Saturday Night, Frigid 5, College Hoops Apps...

Fun weekend in the Shutt household. Saturday we went down to the best bike shop in the world (Big Bang Bikes) and Beth got new cleats and a new trainer. This results in me getting her old trainer, meaning I now don't have an excuse to not ride the bike from October to May. This may or may not be a good thing...

This then led us over to Hoss's--my favorite cornucopia of eating out! Although, I did have to exercise some restraint since I was racing this morning. This was in the form of only getting one round of ice cream (with brownies and cookies mixed in) and only getting a small helping of peach pie without ice cream....all of this after a steak sandwich, french fries, salad, bread, jello,...but not quite as much as my Hoss's trip last summer up in Erie.

The reason we went over to Murrysville instead of closer to home for dinner was because we were going over to our church home away from home for the Saturday night service at Cornerstone Ministries in Export. We discovered this awesome upbeat service last winter and always make a point of going there when we have something going on Sunday (aka--usually a race). The topic was a very thought-provoking one--abortion. There was a guest speaker, Michael Clancy, who worked for the USA Today as a photographer and shot a photo of the youngest human ever--21 weeks after conception. The picture is a little graphic, so I'll let you choose if you want to go the site linked to his name and check it out. It was very moving.

Being raised in the church, I've always believed that abortion was wrong, but always had in the back of my head that I'm not a female and I don't know what it would be like to be in a bad situation (the baby may be sick, pregnant from a rape, etc). But, this was pretty moving evidence that the baby is functioning already 5 months into the pregnancy. Wow.

FRIGID FIVE MILER
Okay, on to lighter topics, like the FREEZING TEMPERATURES for the race this morning. The alarm went off at 6am. I turned on the weather channel and it said ZERO DEGREES. Fortunately, there wasn't any wind, or else it could have been REALLY nasty. So, we go over to the race, do our warmup (my beard was full of icicles), stretch and strider, and get ready for the race. In addition to Beth, Chad, Ben, and Doug did the race, too.

My only thought going in to the race, was to not have a repeat performance of my last race (the Philly Marathon) where (A) I went out too hard and (B) My hamstrings tied up like pretzels. Although it was cold, I felt good with my layers and figured I'd see what I could do.

Mile 1 and 2 are rolling, but with a net downhill of 300 or so feet (which comes back later). Mile 3 has a little up and down, and is then flat. Mile 4 has more up than down and mile 5 ends with 3/4 of a mile where you go back up the 300 feet. Last year my splits were 6:24, 6:06, 6:12, 6:40, and 7:14!!! It's a big hill.

So, I went out in 5:52 with Chad and we were in 7-10th-ish position. I was a little worried about the pace, but just tried to relax and hang in the back of our mini pack. Mile 2 cruised in at 5:30 according to Chad (I missed the sign for the mile 2 split). Using that calculation, mile 3 was 5:46 and we were now 7th and 8th with me still lingering on the back of our group of four. Mile 4 was 6:12 and then we went up the hill in mile 5. I put it in a low gear and was able to pick off a guy on the hill and ended up 6th. It was pretty exciting. Chad came it just behind me. Beth was the 1st female, and Ben and Doug got 3rd place in their respective age groups. Good day all around. But, the best part was the pancakes afterwards!!!!

College Hoops Fandom Application
Finally, the nominations are flying in and I still need help deciding. Just to remind everyone that this is just a one year commitment as I fully expect the young rosters of Arizona, Penn State, and Davidson to be back in the running next year. Also, if one of my teams does end up in the running for a tourney slot, I'll probably be pulling for my team to get an at-large over yours. By the way, Arizona DID beat #22 Washington today.

The nominees so far and my thoughts:

1. Cornell - Gave Kansas a run this past week, smart kids, a good shot in the Ivy League
2. DePaul - Don't know much about them, but they're in the Big East and a lot of good teams are ahead of them there.
3. Purdue - Top in the Big Ten(+1), but I don't know if I can root for a team I've always referred to as Pur-don't
4. Duke - I've always respected Coach K, Beth's sister lives there, I know Maija and Ben went there, maybe...
5. Oregon - Don't know if I can root for another Pac 10 school after all these years with Arizona.
6. Tennesse - Big win against Kansas today. An SEC school, so it wouldn't interfere with any of my other affiliations. Bruce Pearl seems like a neat personality. But they do have some off-the-court issues. Hmmmmm....

Still accepting additional applications/nominations for new teams or critiques/justifications for presently nominated teams. Deadline is January 17 11:59 pm EST.

Snow, looking for a college basketball team, and running

Snow summarizes the past week in the 'burgh (and much of the country). We had our first snow day cancellation on Friday. Our first track meet Thursday night was cancelled too due to the roads. We'll try again this next Thursday and Saturday.

Now that college football is over and the Steelers aren't in the playoffs, it's time to turn my attention to college basketball. Unfortunately, my three teams are looking in worse shape than they were last year:

Arizona (7-8 overall, 1-2 in the Pac-10) - while I met Sean Miller and company in the airport in San Diego back in December, it hasn't seemed to motivate them. The most painful one was the 99-69 drubbing by BYU back on the 28th. I think Arizona's only hope this year to keep their tournament streak alive is to win the Pac-10 conference tourney because it seems like the entire league is a little weak. Maybe some of the younger guys (I don't even know any of their names yet) will step up by then and Sean Miller's defensive style will have sunk in more with the team. Although, I'm not holding my breath because a quote after last night's 78-76 loss to WSU was, "Our defense is terrible, and there is no easy solution. We are a team that has a cornerback who can't run and has (to defend) a receiver who runs by him." ...even resorting to football analogies uh-oh.

Penn State (8-7, 0-3 in Big 10) - The Lions aren't getting off to the quick conference start like last year. Taylor Battle's having another great year (18.1 ppg), but nobody else is stepping up to help him out. They have ZERO seniors on their team, so maybe next year will be the year they make it back to the tourney. Remember, they are coming off their big NIT Post-season tourney victory, so they can at least hang their hat on the fact that they were the 66th best team in the country last year.

Davidson (7-8, 2-1 in Southern Conference) - Losing the best player in school history (and a first round NBA pick) never helps a team. Davidson's hope is that their conference competition isn't that good and they can win the conference tourney. But, considering the College of Charleston (who beat them twice last year) has already upset North Carolina, I'm not too hopeful for this either. They've also got a young team with their top two scorers being freshmen.

So, I'm making my college basketball fandom available to be loaned out for the season. There is an application process and I need justification as to why I should follow the team. Essays should be 500 words or less and can be submitted via this blog, facebook, or email.

Finally, Beth and I (and other crazies in the area) are doing a 5 mile race up at North Park tomorrow morning. The temperature is going to be in the low teens with a single digit windchill. Brrr! I think the roads should be clearer than when we ran last year though.

My BCS Playoff Proposal, Year 2

Since it was easy to adapt from last year's proposal, I figured I'd throw my two cents in again about how college football needs a playoff.

Before getting to the proposal, a couple of observations from this year that show why there needs to be a playoff:

1. Boise State and TCU - who really cared who won last night in the Fiesta Bowl? I'm sure both of those teams still want to show that they belong with the big boys. Nobody (including Pac-10 Champ Oregon) beat Boise State this year. A playoff is the only way to compare the MWC and WAC to the big conferences--whether they're close or not.

2. New Year's Day is becoming irrelevant - personally, I was excited about the PSU-LSU matchup. But, other than that, what compelling games were on Jan 1? Who is really excited about a Tuesday Jan 5 Orange Bowl matchup of Georgia Tech and Iowa?

3. It just doesn't matter. PSU was criticized towards the end of the year about not beating a ranked team. Well, they beat LSU. But, what does it matter? It's not like they get a chance to move on to anything to further justify how good/mediocre they are. Florida and Cincinnati had coaching dramas that were more covered than the game itself.

I'm sure there are many more reasons (like the Texas-Texas Tech-Oklahoma issue from last year), but on to what the 2009 proposal would look like:

Some of the basics first:

*All regular season games for 'non-BCS' conferences would end by Nov 14

*On the weekend of Nov 21 would be the conference championships for the non-BCS conferences and the BCS conferences would finish their play.

*The weekend of Nov 28 would be the 'play-in' weekend where the top 4 non-BCS conference champions would host the lowest non-BCS conference champ and 3 BCS at large teams NOT in their conference championship game (based on BCS standings). This would reward the smaller schools and force the big boys who aren't in the conference championship game to actually go on the road to these non-BCS schools.

*The weekend of December 5 is the six conference championships and the eliminating the non-BCS champs and BCS at-larges down to two for a total of 8 teams.

*The weekend of December 12 would be the matchup of the 8 teams, matched up accordingly by seed like the NFL does for the 2nd round of the playoffs as a home game for seeds 1-4. For example, this year Alabama would play Georgia Tech because GT would be the lowest ranked team (from the BCS rankings) left. This would give the northern teams a chance at a cold game matchup against the southern teams.

*Two weeks later (and only 4 teams left), the two semi-finals as a double-header at some dome or at two different locations (like NFL conference championship Sunday)

*And, by New Year's, a championship game.

Some other thoughts:

*Throw Notre Dame in with the Big Ten to give them 12 teams and a 'championship.' This year, for example, ND wouldn't be in the championship. Rather the top two ranked teams in the BCS between ND and the Big Ten would play in that

*Since the Big East only has like 6 teams, they are forced to match up against the top-ranked BCS at-large team not in a conference championship. That gives the best at-large team (Virginia Tech this year) a bye week.

*Even though the Pac 10 only has 10 teams, just give them their own conference championship of the top two-ranked BCS Pac-10 teams to prevent East Coast Bias.

*How excited would Central Michigan be to host LSU? And, let the best team win.

So, that's about it. Feedback certainly welcome. Off to watch the riveting Georgia Tech-Iowa matchup......zzzzzzzzzzzz

2009 Highs and Lows

In the Buchheit family tradition, below are my 2009 highs and lows. Last year's are listed here.

This was a pretty good year. Beth and I are fortunate in that no immediate people near us were greatly affected by the downturn in the economy and had any job losses. If anything, it's been exciting to see Beth's business grow. So, without further ado....

2009 Lows
It was tough to think back on down stuff, but I guess here's a few disappointments:

3. My nasty ankle sprain costing me a race back at the end of February.

2. Church attendance & involvement - with all of our travels, it limits our Sunday mornings at our home church. We'll listen to podcasts of various services throughout the year, but it's just not the sames as interacting with fellow believers on a Sunday morning.

1. My blowup at the Philly marathon. Just a little too greedy in the first half, but lots of lessons learned for the next one.

2009 Highs

3. Being part of starting a business. It's exciting to see where Beth's business venture, The Athlete's Eutrophia LLC, is a year later and glad that she hasn't fired me from my self proclaimed job titles of CFO, IT Specialist, and Business Manager.

2. The trip down to HHI for Christmas

1. This is kind of cheating, but the 12-week stretch starting the last week of September with a college fair and Beth's BOUS race up through Foot Lockers in San Diego on December 12th where I/we had some great experiences, new experiences, and once-in-a-decade experiences going on just about every weekend:

Sep 23: College Fair for Etown at WCCC
Sep 25-28: BOUS for Beth in California - Beth finished 4th, Beth's mom made the trip, and Mission Viejo was a beautiful area
Oct 4: First ever Steelers game - Great time with T&K and the Steelers beat the Chargers
Oct 10: First PSU game since college - albeit against a Div 1-AA opponent E. Illinois, but a fun time with B
Oct 13: LaRoche College Fair for Etown - got to show a fellow Etown alum (and former runner) the ropes
Oct 17: Buffalo Creek Half Marathon - 3rd place and 1:16:32
Nov 1: Big Tens XC Championship at PSU - PSU women won their first championship and I got a sweet PSU longsleeve at the alumni get together
Nov 7: PIAA XC meet in Hershey - our runner finished 2nd in the state and I swung by Etown to visit J&A and the kids
Nov 12-15: IM 70.3 Championships in Clearwater for Beth - podium finish for Beth and fun time with Beth's parents
Nov 22: Philly Marathon for me - good learning experience...great time through 14 miles!!!
Nov 25: Thanksgiving
Dec 12: Foot Locker National XC Championships in San Diego - Thanks to Marit and Nate for hosting me for the weekend.

Other than some lack of sleep since September (of which I caught up on over Thanksgiving and down in HHI), what a great finish to 2009. Here's looking forward to a super 2010.

Have a great New Year's and talk to you all next year!

The HHI Cycle

Things have been great here on the island. Our daily routine has been something like the following:

*Wake Up
*Feed & Walk Dog
*Eat
*Swim
*Run
*Eat
*Shower
*Nap or afternoon activity (movie/dog/scrabble/etc)
*Eat
*Scrabble
*More eating
*Go to bed

I sure like it! Beth's sister and husband were here also, so we had some good times. They brought their Wii, so we were introduced to MarioKart and WiiSports. Very fun. Inspired by this, we also went bowling. Turns out it's harder in real life than on the game. The ball is much heavier than the controller and it just doesn't go in a straight line like on the game. I probably hadn't bowled in 4 or so years and it sure showed.

Finally, by our third and final game, I was starting to hit my stride. I started with a strike and spare and was on a roll hitting my mark and striking the head pin. All about repeatable motion (just like softball pitching). Then, it was 9pm and the place all of the sudden became filled with black lights, videos of 80's big hair bands, and.....did I mention it was dark? GLOW BOWLING!! I couldn't see my marks anymore. That's of course why I didn't get my 200....or perhaps just because I'm not good at making the ball hit the head pin.

Roxy's enjoying herself. Lots of new smells for her. She was hanging out with B&D's dog and they sort of got along, but mostly coexisted. Only a few barking matches and teeth shown. I think she likes the beach, but is a little unsure of the water. When we got here on Thursday, she was beat and slept the rest of the day.

We sure have been eating a lot of great food thanks to Mom B. She sure knows how to roll out a platter. All I know is that it's a good thing I've been doing two workouts a day with Beth or I may have put on 10 pounds this week! One of our meals was calzones from a great italian place called Mangiamo's. It is the island home for the Ohio State Buckeye alumni. As you can see from the picture from their website, it is decked out in red. It wasn't planned, but I ended up wearing a Penn State shirt. I hope they didn't spit in our food.

We saw "Up in the Air" with George Clooney today. Based on the previews, I was surprised it was rated R. After seeing it, I was disappointed that the producers felt they had to make it an R movie because making it a PG-13 would not have changed the story one bit. Take out the one scene of the un-clothed female and the 20 f-bombs and it's a PG-13 movie. Why do directors/producers feel the need to do that? Anyway, that's another discussion for another day. I thought the movie was interesting in that it makes the viewer think about priorities with jobs, family, relationships, and time away from home. Very interesting things to think about and makes me glad I have a job where I don't need to travel much. The lead person's job was that he worked for a firm that was contracted to go to companies to inform people they have been fired and provide consulting. That aspect of the movie reconfirmed my satisfaction of moving away from the industrial engineering corporate world of efficiency and streamlining companies to the "industry" of working with students and athletes every day.


As one of our Christmas gifts, we got a new digital camera that is waterproof. We tried it out at the pool and it worked. Sure seemed weird to take the camera under the water.

One more day here and then on the road on Wednesday morning to make it back home. Hopefully there's not too much snow in West Virginia as we make our trek back northward. Below is a shot of Lake Norman near Davidson, NC on I-77 on our way down.

Countdown to SC; My Christmas Playlist

It is down to mere hours before the end of the school day on Wednesday and we begin our trek southward to Beth's parent's place on HHI. I'm looking forward to getting out of the cold and snow....although I guess I was out of it just a few weekends ago in SD.

We're splitting the trip up in to two parts since we won't be leaving until after school. Part 1 is to get down to Virginia by Wednesday night and then finish the trip on Thursday in plenty of time for dinner and the Christmas Eve service. Looks like it's going to be nice weather for heading down. Roxy's making the trip with us too, so that always adds and interesting dimension. It's fun to be able to take her since usually we're dropping her off at my parent's so we don't have to worry about the dog on a race weekend.

Down in SC we're planning lots of rest, scrabble (anyone up for a game on FB?), and even sneak in some training at a pool and some runs (where I hope to avoid alligators)....and lots of eating. I train (like running workouts) for weeks like this so I can eat up!!

One aspect of the travelling to note is the fact that we'll be putting in 10-12 hours in the car each way (depending on meal stops and pitstops). So, we need to keep ourselves occupied. Having the internet on the Blackberries I think is going to help for sure. We also download some podcasts about triathlons, the Pirates, and church messages (from places like Hillsong in Austrailia, Willow Creek in Chicago, and Saddleback in California).

Also, this time of the year I put my Christmas music collection on my Ipod. I don't have a big collection for two main reasons. Number 1 is because I'm cheap and don't see value in spending money on music that I only listen to for two weeks a year. Number 2 is that I'm not really a big fan of the 'commercial' Christmas music that doesn't really focus on the true meaning of the season----Jesus being born! So that narrows down my selections.

So, with that, here's my picks to click as far as what I perceive as quality Christmas music:
1. O Come All Ye Faithful by Third Day
2. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear by MercyMe
3. O Holy Night by BarlowGirl
4. Silent Night by MercyMe
5. Overture/O Come All Ye Faithful by Michael W. Smith
6. O Holy Night by MercyMe
7. Silent Night by Sixpence None the Richer
8. Breath of Heaven by Amy Grant
9. O Come, O Come, Emmanuel by Bebo Norman
10. Gloria by Michael W. Smith
11. Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24) by Trans-Siberian Orchestra
12. We Three Kings by Building 429
13. Joy to the World by Third Day

...probably pretty obvious what my favorite Christmas songs are.

Merry Christmas to everybody and safe travels!

Foot Locker Weekend

Many thanks go out for a memorable weekend in San Diego as I spectated the Foot Locker High School Cross Country Championships. What a weekend!

My alarm went off at 4:30am on Friday morning. I walked the dog, finalized my packing and went off to the airport. My flight left at 7am and, after a change in O'Hare, I was in San Diego by lunchtime. It was a little overcast and there were sprinkles, but I'll take 55 and rainy over sub-zero windchills anyday.

"THE HILL"

I went over to Balboa Park to check out the course for myself. After putting in a little 4-mile jog and shooting some pictures, I went over to the Mission Valley YMCA (you could have fit THREE of our YMCA's in this place!!!) for a little swim and to clean up before meeting our runner at the Friday night welcome event. I took in a quick dinner at Rubio's at an outdoor mall and got a lot of looks for wearing shorts and sandals in that weather!!

On to the Friday night event at the Hotel del Coronado. Wow! What a place and what an event they put on. They had a Q&A panel consisting of Foot Locker alumni Jorge Torres, Eduardo Torres, Molly Huddle, Suzy Favor-Hamilton, and Meb Keflezighi.

After the fun evening, off to Marit's house where she, Nathaniel, and the cats were nice enough to let me crash all weekend. After living out of my rental car all day, it felt like it took me half an hour to collect all of my stuff out of the trunk and in to their place. Off to bed around 11pm (2am eastern), or 21.5 hours after I got up....but very worth it.

Saturday morning was race morning. We met down at the race and I was taking photos and video during the warmups. Then, the girls' race took off and it was FAST!!! There was a light sprinkle during the girls' race. And, you HAVE to check out the finish. The winner, Megan Goethals (in red), came from way back to outkick 2nd place with only a step to go!

Between the girls' and boys' race, the heavens decided to open up and it POURED! I said to my runner before the race, "Is this Pittsburgh weather or what!!!" In spite of the sloppy course, their first mile was, oh, around 4:50!! Yikes!!! He ran a great race and ended up 24th in 15:48. The crazy part was how close everybody was. Ten seconds separated 15th and 30th place.




Here's an interview with our runner.Here's an exclusive interview with his rambling assistant coach.

After the race, I met up with a friend from high school (and actually college, too....and her mom's the secretary at the church I grew up in). She's in the Marines and assigned to go to Afghanistan this spring after spending last year in Iraq. It was a nice conversation over lunch and I gained even more appreciation and admiration for what people in the militaries and their families go through outside of just being overseas. There is so much to plan as far as house, car, and pet arrangements while you're away.

Saturday night was the awards dinner and ceremony and the Foot Locker Crew again did a great job with it. They brought up all forty boys and girls to recognize their accomplishments.

After getting back to Marit's and witnessing their garb from the ugly sweater party, I went to bed to wake up for my return early Sunday morning to the airport. Love the matching snowmen and proud to take the credit for being the one responsible for capturing this moment on Marit's camera.
As I'm going to the airport, I called Beth and she told me how it was crazy icy back in Pittsburgh at that time. In fact, our church service was cancelled. I have never been so happy for that to happen and here's why. They were scheduled to perform the Christmas music program and I was originally going to be singing with them before this potentially once in a lifetime opportunity came up to go to San Diego. So, the concert is now this coming Sunday and I now get to sing!

At the airport, there's this guy behind me in the security line that notices my high school team's shirt and asks if I'm from Pittsburgh. Turns out he is too, and he's currently a trainer for the University of Arizona basketball team.....only my favorite college hoops team!

They were flying back after a humbling 63-46 loss to San Diego State (Seriously?!?! San Diego State?!?! Ouch!). Their new coach this year, Blackhawk HS and Pitt grad Sean Miller, was seated at their gate waiting for the flight. So, I went up to him, extended my hand, and said, "Coach Miller. I'm from the Pittburgh area and my aunt lived in Arizona and we're big UofA fans. Good luck this year." He gave me a "thanks" and head nod and I could tell that he was not really in a mood to chat. Perhaps it was A) They lost by 20 pts and only scored in the 40's to the Aztecs (San Diego State?!?!?! Really?!?!?) or B) It was 6am or C) Some combination of those.

Big thanks again go out to Marit & Nathaniel for hosting me this weekend, the very generous alumni who donated airline miles for me to fly out, and Beth for putting up with me being gone for another weekend due to coaching...and this time right before Christmas.