Random Sports Thoughts as Summer Closes In:
• This one time a few years ago, I decided to run the 5K during the Johnny Miles weekend (it was a nice sunny morning, so I mostly walked. Also, running hurts if you do it for too long, so I don’t do it for too long).
It’s the monotony of running that is the deal breaker for me; running apparently isn’t my thing, but a lot of other people in Pictou County seem to like it. Or at least, they do it, which doesn’t necessarily mean they like it.
This year’s Johnny Miles is the 44th edition, and there will be approximately 1,500 runners taking part, from the very young (Kid’s Fun Run on Saturday) to the shall we say, more mature folks, those who line up every Father’s Day in New Glasgow and pound the pavement for 5, 10, 21 or 42 kilometres.
The Kid’s Fun Run might be the best part of the weekend. You see smiles, you see tears, some of them from the same kid at almost the same time.
I still remember the young fellow from a couple of years ago, who ran his race up Provost Street, didn’t finish in first place, and wanted nothing to do with the participation medal he received. You would have almost sworn that he wanted to find a trash can in which to throw it.
Smart kid: he knew what the scoreboard was saying, even if there wasn’t a scoreboard in sight.
• Sports fans can be emotional, but some Toronto Raptors fans were classless on Monday, cheering the injury of Golden State Warriors’ superstar Kevin Durant during Game 5 of the NBA finals. The Raptors came within a whisker of winning the title, but missed a last-second shot attempt, (the entire final sequence looked sloppy, as if they were just winging it) and now the Warriors are back in the series.
Take that, Raptors fans who would cheer an injury. It’s one thing to be thinking that way, it’s quite another to vocalize it when the guy’s crumpled on the basketball court, in pain.
What I often say about Karma: she is not a nice girl.
• Rafael Nadal just won the French Open tennis championship for the 12th time. It takes a lot of focus, stamina and courage to win the grind that is the French Open, and to still want it badly after all these years, after having already won it 11 times, is near-remarkable. The guy is a machine on clay courts.
• By the time you read this, the NHL season will be over (finally). And in about three months, training camps will start up again. The National Hockey League: we can’t miss it if it never leaves.
• Even if you think watching golf on TV is the most boring thing a person could ever do, the venue for the U.S. Open this coming weekend – Pebble Beach, located on the coast of central California, with all of its beautiful scenery – is almost reason enough to tune in (or, I suppose you could just Google videos of the Monterey Peninsula, that way you wouldn’t have to watch grown men hitting balls around a big field).
Nearly everyone will be talking about Tiger Woods, Rory McIlory and Dustin Johnson, but Brooks Koepka, if he emerges victorious at Pebble Beach, would be the first man to win three straight U.S. Opens in more than 100 years (Willie Anderson, 1903-1905).
That would be a real nice feather in his cap.
Kevin Adshade is a writer with The News. His column appears each week.
