The OTher Thread (OT)

Howdy. Well, yesterday was over the hump day. That's the day for us working stiffs when things begin to ease up a little, in terms of tennis and information overload, and it usually arrives not a moment too soon.

I went for a run this morning, but got out a little bit late (8:45 AM), so the sun was already pretty high. In fact, I ran almost due east, and by the end of Mile One the sun was like the tip of a white hot drill bit, boring into my forehead. It's funny, I don't run distance, I run time (45 minutes, about three-and-a-half miles at my snail's pace), so once you have an out-and-back course, there's no real need to use a watch. But I'm obsessive about wearing my watch to time my run, although I'll be the first to admit that there's something grim about the relentless consultations: Oh, it's 22:10, eleven seconds later than when I last checked! Just 22:50 to go!
Hey, I'm hurtin', this stupid watch must be slow!

You know how running is, it's never fun (okay I exaggerate; there was that frigid morning in Moscow 11 years ago when the time just flew by!), but then nothing I've found compares to the alert, calm, clear way you feel for most of the day, starting about an hour after you finish. Being a hunter, I'm trained to look for sign in the environment; the way the limb of a certain tree is broken in bear country, the oval of leaves and dirt in the snow, indicating a place where a deer had bedded down and melted the snow with its body heat. Today, I noticed at the mid-point of my run that one of the palm trees in the row along the sidewalk was slightly  out of line and set back from the others. Now there's a can't miss landmark.  Maybe I'll leave the watch behind Sunday. Might as well live dangerously.

I'm watching Na Li and Daniela Hantuchova slugging it out in the first semifinal; Stick just took the first set, 7-5. I wouldn't count Li out just yet, I believe in her competitive drive. Since we're in a the midst of a big tournament here, I imagine the OT discussion will mostly be about the Pacific Life Open. Here's an idea for those of you who don't want to divulge your compulsive behaviors: how about making your picks for the rest of the tournament?  On the women's side, you've got Hantuchova, Li, Bammer and Kuznetsova; among the men, Roddick and Nadal are in the semis, and we have Djokovic meeting Ferrer and Andy Murray banging heads with Haas for the other semifinal berths.

Take a shot - who's going to beat who and eventually who wins? You can use this post for match-calling for the day, too.