Sunday, January 24, 2016

Woo Hoo!!!!

OK, it's been one heckuva weekend for the sports-fan in me.

First of all, we had beautiful 65 degree weather on Saturday (18C) - sorry to gloat East Coast friends, but it was amazing! CatMan and I went for a bike ride and thoroughly enjoyed every minute. I would have taken some photos for you, except that we didn't stop! We just rode 25 miles non-stop and I've gotta tell you, my little legs are feelin' it today!

I'm not quite back in biking shape yet, but it was fabulously wonderful.



Then I came home in time to watch the Ladies Free Skate at the National Figure Skating Championships.


I'm sure this won't mean much to most of you, but it was an amazing show! The two favorites, Ashley Wagner (who sorta annoys me) and Gracie Gold (who I just love) had both made major errors on their short programs earlier. This left the door open for the youngster, Polina Edmunds, who took a commanding lead.

Anyhow, Ashley made a few mistakes in her long program, which landed her barely in first place with both Polina and Gracie still to skate. Then Polina came out and skated fabulously.

Gracie was the last skater, and the odds were long. She would literally have to skate perfectly, and score significantly better than she'd ever done before, so I was pretty sure that she was only skating for second.

Then this happened:



As I said, I'm pretty sure this won't mean anything to you since I don't think any of my readers follow figure skating, but that was one of the most amazing clutch performances I've ever seen! Go Gracie!!!

For those who didn't want to watch the video, she was amazing
and scored a personal best to win the championship

OK... so then today, my beloved Denver Broncos were underdogs in the AFC championship game. Once again, I know most of you could care less, but here's the storyline.

Our legendary quarterback, Peyton Manning is nearly 40 years old, which is ancient for an NFL quarterback. He had a rough season, missing nearly half of the games with a foot injury. Our backup QB played well enough to keep us in contention, and many were saying that the great Peyton Manning's career would end with a sputter... sitting on the bench watching a younger guy play.


But then, in the final game of the regular season, with Peyton's foot mostly healed, but still sitting on the bench quietly accepting his new role as backup, things were not going well. We were losing badly and all hope seemed lost. Then the coach decided to give the old man one last chance and Peyton rallied the team to victory.

Peyton played again last week in our first playoff game, and once again led the team to a hard fought victory to land us a spot in today's AFC championship game against the New England Patriots. But everyone figured that was it, and that the Patriots (who won the Superbowl last year) would crush us.

But they didn't count on the tenacity of my Bronco babies. It literally came down to the last play, but we hung on to win the game, giving Peyton one last shot at the Superbowl and a chance to go out with a bang rather than a whimper.


OK... I know that many of you don't share my love of sports, and I know there are plenty of good reasons not to support sports, but for me, the stories behind the competition really hit home.

Things get tough... you get knocked down, and sometimes it looks like everything is lost. But in the end hard work and perseverance can pay off as long as you never give up.

Go Gracie!!!!! (World Championships: March 28-April 3)
Go Broncos!!!! (Superbowl 50:  February 7)
Go Cat!!! (Next bike ride: my legs won't hurt quite so much!)

WOO HOO!!!!



12 comments :

  1. What a weekend you had. I didn't even think about you being able to go out for a ride I was just glad the weather wasn't really cold as that would have worked in Brady's favor today. But I'm glad a bike ride started off your great weekend.

    I don't know how anyone can beat the panthers but I hope the Broncos do just to rub it in a bit more that Peyton won this year. :-)

    I used to follow ice skating, it was something we watched growing up in my grandparents home but after the Harding, whatshername stuff I had enough and haven't watched it since. That was a fantastic performance and made me miss it.

    So how do you plan to make next weekend better than this one? :-)

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    1. Yup... beating the Panthers is gonna be... um... well, it will be like Gracie Gold heading into that free skate. We'll have to be perfect in order to have a chance. The Panthers must have weaknesses... sorta hard to see what they might be, especially after that drubbing they handed to Arizona last night. But truth be told, I'm pretty happy just to be going to the big game (not that I personally will be going, but you know what I mean.)

      Anyhow, ice skating has been up and down in recent years. My favorite skater is still Michelle Kwan, who came along a bit after the whole Nancy & Tonya craziness. I think the sport is sorta struggling. They changed the judging system to make things more objective and fair, which is good, but it's soooo complicated now that it's hard for the uninitiated to tell if a program was good or not. Plus, they still insist on doing stupid things like hand picking the national and Olympic teams, rather than letting it be decided by the results - which is just maddening.

      Anyhow, not sure how to make next weekend top this one, but I think the fact that we're supposed to be in the 60's again won't hurt! :-)

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  2. How warm?? I thought you had cold winters, with snow and everything! Glad you had a great bike ride.

    Um, I may have zoned out for the rest of the post.

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    1. Ha! Well, Denver weather is nothing if not varied! Being right next to the mountains makes it sorta crazy because we get down-sloping Chinook winds that come off the mountains warming things up right before a storm arrives. At the moment it's 35F (about 1.5 C) and we're expecting some light snow this afternoon.

      We're also really impacted by the position of the jet stream. It sorta moves across the continent in a sine wave shape, and depending on where the peaks and valleys are at the moment, we'll either get cold air pulled down from Canada, or warm air pulled up from the south.

      Anyhow, winter's not over by a long shot. March is actually our snowiest month - but I am grateful for some respite from the cold and snow!

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    2. I love your weather-geek explanation! It's fascinating to me how geography affects weather.

      We do get occasional thaws in our weather here and some snow melts down, but weather in the 60s would be newsworthy!

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    3. Well, I fear I am only a weather-geek wannabe, with a kindergarten level understanding of it all, but I do find it to be fascinating. I think in my next life I'm gonna be a meteorologist! :-)

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  3. I'm not much into sports--just the highlights. Thanks for updating me.

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  4. I'm way more likely to watch ice skating than football, but I really only keep up on it during Olympic years. Sounds like it was a great competition to watch.

    No biking here ... time to pull out the snowshoes and enjoy a rare day of sunshine!

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    1. I'm sorta thinking that winters there must be a bit like they were in Norway. Here, our weather comes and goes - we'll get a big storm that dumps a foot of snow or so, but then the sun comes out and melts it all off and we get to enjoy warm weather between the storms. But in Norway, it just snowed off and on all winter long, and once a flake hit the ground, there it stayed until spring!

      Anyhow, have fun on your snowshoes! :-)

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  5. I'm with you -- when I feel passionate about a sports team, it's always because of the people and their stories. So how about our Denver Broncos? I love their collective story this year of working together as a team and overcoming a lot of challenges. Today and tomorrow are supposed to be beautiful and hopefully you can enjoy some time on your bike. (Just watch out for ice hurdles on the streets!) xo

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    1. I'm just so happy for my little Broncos - I mean, everybody said they were gonna get killed by the Panthers but they played so well.

      I can't believe the weather either... Yay! CatMan's gonna go out today on his studded snow tires and scout it out - I'm hoping for at least one ride this week.

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