Running This One Isn’t Such a Hot Idea

Sean Burch hasn’t fully recovered from winning the third annual North Pole Marathon two weeks ago.

The 33-year-old Virginia resident told Associated Press that his left thumb “still feels like it’s asleep,” which shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering that he ran his first marathon in windy, 25-below-zero conditions over Arctic Ocean ice.

“Marathons don’t interest me,” Burch said. “But a marathon at the North Pole? Wow! OK, now you’ve got my attention. I’m definitely more into unique types of things.”

Add marathon: Running in snowshoes under the midnight sun, Burch won the April 10 race in 3 hours 43 minutes 17 seconds, then ran into a heated tent for a minute to thaw out and re-hydrate.

Then there were the distractions on the course, including treacherous cracks in the ice and Russian guards with shotguns who stood watch for polar bears.

Burch said the scariest part was simply getting to the race. The 15 competitors, who each paid an entry fee of $8,500, were taken to the campsite from Norway via a Russian cargo plane.

“I don’t think the Russians are really too much on maintenance,” he said.

Trivia time: Only once have there been Triple Crown winners in horse racing and baseball in the same year. Name the winners and the year.

Heavy load: Left fielder Barry Bonds looks tired from having to carry the struggling San Francisco Giants, writes Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle:

“He saunters to his position each inning like a guy collecting seashells. It makes sense for him to conserve energy, but if he played center or right, he’d need a golf cart.”

On life support: Tennis hopes to boost its audience with the U.S. Open Series, a summer season of televised tournaments, but Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post writes that the sport is in trouble, despite such efforts:

“Tennis is dead. It has been dead before, but at the moment it’s dead without precedent. Combine aloof players with basic business errors, and what you have is a sport with no heartbeat.”

Around the horn: The Dallas Cowboys’ quarterback stable includes former minor league baseball players Quincy Carter, Drew Henson and Chad Hutchinson.

“They’re one player away from having a hell of an infield,” ESPN’s Joe Theismann told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Distracted: Boston center fielder Johnny Damon tried to explain to the Washington Post why the Red Sox have made so many mental errors:

“I’ve forgotten the number of outs twice this season myself,” he said. “We obviously aren’t looking at the scoreboard a whole lot. We must be looking at the chicks in the stands.”

Trivia answer: War Admiral and Joe “Ducky” Medwick of the St. Louis Cardinals each won the Triple Crown in 1937.

And finally: Dennis Rodman was recently on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” plugging a sexual-enhancement product.

“I’m not sure how it works,” Leno said, “but judging by Dennis, I think the side effects are pink and green hair.”