Christopher Manuele – Fansmanship

When Bad Things Happen to Good Padres Fans

owenmain — Sun, 22 May 2011 19:00:57 +0000

Two things happened that were interesting during Wednesday night’s Padres home game against the Brewers.

First, I saw Rickie Weeks in person. In case you didn’t know, I drafted Weeks in the fifth round of last season’s fantasy draft. With a 4th-round run on second basemen, I picked-up the undervalued Brewer and, despite an injury during the previous year, Weeks was one of my most solid players. Because of the sideways looks and jeering laughter I got after making the pick, my team was named the “Rickie Weeks All Stars” last year. The All-Stars weren’t very good, but Weeks was awesome – and because he was awesome, he was picked by someone else early in this year’s draft.

RICKIE WEEKS!

This year, my team is called Orange Jhoulys (after Rockies pitcher Jhoulys Chacin, who I also got funny looks after drafting with my final pick). But my love of Rickie Weeks remains steadfast. I’ve tried trading for him thrice this year to no avail. On Wednesday, I gave him his just due – shouting “RICKIE-WEEKS” in a falsetto tone that Knox Harrington (the video artist) would have appreciated. My friend, Christopher, was pretty embarrassed I think.

The second thing that was really interesting happened I think in the 6th inning or so (was hard to know since the game wasn’t exactly a bundle of excitement). Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something come out of the Brewers’ dugout and fly into the air. It turned out to be a cup full of water, or Gatorade, or something. As it ascended above the dugout, lots of liquid splashed over the dugout and onto the fans.

The first row of fans almost came over the top of the dugout. They were NOT happy. On of them took the empty cup and tossed it back into the dugout, causing a similar reaction from most of the Brewers’ bench.

During the entire at-bat that was going on, most of the Brewers in the dugout turned around and faced the front row of Padres fans.

Arms waved. Fingers pointed. Bad words were certainly exchanged. Padres security (about one for every 10 fans… where are you Pads fans?) was quick to the scene. One security person was stationed on each side of the dugout and one person walked atop the dugout to confront the fan who had thrown the cup back into the Brewers’ dugout.

In most situations like this, fans usually get the brunt of the blame. For whatever reason, the Padres security personnel made an informed and well thought-out decision not to remove the fans from the game. Eventually the Brewers, who clearly “started it,” went back to paying attention to the game, and a situation that could have been a lot worse was nullified.

The easy thing to do would have been to kick the fans out. Instead, the security folks gathered relevant information and made an informed decision.

Good job Padres security personnel.

Now all the Padres need are ownership and management who are willing to spend the same energy on the players on the field. When Ryan Ludwick is your best position player, you’re in trouble. Without the draw of Adrian Gonzalez this year to get people to the park, the Friars are not a very exciting team…

Random thought during the game:

Corey Hart is going to have 20 HRs by the end of the year. He hit at least one that would have been out of any park but Petco. He squared up a few others. The Brewers’ offense is fun to watch.

Random thought of the day:

I just saw an interview with him and, is Lebron losing some hair? I hope the pressure of the multiple championship guarantee isn’t getting to him. He needs to go with the all-shaved look I think.

31 Hours Later – A Ragnar Relay Story

owenmain — Thu, 05 May 2011 13:08:02 +0000

Recently, a Friend of Fansmanship (FOF) participated in the Southern California Ragnar Relay, a 200-mile team race from Huntington Beach, CA to Coronado in San Diego. Christopher Manuele chronicles his team’s 31-hour journey/nightmare/unforgettable experience below.

The Ragnar Relay Spans More than 200 Miles

Ragnar Relay – SoCal 2011

What do you get when you take 12 runners, 2 drivers with minivans, fill them full of Gatorade and junk food, and don’t let them sleep while making them run 200 miles in 31 hours? You get the 2011 Ragnar Relay. It was an awesome experience filled with lots of sweat and a little lunacy.

My friend, Jack Pham, turned 30 this year. He wanted to celebrate in style. Nothing simple like wine tasting or even Vegas. He needed something epic. It just so happened that this year’s SoCal Ragnar Relay fell exactly on his birthday. It was the perfect event for him. The rest of us were just along for the ride.

Ragnar is an extreme long distance running event conquered by teams of twelve, unless you’re Ultra crazy and use a team of six, but that’s another story. The race starts in Huntington Beach, heads inland through Anaheim and over to Corona, then turns South through Elsinore and Temecula, before heading West to head back to the coast. The route heads South again toward the border, and then back up to finish on Coronado Island. Each runner has three legs, varying in length from two-and-a-half miles up to nine miles. We divided our team up into two vans that swapped duties between driving and resting.

We kicked the festivities off with a pre-race pasta party at Jack and Ayelet’s place. There was lots of good food and revelry to fuel us up for the next day’s task. Our team name is “Hit the Road Jacks” in honor of the birthday boy. To identify ourselves, Ayelet made us all sweet shirts that each featured a different “Jack.” We had Black Jack, Jack Knives, Jack Rabbits and more. Once we finished eating, passing out shirts and going over last minute race info, we loaded up the vans and Van one headed up to my house in Oceanside.

Once we got there, everyone sacked out on various pieces of furniture scattered around the house. I was so excited that I hardly slept. It felt like I was checking the clock every 30 minutes. According to my fellow runners, I wasn’t the only one who didn’t sleep. It is always great to not sleep before starting a round-the-clock endurance race. Soon enough, it was time to actually get out of bed and get on the road. We hopped in the van and headed up to Huntington Beach.

This one must have been taken before the race started...

We arrived at the race expo about an hour before our start time, which gave us plenty of time to check in, get the safety briefing and for me to warm-up. I was the first runner on our team so the butterflies were definitely out and fluttering. I was mostly nervous because I had crashed my mountain bike the weekend before and my knee and chest were still sore. No backing out now though! It was go time!

Most races I run start everyone at once, sending thousands of people across the start line together. For Ragnar, they stagger all the starts over the course of the morning so when I started I only started with about twenty people. Its a shotgun-start that resembles a golf tournament.

There was cheering at the start, but twenty yards down the way it was almost dead silent except for the sounds of our footsteps. It almost felt like I was on a training run by myself.

The first few miles of my initial leg were right along the ocean. The weather was totally beautiful and it made me want to veer off course and hop into the ocean. Instead I followed the course inland along the Santa Ana river, leaving behind the cool ocean for the inland heat.

The run itself wasn’t bad, mostly flat and very straight after the turn. At one point I thought I saw the exchange up ahead and kicked toward the hand off. Of course when I got there it was just one of the other teams cheering for their runner, standing next to a sign that said “one mile left”. Great! That made the last mile interesting.

I had to maintain focus on my pace to keep it up after kicking too early. Keeping my eyes on the runners up ahead of me helped. I even managed to pass two or three people on the last stretch. Before long I was at the hand off point and gave Linda the baton-bracelet for her leg. The Ragnar was on now!

Is That a Slap Bracelet?

Over the next several hours I alternated between navigating the van and waiting at the exchanges for our runners to come in. After my initial run Linda ran 5 miles, Tina ran 5.3 miles, Elijah ran 4.3 miles, Charlette ran 2.5 miles. Ryan rounded out Van One with 2.7 miles. He ended his run in East Anaheim where he handed off to Christina and the rest of Van Two.

Off He Goes!

Once Van Two took over, Van One got a few hours of rest before going back on shift. It was time for Jamba Juice!

Tina had a clutch “buy one get one free” coupon that helped refresh the whole team. Just the right medicine after running in the heat. With drinks in-hand we loaded back up and headed to Lake Elsinore to rest at my Aunt’s house.

My Aunt Linda very graciously opened her home to us while we were off shift. People crashed around the house while my aunt prepared us a glorious spaghetti and meat sauce dinner. Ryan and Elijah even took showers. Apparently they didn’t get the memo that there’s no showering in Ragnar! Dinner was fantastic and everyone was extremely thankful for my Aunt’s cooking and hospitality.

Thanks for the great food, Linda!

During the break, we were in contact with Van Two. They were having a rough time out on the course, bearing the brunt of the day’s sun and heat. Being the first runner in Van One I started to get antsy around 5:30pm. The other van was still on the road so I just needed to relax. Soon enough, the call came from Van Two to come meet us at Exchange 12.

Up to this point the race was just a standard run for all of us, a day-time race of medium distance. It was no big deal for anyone on the team. The start of my second leg changed that. Instead of starting a run fully rested and prepared, I was already tired and sore from the first run. And it was dark. That changed things significantly.

I took the hand-off from Jack at 7:45pm just as the sun was setting. The race requires safety gear so, decked out in a bright reflective vest, head lamp, and a tail lamp, I started down the road. The first mile felt good. Nothing like an adrenaline burst to get the body moving. That wore off pretty quickly as I all the aches and pains from the previous week’s mountain bike crash and the morning’s run came back. Right about when full dark came on.

The darkness took the race to a new level

Running in the dark was a lot harder than I expected. The street itself was barely lit and was still quite dark, even with my head lamp. Running against traffic, I would periodically become blinded by headlights. That, coupled with a shifting, uneven shoulder and encroaching dirt and plant life made for a treacherous run. At least the day’s heat had dissipated, leaving a cool and very dry evening.

My run was 5.5 miles. It seemed longer. I was really feeling the fatigue from the earlier run by the end of this one. At the point that I thought the leg should have been over, I hit the “one-mile to go” sign. Better than a poke in the eye, I suppose. I mustered up a little kick to get me to the end where Linda waited to start her leg. She took the hand-off and was off on her leg while I stumbled back to the van.

With the ebb of adrenaline in my chest, my knee started tightening up. After changing into dry clothes and watching the girls goof off with the flags, I ceded navigator duties for Elijah and climbed in the back of Van One to rest. Linda had a long leg, so we stopped midway to offer her water. She was a trooper, running one of the longest legs through the dark while sick. She even threw in an extra mile or so for the fun of exploring dead end streets in the middle of the night. I think she inspired the rest of us to give a little bit more.

Yay Linda!

We made our way through the night, runner-by-runner. Tina ran through Murrieta, followed by Elijah and Charlette down I-15 through Temecula, ending with Ryan at Fallbrook.

Exchange 18, where Van Two took over from us, was a mess. Both vans from every team were meeting there and by that point people had been racing for well over 12 hours. There was some crankiness around that ended up manifesting in road rage while trying to cut lines. It ended up in overall unpleasantness.

To try to avoid this, as soon as our van made it into the parking lot, Charlette and I jumped out to find the other van while Ayelet turned the van around and headed to the exit. Once again we had hoped to hang out with the other van for a bit but instead had to immediately leave. As they were heading out we managed to find Van two. They were refreshed after some pizza and rest. Christina had already headed to the start line so we gave Jack a birthday hug and set off to find her.

As soon as we found Christina at the hand-off, Ryan arrived in a blaze of speed and sweat. They made the hand-off and she was off. It happened so fast I didn’t even get my camera out. With Ryan in-tow, we started walking towards the exit looking for our van. It was good that we had headlights because even with all the vans around it was completely dark!

We located our van and, with Elijah at the wheel and some creative maneuvering, we made it out to the highway. It was about 1:30am and everyone was exhausted. The next major exchange was in Carlsbad at approximately 5am so we headed back to my house in Oceanside. People passed out as soon as we got through door. I crashed into my bed and fell in the deepest, darkest sleep I can remember.

This was until 3:30am, when my phone went off. It felt like I had been slapped. Hard! Jack was calling to let us know that Sam was on the road and that Susan would be starting her leg soon. I went around rousing the troops to get ready to head back on shift. Everyone fell asleep clothed, so at least no one had to change clothes. We grabbed a quick bite of tortillas with Nutella and peanut butter and piled back into the van.

Wakey Wakey

There is a saying that the night is always darkest just before the dawn. I’m going to go with true on that one.

It was dark and cold at 5am. As per his style, Jack flew in to the exchange, so fast that the volunteers couldn’t announce his number, catching us literally half-asleep. When he frantically started calling for me, I jumped over into the start area, grabbed the baton, slapped him on the back and was off on my third and final leg of the relay.

Did I mention it was cold? I couldn’t just see my breath, it was pluming. I entertained myself for a while pretending I was an old school locomotive chugging along. Give me a break. It was 5:30 in the morning and I was slightly delirious!

The run wasn’t bad. It was mostly on the sidewalk so was better lit than my run through Elsinore. Too bad they didn’t let us run though Legoland because that would have been neat in the dark.

The sun came up when I had about one mile left to go. This became a mental battle.

I had to focus my mind and force my body to keep moving. This was working pretty well until I started hitting stop lights. Up to the last mile of my last leg I had not hit any stop lights, but then I managed to hit three of them. I passed the same two people three times at each of the lights. I swear the last one took five minutes, just trying to taunt me.

When you’re that far into a race and the finish line is within sight, the hardest thing to do is to not move. Every fiber of my being wanted to go, go, go and finish! Finally the light turned green and we dashed across the street — only to stop again and wait for the light so we could cross to the left hand side. Painful! The second the light turned green I let out a war cry and put on a mad sprint to the end.

And there it was, my final hand-off. I relinquished the baton to Linda and I was finished. My part was done but the race was far from finished. There were still hours of racing to go. Duty called and I resumed my role as van navigator as we headed to the next exchange.

Go Tina, Go! Nice socks...

The next couple hours are pretty much a blur to me. We stopped a few times to give Gatorade and support for Linda and Elijah on the ridiculous hills they had to run up. Tina had a great run through Solana Beach, where we almost missed her because we were on the wrong side of the station. Charlette crushed another hill. Ryan finished off our van by absolutely owning the Torrey Pines hill. Everyone did a fantastic job and stayed strong despite the exhaustion we all felt.

Hit the road... Elijah!

At the last major exchange at Torrey Pines Glider Port we were able to hang out with Van Two for a little while before they started their shift. As Ryan was coming in we snapped another group picture before Christina headed out. Everyone loaded up and we headed back to Ayelet and Jack’s place. It was in Van two’s hands to bring us to the finish line now.

Two Vans in one place

There’s really only one thing to do after a race like that. Eat a burrito. So after cleaning up a bit, dropping Linda off, unloading the van and an aborted attempt to eat at a diner, that is just what we did.

A burrito has never tasted so good! Pure heaven. Once we finished our meal we dropped the van off and parted ways with Ayelet so she could go to a wedding. Tina, Charlette, Elijah, Ryan and I loaded up in Tina’s Mazda and headed down to Coronado to see the finish of the race.

Van Two was still midway through their legs when we got to Coronado so there was some time to kill. We relaxed a bit and got some free noodles. I dipped my feet in the ocean and Tina fell asleep on the concrete. While we were waiting for the rest of the team, we watched several other teams come through the finish chute. There was a big orange arch set up on the sand and whole teams waited just around the corner for their final runner to come in.

The second half of our team showed up just in time. Jack was blazing down the chute and we could barely get him to slow down so we can join up. He paused for half a second to remove his shoes, because, well, I’m not sure. Maybe his feet were on fire from his speed.

We chased after him through the sand and under the orange arch. We were done. Done. Done! DONE! Thirty-one hours and 200 miles from my start in Huntington Beach, Jack completed the 2011 SoCal Ragnar Relay, finishing our team’s journey.

Shoeless Jack Pham. If you build it, he will come...

The whole team got medals so we held a mini-ceremony where Jack presented them to each of us. Everyone was in elation to be done. Tina presented Jack with a special birthday cupcake we had made to celebrate, and he ‘nommmm’ed’ it down on it at the finish line. A delicious end to the day.

Completing this relay was quite an experience. I am glad that I took part in it and got to share it with all my team members. Through the course of the race, everyone in our van bonded together. We all wished to have been able to spend more time with the other van but unfortunately it just didn’t happen.

31 Hours. 200 Miles of Smiles

Jack picked quite a celebration for his birthday. Already people are talking about doing it again. We are all crazy for doing it the first time, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find myself stretching the boundaries of both myself as well as the California Coastline once more next year.

HIT THE ROAD JACKS:

Van One Driver: Ayelet Ruppin
1    Chris Manuele
2    Linda Lobbestael
3    Tina Yuan
4    Elijah Nicolas
5    Charlette Buchan
6    Ryan Borchard
Van Two Driver: Liz Kee
7    Christina Hennigan
8    Matt Hennigan
9    Andrew Wood
10    Susan Friedman
11    Sam Thomas
12    Jack Pham

Guest Friday: The Faster You Run, the Greater the Fun

owenmain — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 21:08:22 +0000

Christopher Manuele grew up with Fansmanship and is a guest contributor and technical consultant to the site. Recently, he finished his first half-marathon. This is his account of the event.

On Sunday, February 13, 2011, I completed the San Dieguito Half-Marathon. I had never run 13 miles straight. I don’t even really like running. People think I’m a runner because I run, but I’m not. Before starting training for the race my longest run was a 15K (9.3 mile) race over a year before that left me unable to run for months. So why was I running this one?

There are a couple of reasons, but I’m still asking myself if any of them were good. After finishing several Olympic-distance triathlons, I have several friends that have been pushing me to run a half or full marathon for quite a while. Peer pressure, right? Eventually I want to compete in an Ironman triathlon. My next step towards that goal is a Half-Ironman, which contains a half-marathon distance run as the last leg. Before I can consider doing that I needed to run that distance by itself. And of course, the entry fee was cheap – about one third the cost of most half-marathons.

So I signed up. I managed to convince my girlfriend and a few other people to do it with me. Beware of stupid people in large groups. In addition to Tina was Jack, my long time running buddy, Katie a multi-marathon veteran and Karun and coworker and aspiring Ironman. It helps to have people signed up to provide encouragement, support and sometimes necessary harassment!

Soon after signing up I told a couple of my other runner friends that I had signed up for San Dieguito as my first half-marathon. Every single one of them replied with some variation of “Really? You’re crazy! That’s one of the hardest courses!”

“Uh, really? No one told me that! It was cheap!”

Apparently the course, while beautiful, is non-stop rolling hills. Well shoot, time for some hill repeats…

Before we could run the race, we had to train for the race. As I mentioned before, the closest I’ve come to 13.1 miles was a 15K, 9.3 miles, race a year before. Since that race I have been consistently running, including several 5K races, a 10K and 2 Olympic triathlons, but nothing longer than 6 miles. I needed to ramp it up severely.

With everyone talking about how hilly the course was the primary focus of the training was hills. Secondary was distance. Luckily (or not) San Diego is very hilly. During the middle of the week Jack and I would meet up at lunch a few times and did hill repeats. We also had our friend Nick take us on ridiculous hilly routes around the office. On the weekends Tina and I did some long runs. Two weeks before the race we met up with one of her friends and pulled off a 10 miler. That helped my confidence a lot, even though it was fairly flat and at a mostly leisurely pace. Right about then Karun told me that due to sickness he wasn’t able to keep with his training schedule and was dropping out.

The week before the race we drove the course we’d soon be running on. I think more than the training this served to boost my confidence. Sure the course was hilly, but now I knew exactly what to expect when out there and when to expect it. After running up some long, steep hills in training, like Laurel, Lusk and Pacific Heights, most of the hills weren’t worrisome.

The San Dieguito Half-Marathon

Soon enough, the day of the race came. Being a triathlete, the 5:00 am wake-up call was actually pretty nice. With the wake-up call was a text from Katie saying her legs were too tired from walking a lot the day before so was not going to show up. And then there were three.

We got everything ready and drove down to the Del Mar Fairgrounds in order to catch the shuttle to the race site. For some reason our shuttle bus had a stripper pole in it. Who knew? Once we got to the site and got our bibs and met up with Jack we had over an hour to kill. We ate some food, hydrated and double-checked our gear. And I went to the bathroom. Then went again. And I think a third time. Races do that to me. I had absolutely nothing riding on the race. It was all for fun. But that doesn’t stop the nerves or my body’s tendency to lose as much weight as possible for the run.

When 7:30 rolled around, the sun had come up and it was warm and pleasant up near registration. The perfect time to leave. Hiking a half mile down the hill to the start line we lost the sun and about 10 degrees of temperature, made doubly apparent when we dropped off our warmup gear and only had our race garb. We jogged a little, did some last minute stretching and Jack and Tina used the bathrooms. I thought I had enough already. Once all the pre-race rituals were completed we lined up.

And we were off. Thousands of crazy people with the goal of running 13.1 miles. As per any large race, the first mile was a fairly leisurely pace spent dodging people until things thinned out and you can hit your stride. Also, it is downhill, but more on that later. Tina stayed with us the first mile and then I wished her good luck and Jack and I picked it up some. Soon, both of us realized that a bathroom stop might be in order. You would think with all the stops before the race we would be all right, but I guess not. Jack stopped at a porta-pot but I kept going.

In no time it seemed I hit the 5K turnaround point, staffed by the Queen of England. Don’t ask me to explain, I got nothing. I remember thinking “Man, if I was running the 5K I’d be half way done!” I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to be running a 5K more in my life. Only 11.6 miles to go! The Hash House Harriers also had a beer station giving me a small time boost over all the people that stopped.

Jack caught up with me in another mile or so. At that point I was really thanking the training. Most of the uphills weren’t bad at all. Some of the downhills were though. There were a few steep downs where the pounding got to me. And of course, big downs mean big ups, in particular mile 5 and 6. This is about when Jack headed off on his own and left me to slog on by myself. The mile 6 uphill was HUGE. I was expecting it from the drive but turning the corner and seeing it was almost as painful as running up. I put my head down and focused on pushing off a little more and sooner than I’d thought the worst was behind me.

Right about then I was thinking, “Man, a 10K is a great distance! I would be done now!” Only 7 miles left! On top of the hill was the turnaround point. Halfway done! It was mostly downhill from there. Mostly. There was a point where I was glad for the uphill because it used different muscles than my totally burned out downhill muscles.

Mile 10 came around and I was definitely tired but otherwise felt ok. Each step I took from that point was the longest I had ever run. That was kind of a neat feeling. It was a much better feeling than the burning in my glutes and calves! I had one of the energy goo packets in my belt and considered using it around then but decided to keep it in case of emergency. I ended up not using it at all and am kind of proud of that.

So, remember around mile one when I realized that I had to pee but didn’t stop? Well, an hour and a half later around mile 11 I remembered too. At that point it was too late. I couldn’t stop. If I did then it would be game over. Besides, only two miles left! No problem!

Unfortunately, the last mile is one long uphill. It wasn’t particularly steep, but after 12 miles without stopping it was very nearly the straw that broke my back. One straight shot to the finish line. I could see it in the distance through the glare of the sun shining in your eyes. All I needed to do was to keep moving. The act of simply continuing to move was quite possibly one of the toughest physical feats I’ve done, followed closely behind by not peeing myself on that mile. Man I had to go! I’ve wondered if I would have finished faster if I had made a quick stop to go and instead of diverting the energy to not peeing used it to run. I just kept moving me my feet, chanting to myself that “I can do it, I WILL do it, I AM DOING IT!”

But then I was done. 2 hours and 8 minutes after starting I managed to cross the finish line with a semi-decent burst of speed. I donned my finisher’s medal, grabbed some water and stumbled to the bathroom. Victory! Or perhaps just peace. Either way the fight was over and I was still alive.

Jack found me and we made our way back to the finish stretch to watch for Tina where I promptly collapsed to the ground. To stretch! Yes, that is why I wasn’t standing any more. Tina finished shortly after, looking great. She finished with a very respectable 2 hours and 35 minutes. We all met up and relaxed in the grass for a little while before trudging up the hill for a bowl of victory chili.

It was both my and Tina’s first half-marathon race. I felt half-dead afterwards so can only imagine how a full marathon would leave me. I’m not sure I want to find out. I was glad that we had done it and even more glad that it was over.

Click Here for the GPS Track of the Route

– Christopher Manuele