Norwegian Wood

呼, 总算跑完了. 跑前几乎没怎么训练, 抱着玩玩的心情跑的, 能跑完感觉就不错了, 成绩是不怎么理想:

www.sportstats.ca
Place: 3267/4488 Gun Time: 3:14:47.5
Pace: 6:30min/km Chip Time: 3:10:55.2
Bib#: 4891 Gender Plce/Tot: 1973/2394
Category Plce/Tot: 112/131 Category: Men 25 - 29
Split Time: 1:02:13@10k, 1:31:00@15k, 2:01:04@20k

开头20k感觉还不错, 基本上6min/km, 到了21k的时候就觉得不行了, 腿已经不是自己的. 看来训练还是必要的, 想抬腿都没劲啊. 再加上最后10k几乎就没有平的, 一直都是上坡下坡, 到25k那个大坡, 只能慢慢走上去了. 想起来两次跑30k那个大坡都是走上去的, 下次如果还有机会跑一定要跑上去一回. 在27k附近的时候碰到pat, 一起跑了阵子, 聊了聊天. 今天天气还不错, 就是有点风, 吹着有点冷.

跟上次一样, 希望明天能走路…

in the middle of this week, most of united players went back to their national teams for friendly games. the most noticeable match was england vs france. ferdinand, assigned the captain band by capello, completed 90 minutes. hargreaves also played the full game. rooney finished the first half and brown was substituted at 63 minutes. evra wasn’t used on the bench for france. park had to fly back to asia for a world cup qualifier against north korea. kuszczak was an unused sub for poland. vidic played 74 minutes for serbia. the biggest lost came from scotland as fletcher was injured in the game against croatia. he will be out for 6 weeks, which means that he probably won’t play this season. good news was all other players came back fine.

this week, arsenal’s match was before united one, and chelsea will play tomorrow. arsenal seems to have all the late-minute luck this season. this time they were down by 2 with one man short, still got 3 points with a 90th minute own goal to beat bolton. before the united’s match, the biggest joke was that saha was injured, AGAIN! this is just unbelievable. i think we really need get a striker during the summer time. saf started with rooney and tevez in front, which proved to be a correct call. another good pick is carrick. his form is superb recently. united’s offense is much fluent with carrick in the middle and his through passes are deadly sometimes. his defense is under-appreciated. if he can once for while have some of those shots he had in the 7-1 roma game, he would be locked in united middle four for several years.

with two strikers in front, united is unstoppable. ronaldo scored his regular, and the good news is both tevez and rooney found their touches. saf left all three on for the whole game, hopefully they can kept their form against roma. also saf may play conservatively with a more caution 451 form with one forward. carrick, evra and ferdinand got some rest with substitution at 62 minutes. giggs seemed to pick up a knock in the last 4 minutes. with nani is slightly injured, let’s hope giggs isn’t serious.

so here we are, the most important two weeks this season, with two middle-week champions league matches vs roma, and two premier matches vs middlesbro away and vs arsenal home in the weekends.

2008-03-29 Sunday
@Old Traffold

United 4, Aston Villa 0

Manchester United: Kuszczak; Brown, Ferdinand (Hargreaves 61), Vidic, Evra (O’Shea 61); Ronaldo, Carrick (Anderson 61), Scholes, Giggs; Tevez, Rooney.
Scorers: Ronaldo (17), Tevez (33), Rooney (53, 70).

Aston Villa: Carson; Bouma (Osbourne 80), Mellberg, Laursen; Agbonlahor, Reo-Coker, Barry, Petrov, Young; Carew (Maloney 42), Harewood (Salifou 69).

united official
espn soccernet

ten games left (well, for some teams, like lakers), it’s probably the right time to make a prediction for the playoff. here are my picks:

least conference:
i think the standing will keep the same as what it is today.

(1) boston vs (8) atlanta
(2) detroit vs (7) toronto
(3) orlando vs (6) philadelphia
(4) cleveland vs (5) washington

the only change maybe how washington/philadelphia/toronto finish up. 76ers should be happy to stay at 6th seed; you don’t want to face detroit or cleveland in the first round. the #4vs#5 is a rematch from last year, should be interesting to watch.

atlanta should be able to keep the #8 seed. new jersey, chicago and indiana, they are just bad teams.

west conference:
there are two main decisions need to make before make any guess. the first one is which unlucky team is gonna be out; the second one is which division will have two in the top four seeds.

my answer to the first question is dallas. they are like 0-9 after kidd transfer when facing a winning team. unfortunately, there are 8 out of 12 games left in which their opponent is above 0.5. and keep in the fact that dirk is hurt, and the wild wild wild west, i have to say sorry to cuban. huge money for nothing.

i predicted before that phoenix is gonna miss the playoff. they are ok right now i guess. golden states and denver just need to hang in there; dallas will slip.

to answer the second question, i would say it’s the southwest division. northwest division has utah and there are no ways denver can crack top four. my picks for the southwest are houston and new orleans. houston has an easy schedule; new orleans has cp4 despite the tough schedule. pacific has lakers and i don’t think phoenix will finish better than new orleans and houston.

(1) lakers vs (8) denver
(2) houston vs (7) golden state
(3) new orleans vs (6) san antonio
(4) utah vs (5) phoenix

update: another prediction. i like this part about kobe:

Biggest weakness: I know he’s been playing out of his mind lately, but I still don’t trust Lamar Odom. During regulation of Monday’s Warriors game, he went to the line in the final few seconds with a one-point lead, endured a few taunts and standing-in-front-of-him maneuvers from Davis and Jackson … and eventually, he had this weird smile on his face, almost like the smile a boxer gets right before he’s about to get knocked out. Of course, he missed the first free throw. Mark my words — there’s going to be at least one monster moment in April, May or June when Odom has to come through in a humongous spot for the Lakers. And he won’t.

(Follow-up to that story: In that same game, the Lakers were up two with four seconds left in overtime when Kobe got fouled. Three interesting things here. First, none of the Warriors came within 10 feet of him as he was preparing to shoot the first free throw. Second, he stared down all the Warriors around him, drained the first free throw and muttered “Game over, game over” to everyone who would listen. Third, he made the second one and that was that. The lesson, as always: It’s good to have Kobe Bryant on your team.)

everytime when united faced liverpool, there were always some strange defender scoring. like the two games last year, ferdinand scored at home and o’shea had injure-time winner. and in the home game today, it was brown whose back bounced the ball into the net. it’s only brown’s third goal for united.

2008-03-23 Sunday
@Old Traffold

United 3, Liverpool 0

Manchester United: van der Sar; Brown, Vidic, Ferdinand, Evra; Carrick, Anderson (Tevez, 73), Scholes; Ronaldo, Giggs (Nani, 73); Rooney.
Scorers: Brown (34), Ronaldo (79), Nani (81)

Liverpool: Reina; Arbeloa, Carragher, Skrtel, Aurelio; Kuyt, Mascherano, Alonso, Babel (Benayoun, 66); Gerrard; Torres (Riise, 83).

united official
espn soccernet

update: chelsea beat arsenal at stamford bridge by 2-1 to leapfrog arsenal to the second place, 5 pts behind united. i feel chelsea maybe more dangerous than arsenal now. hopefully we can increase the lead to 6 points before we face them in the third last round, in that case a win at stamford bridge will be enough.

7 games left in the premier league. united still have to face chelsea and arsenal, and i think the outcome of those two matches will decide the champion. the schedule is a bit tougher than chelsea, especially united are facing roma in the champions league and chelsea have an easier job with fenerbahce. arsenal’s schedule is about the same as united’s; they have to fight with liverpool three times (two in the champions league).

schedule left:
united: aston villa, @middlesbro, arsenal, @blackburn, @chelsea, west ham, @wigan
chelsea: middlesbro, @man city, wigan, @everton, man united, @newcastle, bolton
arsenal: @bolton, liverpool, @man united, reading, @derby, everton, @sunderland

vidic seemed to pick up a little injury and ferdinand still struggled with back problem. let’s hope they all recover on time for the liverpool game this weekend. this is the first time saf handed the caption band to ronaldo, and his answer? 32nd and 33rd goal this season, which made him pass george best’s record of 32 as a winger. he’s almost on pace of one goal per game…

chelsea dropped two points in the other middle-week match against tottenham. 4-4 is the final score. so united has 5 points advantage over chelsea and 3 points over arsenal.

2008-03-19 Wednesday
@Old Traffold

United 2, Bolton 0

United: Kuszczak; Fletcher, Pique, Vidic (Brown 60), O’Shea; Ronaldo, Anderson (Scholes 70), Hargreaves, Nani; Tevez, Saha (Rooney 70)
Scorer: Ronaldo (9,20)

Bolton Wanderers: Al Habsi; Steinsson, O’Brein A, Meite (Hunt 46), Gardner; Diouf, O’Brien J, Guthrie (Giannakopoulos 82), McCann, Taylor; Davies

united official
espn soccernet

marked this date on my calender. the official releasing date of mgs4. i guess i also need to save up to buy the new bundle of ps3 and mgs4. US $499, i think.

also im thinking about replay all the mgs series, just to refresh my memory. oh, those happy days!

i think this win deserves a separate post. houston demonstrated another perfect team work. even when t-mac wasn’t at his best, alston stood up and hit 8 3-point shots. words just can’t describe how magnificent this houston team has conquered this season. they played lock-down defense; they hustled almost every offense rebound and lost ball; they made extra pass to assist the teammates to make open shots. now houston are on the top of western conference.

on the other hand, lakers needs some improvements. kobe is great but sometimes he seems passive on the offense. they need a healthy gasol and bynum to make a serious push for the championship this season.

tough win over the bottom team derby is kind of embarrassing. but considering the two matches coming next week (bolton and liverpool), saf had to make some changes. thanks to ronaldo, whose 31st goal this season gave united a much needed win.

saf must decide on the middle-field and stick to it. stop experimenting. and we also need two forwards! rooney and tevez pair haven’t score for maybe 3 or 4 games now.

2008-03-15 Saturday
@Pride Park

United 1, Derby 0

Derby County: Carroll; Edworthy (Todd 55), Moore, Leacock, McEveley; Sterjovski (Robert 80), Savage, Jones, Lewis; Earnshaw (Villa 76), Miller

Manchester United: Foster; O’Shea, Brown, Vidic, Evra; Park (Saha 62), Scholes (Carrick 62), Anderson (Fletcher 72), Giggs; Rooney, Ronaldo.
Scorer: Ronaldo (76)

united official
epsn soccernet

update: arsenal had another 1-1 draw vs middlesbro, so united are back to the top with the same 67 pts but one more game to play. chelsea is catching up, with 3 pts less than united.

Pi Day

Einstein’s Birthday

and Talk Like A Physicist Day!

Champions League match-up:

United was drawn to face Roma again, after we played them in the quarter-final last year and in the group stage this year. Not a ideal draw, since there are weaker opponents like Fenerbahce or Schalke 04. Good news is that united get to play at home in the second leg. If we can do it again as last year, a tough match vs Barcelona probably is ahead.

Arsenal and Liverpool have to play each other three times in a week, with a premier match sandwiched by two champions leagues games.  Kind of like a playoff match-up…