRA, IRE, ITA, SCO, WAL) participated, it was still international rugby and far better than I’d ever seen in person.

The CAN / ARG match was fast paced and chippy.  The Argentine side didn’t look all that big (I saw them up close after the match), but they were all fast and kicked with precision.  I suppose this is where all the soccer players that get too many red cards end up.  They pulled away in the second half and won by a couple tries.

The ENG / IRE match was just plain brutal.  I don’t think those guys like each other much, although I imagine a lot of the players are teammates on professional club sides in the UK.  It was pretty even the first half, but in the second, the Irish rolled and practically scored at will.  This doesn’t bode well for England’s future in the bigger competitions.

By the time the USA / GEO match was finally ready to go, we’d had enough.  Sun burned and nauseous from beer and nachos, we packed it in and skipped the last match which I found out later USA had taken with ease.  The USA is coming on as a Sevens power, but still struggles to put forth a solid full side, thus the 13-31 score really speaks to how far Georgia needs to come to compete on the world stage.  Still, as of this moment, they sit above the USA in the IRB World Rankings.  Go figure.

Soooo…. what’s the point of this post?  Could one not gather this same info from the good folks at Scrum.com?  Surely.  But you’d miss my little editorial about how the American rugby community, while small, is enthusiastic.  We sat next to a fellow that was about my age and his father.  After a bit of small talk, it was evident both of them had played in their younger years and the game was a common thread between them.  They were having a great time, talking trash, talking strategy.  Pretty cool to see that in this country.  Later, as I was walking the pavilion to get an adult beverage, I was flagged down by a South African guy.  He spotted me in my Springboks jersey and had assumed I was an import like himself.  We chatted for a while, talking a bit about South Africa and rugby in general.  It was evident he was pleased to find a fan of his national team half a world from home.  And I enjoyed reconnecting with a sports culture that draws out national pride unlike anything in the USA aside from the minority of soccer fans in the country cheering for our side to qualify for World Cup 2010.

I guess that’s one of the reasons I was drawn to rugby 15 years ago, and soccer more recently, because it’s a world game unlike American football.  In most of the English speaking world, you can find someone able to have a beer and talk about rugby.  That’s very appealing to me as I truly enjoy being part of the larger world.

2008: A Brief Year in Review

Let’s see.  What happened this year?  Quite a bit actually.

According to my 2008 annual report from Dopplr, I traveled 189,838 km (52% of the distance to the moon) to achieve an average “personal velocity” of 21.8 km/hr over the year.  And that doesn’t count my Nike Training Log totals for 133 runs (572 mi over 81 hrs 31 min).  I spent many, many hours coaching soccer, playing soccer, watching soccer or talking about soccer, but I still love it.  I shut down my business and opened up a new career chapter.  Bought a house, sold a house, then refinanced a house.  Hosted a family reunion for 13 and a Thanksgiving dinner for 13.  Crested 500 business connections in LinkedIn and 170 friends in Facebook.  Watched my investment portfolio crater, then shifted gears to take advantage of the market opportunity.  Grew my MP3 collection to more than 4,300 tracks (with many, many more CDs yet to rip) and converted 722 35mm slides to digital images.  I shoveled, mowed, mulched, weed whacked and leaf blowed a whole bunch.  Posted a rather lame 27 times on this blog.  Gotta do better than every other week in 2009, but not exactly off to a blazing start, am I?  I did fire up rockymtnfuller.com, so that has to count for something.

Anyway, a busy year with another on the way.

Now, I leave you with this: JibJab’s usual irreverent compilation of recent events encapsulated in their short film entitled What a @#$% Year! 2008.

ColderBOLDER08

On Friday I was just minding my own business and wrapping up work for the week when my buddy (we’ll call him… Eric Phipps) busted in on IM and said:

Eric:    I am running colder boulder this weekend.  Are you?
Dave:    nope.  no run for me.  didn’t even know about that.  i could do it though
Eric:    well if you do let me know – were having beers afterqwards probably at lazy dog on pearl streeet mall

What is the ColderBOLDER you ask?  It’s the little brother of the BolderBOULDER 10k.  A 5k race, this run is part of big brother’s race training series.  Normally, the weather this time of year would be pretty chilly thus the Colder moniker, but this morning I found myself sitting at Buchanan’s Coffee Pub staring at gray skies and 52°F at 8am.  Not bad.

The race course runs through and around the perimeter of the University of Colorado at Boulder and, like the 10k, is impeccably organized.  I did a walk in registration with no problem.  The race is run in waves according to your most recent 10k time, so you can go out and shoot for a official PR quite easily.

Now, I haven’t been running a ton lately; 3 days a week around my neighborhood 4.5mi loop plus pick-up soccer on Saturdays when the weather is nice, thus my expectations were for about a 25 min time.  Where did I finish? 21:43.  And I didn’t throw up (but it was close).

Afterwords, I rolled home to observe Julie and the kids trimming our Christmas tree , but that’s another story that’s probably never to be told.

2008 Fall Soccer Season Wrap

After approximately 40 practices and 16 games over 11 weeks, the fall club soccer season is finally over here in Colorado.  It was a pretty grueling run with 5 practices most weeks and a pair of games on Saturdays, but I loved every minute of it.  Hopefully in the spring I can wrangle a schedule with practices on the same nights instead of opposite nights.

How’d we do?  Well, my older daughter’s U9G team was pretty spectacular.  We went 6-1-0 (W-L-D) with an average margin of victory probably in the 5-6 goals range.  The single loss was due to a break down in goal keeping (coaching error, really).   Speed kills, as the saying goes, and this team was blessed with it.  Hopefully, the group will stick together in the spring as the other coach and myself are pretty set on moving up one notch in the competitive spectrum.

Dad coaching in the background

My younger daughter’s U7G team, on the other hand, wasn’t anything close to dominating.  We don’t keep scores or league tables that young, but I’d be surprised if we were even a .500 team.  But we were doing a number of things that teams in this age group don’t normally do, particularly an emphasis on positions in addition to the usual ball control work.  Some of this was influenced by the work I was doing with the older girls and hopefully it will pay dividends in the spring.

Next up? Basketball and indoor soccer!

Futbol Fever

Like many of you, I have kids who play soccer.  Both of my girls continue to improve and seem to really enjoy the game, one on a U7 team and another on a U9 advanced team.  As in the past, I’ve been coaching their teams.  It’s actually a ton of fun, but a bit of work for me as I didn’t play as a kid and I have to learn everything at the same time I’m trying to teach it.

This fall I’ve managed to end up with a schedule that has me coaching my older daughter Mon, Wed and Fri and the younger on Tue and Thu.  Games start this coming weekend with two matches every Sat.  Plus I’m still trying to play myself on Sat mornings when there isn’t a conflict.  On top of all this, I serve on the board of Broomfield Soccer Club as the Technology Director.

So, soccer is pretty much my number one leisure time activity at this point.  In fact, I’m less worried about the girls burning out on soccer than I am about burning myself out.  Still, it’s worth it to me to have this time with my kids and to work with them and their friends outdoors.

Not sure what the point of this post is other than my soccer experience reminds me a little of time I spent doing Scouting activities as a kid.  It was THE thing that I did with my dad and brothers, so there are quite a few fond memories.  I hope that even if my children don’t continue playing soccer into high school (and perhaps beyond), they will look back and remember the fun, the camaraderie and the challenge.

That is all.  Over and out.

BolderBOULDER08

BolderBOULDER 2008 has come and gone in the race’s 30th anniversary addition. I once again competed, but unlike 2007, this year I ran my own race just to see what would happen and achieved a much faster result. In fact, I was only 37 seconds slower than 2002. I guess this means I’ll have to do it again next year and see if I can pull off a PR.

I didn’t train particularly hard this time around, averaging only about 11 to 13 miles per week over the past 3 months plus a few Saturday morning pick-up soccer matches. I did “cram” the last week before the race, cranking up the distance to near 20 miles and slipping in a couple sessions in the pool, but not sure if the final week’s push helped or hurt me. Still, I exceeded my expectation of a 5:00 min / km average pace, so I’m good with that. Citizen’s Race winner? 31 year old Clint Wells in 30:52. Maybe next year will be mine? (yeah, right.)

As in the past, the course was packed with goofballs, families, first time racers, old warhorses and everything else in between. The spectator side show was entertaining once again and the race organization was brilliant. Even the weather was to my liking, with an overcast 60ºF topped off by a few sprinkles around 9:00am.

Congratulations, BolderBOULDER, on another year in the record books.

Dave’s BolderBOULDER Race History
(I seem to be re-setting the trend in the right direction.)

Year	Bib Number	Last Name	First Name	Official Time	Age
2001	MM518	Fuller	David	00:54:25	30
2002	GG348	Fuller	David	00:47:31	31
2007	HD396	Fuller	David	01:03:02	36
2008	HB022	Fuller	David	00:48:06	37

Bonk Free Boston

Around Christmas 2005 I found myself looking for a challenge. Not sure why, but I was. During a conversation with my friend Randy, he said “Why don’t we pick out a spring marathon? It would be a good excuse to workout and keep off the winter flab.” There are a fair number of spring marathons (including two of the megas: London and Boston) which I guess is a reaction to this common insanity of setting a spring time end goal for an intense winter training project. I cannot imagine how many foolhardy marathon attempts begin with such a conversation, but I suspect there are many. Our objective? The Colorado Marathon.

Training began. Most of the time, we trained independently because of day-to-day work schedule conflicts and training regimen preferences (Randy liked to cross-train, I preferred good old fashion mileage). As the weather grew warmer, we did some trail runs together. The miles piled up and so did my training pains. Plantar fasciitis, shin splints and tight hamstrings. I’ve been a runner since junior high and I have NEVER experienced a training season plagued by as many aggravations. At one point, I had to shut down to heal and missed a full week of training including a planned 20 mile run (not good). I began questioning the wisdom of my high mileage training plan as well as the whole marathon idea in general. But I battled on to May 7, 2006 and made it to race day.

Before the start, Randy and I wandered around to connect with some others we knew that were also running the race. Then we were off. All went well for the first couple hours: I was ahead of plan at the halfway point, zoomed past the classic bonk point at 18 miles, hydrated plenty, ate CLIF SHOT Bloks like they were going out of style and enjoyed the race route scenery. At 21 miles, I hit the wall. Sheer will, and some encouragement from another friend named Jeff, pushed me to the finish in 3:50, well off my planned 3:15 target (which was the Boston qualifying time for my age group that year… more on that later). Randy finished 6 minutes ahead of me. I was so wasted that I couldn’t even drink the FREE beer at the finish. Pathetic and uncharacteristic of me, but at least I completed the race.

The next day, I could barely walk. Post-race recovery was not going to be a pretty thing. For months afterwards I struggled to regain elasticity in my right hamstring: the muscle was so tight that even 6 months later it hurt to drive a car for more than about 15 minutes. I had decided that race was to be my one and only marathon and began thinking about other endurance racing challenges like Olympic Tris and Half Ironman Tris where the race durations and fitness levels were similar to marathons, but with less running (and abuse) during training.

Randy, meanwhile, was thinking about doing the race again in spring 2007. I’ve known Randy for a long time and for years I tried to get him to do a race with me. Even something relatively easy like Bolder Boulder was of no interest to him. “Why should I pay someone to run in a crowd?” was his standard response whenever I pressed. Yet here’s this same guy chasing marathons. Killing me. About the same time in fall 2006, I left Level 3 to start NaviGo Global. The unpredictability of starting the business meant I was still running, but didn’t really have any race objectives in mind since I didn’t know from day-to-day where I might need to be to make a living. Picking a race wasn’t possible. Randy, on the other hand, proceeded to train for and finish the Colorado Marathon a second time, shaving off 30 minutes to finish in an 3:14. And he qualified for Boston which, as I mentioned early, was the time goal I had set a year early. I was impressed and somewhat jealous.

Fast forward another year. This coming Monday, April 21st, Patriots’ Day 2008, Randy will compete in the 112th running of the Boston Marathon after another long winter training program. I’d like to think that in some small way I had an influence on Randy reaching this race, but alas, it’s 100% Randy’s doing. His effort and his motivation got him there. Plus some tolerance on the part of his family since training for marathons is time consuming. I wish Randy the very best of luck and a no bonk race: enjoy the fruits of your labor as they’ve been well earned. It is a great achievement.

BTW… My next race will be Bolder Boulder 2008 this Memorial Day, but I’m already looking past that event. Any suggestions?

Rugby: Undoubtedly the Greatest Game

Recently I received an e-mail from a friend containing a copy of a popular joke regarding repossession of the United States by the United Kingdom. It’s rather old (c. 2000), but still pretty funny. The manifesto describes a range of things American’s will need to stop doing / start doing once the UK is again in charge such as: spelling things properly, replacing traffic lights with roundabouts and paying back taxes from 1776 until now. In this 16 point version of the joke (supposedly penned by John Cleese), one of the stipulations was:

12. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies). Don’t try Rugby – the South Africans and Kiwis will thrash you, like they regularly thrash us.

Most of the other requirements are quite silly and in-line with the joke. This one, however, is one I tend to agree with.

Now, I enjoy football as much as the next guy (especially college football), but I believe Americans have greatly overlooked soccer. Football isn’t even close when it comes to the global following soccer enjoys. More importantly, we have under appreciated rugby. I suspect 4 out of 5 Americans might not even know what rugby is. Rugby, to my way of thinking, should be America’s game and one we dominate on a global stage. Here’s why:

• American’s love contact sports, but they love impact sports even more. Rugby, like football, is a game of hard hits with minimal pads, dirty uniforms, busted fingers, bloody lips (no helmets) and testoterone driven aggression. Trust me… as a former college club rugby player, this is a physical game.
• The scoring is more varied, much like football. Scores are often in the 20s and 30s and a nil-nil draw is very rare (unlike soccer). You can score on a try (like a touchdown), a goal (like a field goal) and kick after try (etc). To score a try, you actually have to touch the ball to the ground (a touch down… get it?), not simply “break the plane”, then go up to the replay booth for confirmation (boring). Unlike in football, kicks after try are not gimmes because the ball isn’t placed in the same spot every time. Rather, the ball is kicked off a tee, but from a location based on where the ball was touched down in the goal area (tricky).
• Game play is fast and furious and game length is predictable. There are two 40 minute halves with a 10 minute halftime. There are no time-outs. If a player runs out of bounds, the clock continues. If there’s an injury, the clock continues (but the referee keeps an estimate of the time that play was stopped and tacks on a bit at the end of each half to make up for that). While this means it’s hard to find time to hit the fridge for a beer or visit the restroom, it also means no commercials and that you can normally guess within about 10-15 minutes when a match will end.
• Everybody plays “both ways”. There aren’t unlimited substitutions and there isn’t an offense and defense. There is the pack and the backs. The pack is comprised of the big guys and the backs are the quick guys. I won’t go into scrums, line outs, kicking to touch, second phase attacks and so forth, but the bottom line is players need to be durable, extremely fit and have an ability to quickly change mindset.
• There are a fair number of rules (or “laws” in the parlance of many International sports). Americans seem to love games with lots of arcane requirements about what’s right / wrong and we love even more to argue about whether or not a rule was broken while watching a game. What makes rugby even better is that there are only three officials on the field: a referee and two touch judges (on the sidelines). There are ample opportunities to second guess when only six eyes are on the players.
• As to why America should dominate, we have the genetics. Take a look at your average professional football tight end, defensive end or line backer. Most of these guys are 250+ lbs and 6′2″ to 6′5″. Big boys and easily on par with the biggest players from the power countries like South Africa and New Zealand. Throw in a few of the fitter 325 lbs offensive line types that have the endurance and now you’ve got a pack stacked with players that can match up with anyone. After the pack, well go get a few typical 225 lbs tailbacks that run 4.2 40s, have good hands and like to block as well as run, sprinkle in a couple speedy cornerback types with moves and you’ve got a world class group of backs. Our weak point would be the kicking game, but with some good coaching, that could be overcome.

What’s really stopping America from becoming a force in rugby is the competition from other sports. We simply have too many other games vying for our attention and investment (both financial and emotional). And football is so deeply entrenched I simply can’t see how it could ever be displaced such that the top players playing football could be enticed to go down the rugby path instead. Look at how long it’s take soccer to get a toehold in the US.

I love football, but I never miss the rare rugby game that comes along on cable, even if it means choosing rugby over football. In that scenario, there is no competition.

Jo’burg Running

As part of what’s becoming a recurring theme, I bring you some information on running while traveling for business. This time, my footfalls occurred in Johannesburg. I made a pair of trips to South Africa between late last month and earlier this month. Both times, I stayed in outlying western neighborhoods: Fairland and Northcliff. This part of Jo’burg is mostly residential and very green. It’s also rather hilly which provides for some pretty good work outs when you figure in the already high elevation of the area.

While in Fairland, I generally stayed within the residential area near my B&B which is bounded by Seventh Ave and Ninth Ave to the north / south and Smit St and Weltevreden Rd to the west / east. This is a pretty quiet area with fairly wide, low traffic streets. I didn’t stray too far primarily because none of the streets are straight and with all the hills, houses and trees, spotting landmarks is challenging (and remembering all the street names is tricky). Plus, I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to be out and about despite various people I met insisting it was perfectly safe: the day after my arrival a shootout occurred nearby between armed security forces and home invaders which resulted in the tragic death of a 12 year old girl named Emily Williams. Needless to say, I kept my eyes open.

The next trip, I ventured out a little further while staying at a different B&B in Northcliff. This neighborhood shares its name with the rock outcropping it has been built upon and around.

After a little planning and scribbling some street names on a scrap of paper, I began exploring to the south of my B&B, each morning climbing further up the maze of switchback streets leading to the top of 1,807m Northcliff (aka Aasvoëls Kop). Eventually, I ended up with a route I call Northcliff Out n’ Back which includes about ~150m of vertical to reach the top (plus the same going back down). This is a great run, if you like hills, and the views from the top are fantastic. Give it a try if you find yourself in the area.

2007: A Brief Year in Review

On the Eve of my 38th New Year, I find myself camped out in a Scooter’s Coffeehouse in Bellevue, NE catching up on e-mails and pondering what the next 365 days will bring. It’s been an interesting year with family time spent, a business venture built, new friends made, old friends found, soccer seasons played, frequent flyer miles accrued, road trips executed, coffee drank, XM radio enjoyed, pounds gained and lost, miles run, chores completed, more dark hair converted to gray and blogs written. And a bunch of other stuff I can’t remember right now (I was up until 2:00am last night enjoying a few barley pops with my father-in-law Bob).

What will happen in 2008? Hopefully, more of the same. I’ve enjoyed life in the last year tremendously and cannot wait to see what’s next. To my loyal readers (all 3 of you!), I’d like to wish the best of luck in 2008 and may one day always be better, at least in some little way, than the next.

And I leave you with this: JibJab’s usual irreverent compilation of recent events encapsulated in their short film entitled In 2007.