A Grip on Sports: A Bloomsday number triggers memories of failing to reach a goal
A GRIP ON SPORTS • There it is. Our name, clear as de-caf coffee on the Bloomsday website. Grippi, Vince J. A pdf from 1983. The results from this newspaper. Still mocking us over the years.
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• When we first heard of this Bloomsday thingamajig, we weren’t sure if we would participate. Run? Through the streets? For miles and miles? What, Bill Rodgers was busy?
We’re guessing the first mention came over an adult beverage at the Cedars Tavern, hard off what would be the course that first Sunday of our first year in Spokane.
Living alone in a Browne’s Addition apartment (Kim was finishing up her nursing studies in Southern California), the adult beverages were starting to pile up on the late nights after work for the S-R. Maybe it would be a good thing to get back into running.
My mornings were free. The weather was decent. We started training.
As with anything we did, we set a goal. Finish the darn thing in less than 90 minutes. We could do that if we pounded the pavement enough that April.
We did. Ran every day. Ate better. Drank less. Felt great.
But Bloomsday was a different animal than the 10K runs we had had participated in right out of college. We didn’t expect 28,000 other people, many of them too young to even walk, to be in the “race” as well. The crowds at the starting line surprised us. And it took a long time after the gun to even pass the official stripe.
That’s our excuse anyway. Thirty-nine years later we remember it as clear as Lake Pend Oreille on a sun-lit July day. We came up with the moment we crossed the finish line in 1 hour, 30 minutes, 24 seconds. Twenty-five seconds from meeting our goal.
Looking at the result this morning, we almost retched again. How could we come so close and fail? Doomsday Hill took its toll, sure. So did the one around the cemetery. But it was the start that did us in. The masses of walkers. The kids in strollers. The old people in their 50s, jogging.
Our effort, etched on our face by an incredibly sad photo taken just past the finish line by our friend Chris Anderson, was done in by a terrible start. We vowed then to never run Bloomsday with a time in mind. It was impossible. Instead, we became one of those folks we couldn’t get around.
And tried our best to stay out of everyone’s way.
• Why did that memory pop up today? The 29,348 who participated in Bloomsday on Sunday was the smallest number since 1983. When we read that this morning, we were triggered.
Back then, Bloomsday was in its childhood. Today it is middle-aged. And coming out of a COVID-19-caused hiatus. People are still wary of huge crowds. The number is understandable.
Maybe if we start training now, we can be part of the 30,000-plus who participate next year. Breaking 90 minutes? Not even in our dreams.
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WSU: The baseball team scored three times in the eighth inning and defeated USC 5-2. The win gave the Cougars another Pac-12 series win. … Elsewhere in the Pac-12 and college football, Oregon picked up a transfer running back from Minnesota. … Defending champion Utah is the conference’s best program at the moment. … The Pac-12 is asking the NCAA to drop requirements for divisions to hold a championship game. The proposal will probably be adopted.
Gonzaga: Who would have thought the first day of May would be a big recruiting one for the Bulldogs? It was. Former LSU center Efton Reid committed early in the day, giving the Zags the transfer big man they needed if Drew Timme stays in the NBA draft. Theo Lawson has that story. … Later in the day, four-star 2023 guard Dusty Stromer committed as well, giving GU its first commitment from that class and a 6-foot-6 point guard to build from. … Finally, former Texas Tech guard Kevin McCullar announced if he decides to take his name out of the NBA draft, he was transferring to either Kansas or Gonzaga. Jim Meehan has those last two stories. … The baseball team knocked off Loyola Marymount 6-5, taking the rubber game of the three-game series and dropping the Lions into third place in the WCC. The Zags are two games up on San Diego with just six games remaining in the regular season. Included in that total is a three-game set at USD in late May.
EWU and Idaho: Around the Big Sky, we missed yesterday that another Montana State player was taken in the NFL draft.
Bloomsday: Ethiopia’s Biruktayit Degefa easily won the women’s pro race and Kenya’s Charles Wanjiku rallied to win the men’s on Sunday. Jason Shoot covers the latter race and Justin Reed has this story on the former. … We can also pass along photo galleries from the competitive races as well as one from the celebration that is the day.
Indians: The bats were on fire as Spokane trounced host Everett 9-1.
Shadow: Spokane gave up a late goal and finished with a 2-2 draw against visiting Yakima United. It was the Evergreen Premier League opener for both.
Mariners: Logan Gilbert has started the season pretty well. Darn well, actually. He gave up a solo home run to the last batter he faced in the sixth, but nothing else as the M’s won 7-3. … Julio Rodriguez hit his first career home run.
Seahawks: How will the draft picks fit into the Hawks’ depth chart? Here’s one idea. … There is a report the Hawks declined L.J. Collier’s fifth-year option. Expect a big year from the pass rusher.
Kraken: The season ended, at least a little appropriately, with a come-from-ahead 4-3 loss at Winnipeg. It was a makeup game from a weather-delayed one.
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• By the way, our 1983 Bloomsday results were actually wrong. They should have read Grippi, Joe V. That’s the correct order of our names. But, you know, the freaking newspaper. It couldn’t do what it’s expected to do and get every one of the nearly 40,000 names exactly right? What a failure. Until later …