September 29, 2008

Football and bike racing

This weekend was a pretty good one. Saturday started with a serious fish tank cleaning evolution while College Gameday was on in the background. We watched most of the Florida game, in which I predicted the upset. Man, with all that talent, UF needs to tighten up! Avery came over after her first Girls on the Run practice this season and then we all headed to Fort Clinch in Fernandina to pre-ride the course for Sunday's race. But before I get into any race talk, I gotta comment on Saturday's games. Man, the SEC got all shook up! Florida got upset by Ole Miss, Georgia got blasted by Bama and UK whooped powerhouse Western Kentucky! Alabama is looking like a solid contender right now. I watched them man-handle Georgia Saturday night and I gotta say, they do look impressive. I hope UK can pull the shocker this weekend when they roll into Tuscaloosa. Wishful thinking but the Cats did knock of national champion LSU last year... Anyhow, the Bama/LSU game later this year will be HUGE, like BCS title game HUGE. Now, I am SEC biased, but the PAC-10, Big-10 and ACC are pretty damn soft this year. But whatever....Go Big Blue!


Ok, Sunday was the 2nd round of the fall series about an hour north of us in Fernandina. Avery's race was at 8:30 and it started with a half-mile roll out down a road to the trail head. From there was a 2-1/2 mile ride through the trails, which is by far the most difficult kid's course I have seen thus far- especially with the up and down terrain. The cool part about her race was that the trails were very close to the road so I could ride along the road and cheer for her, which is what I was also able to do during Char's race. Avery had an awesome race and took 3rd place in the girl's 6-11 year old class! How exciting! She is anxious to get back in the trails for some more training and looks forward to the next race in 2 weeks in Tallahassee. After Avery's race was the yellow wave race, which is all the pro, expert and sport riders. I spent part of the time with the gang under the tent in the feed zone and most of the time rolling around on my bike cheering along the course. Char had a good race and took 2nd to a very strong newcomer, Radd won again and TJ pulled off a solid top 10 in our extremely tough 30+ expert class. I again had a great time kicking it with er'body- Sean, Steph, Cathy, Leslie, Ryder, Kelly, Jacob and of course my 2 special ladies...


After the race, we bolted home to catch the Jags game against division nemesis Houston. Man, this game was exciting as Houston couldn't stop QB David Garrard and our defense still cannot stop the pass. I know the Jags have a ton of injuries, but we have got to get better pressure on the QB and better coverage in the secondary. The game was tight the entire way and it came down to our stud kicker Josh Scobee drilling a 37 yarder in OT to win it. This dude is solid- he hit a 51 yarder last week in Indy to knock off the Colts. A few thoughts on the Jags- Garrard played to his potential, WR Matt Jones is becoming very dependable, 1st round slection TE Mercedes Lewis needs to start catching the ball, free agent pickup WR Jerry Porter finally played his first game as a Jag and the first 2 losses of the season to undefeated Buffalo and undefeated Tennessee do not look so bad anymore. This Sunday night's game against the Steelers should be an awesome game! I hope we get to catch it while we're kicking it out in Tahoe. Oh, last night we were out walking Mays as Jag punter Adam Podlesh (lives across the street) got home from the game. I told him awesome game and he still seemed pretty stoked about the win. Being in the NFL must be cool...

4 comments:

Sean Crichton said...

dude - Avery is gonna be world champ at this rate. Look out Georgia Gould!!!!

Todd Hatfield said...

Yeah, she'll be alright as long as she continues to look more like Willow and less like Georgia...

jameson said...

Great weekend of football! The bolts barely squeezed by the raiders... close one.

sunday night in tahoe... beers and football... i'm down.

Todd Hatfield said...

What about that 76 yard field goal attempt? LOL! I went to the Jags/Chargers game last year...remember that hit Maurice Jones-Drew put on Shawn Merriman?

Sunday night sounds solid!