Palm Springs Double

Time: 32:18
Distance: 7.07 km
Pace: 4:34
Map

Meagan and I headed out the door for a short double before my dad's friends came over to enjoy a glass or three of champagne. Apparently my dad is turning into quite the lush and has more bottles of wine and champagne than an ABC store. Hey, I'm not complaining, just merely pointing out the facts. And I guess Meagan and I contributed four bottles to the collection.

Anyway, I was already prevented from enjoying most of the highest scoring Rose Bowl in history when my dad and Meagan chose to watch Hoarders on A&E instead of partaking in the college football tradition. I wouldn't say that I was rude to our guests, but I was more distracted to catch the final minutes of the game out of the corner of my eye. It didn't help that another great game came on afterward between Stanford and Oklahoma State at the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. Add in the fact that I was simultaneously trying to follow Japan Running News (@JRNLive) for updates on the Hakone Ekiden and watch Justin.TV for a live feed. Let's just say Meagan thought I was being a chump, but I was just being a big fan of college athletics and distance running. Sorry that I didn't want to join in on the conversation about the difficulty in finding a good house keeper!

I'm glad to have intently followed the Hakone Ekiden because Toyo University ran an incredible race to break the course record by nearly 9 minutes. They also averaged 2:59.4/km for 217.9 km between 10 men to become the first team to average under the magical 3:00/km barrier. My favorite stat of the race came when Brett Larner of Japan Running News stated that Toyo's 10 athletes essentially averaged sub-63:05 for 21 km (half marathon). That's a time only 10 American men, all pros, were able to achieve in all of 2011.