WEEK OF JANUARY 28, 2003 - FEBRUARY
3, 2003
- FASTER, HIGHER, STRONGER [2/3/2003]
Russian pole-vaulter Svetlana Feofanova broke her own indoor
world record yesterday, clearing 15' 7-1/4". We'll
be interested to see if Stacy Dragila who holds the outdoor
world record (15-9 1/4) and the American indoor record (15-5 1/4)
can mount a serious challenge to this new mark at Friday's Millrose
Games. Of course there are other reasons to watch the
Millrose Games [CPTC!], like Shawn Crawford, who recently
beat a giraffe and lost to a zebra [4x400 women's masters and
men's masters!!]; high jumper Amy Acuff, who is usually
on the cutting edge of athletic fashion [CPTC-team's races start
at 5:00 p.m. You can get tickets at the Armory for $15!!!];
and stars like Regina Jacobs and Maurice Greene
[Wear Orange!!!!!!!!!]. We even hear they'll be some relays.
- CROSS CULTURAL INFLUENCE [2/3/2003]
We read today of the death of jazz percussionist Mongo Santamaria
from a stroke at age 85. Santamaria, who played a leading
role in the shift from the Afro-Cuban jazz of the 1950s to the
more salsa-themed sound of the 1970s, was also one of the most
popular Latin musicians of the 1960s, and his career covered nearly
all forms of jazz and Latin music. Still, we'll always think
of him as the inspiration for the character Mongo in Mel Brooks'
classic 1973 Western, Blazing Saddles. In the film,
the dim-witted-but-nearly-invulnerable Mongo is sent to terrorize
the town of Rock Ridge. The town's one Hispanic citizen,
upon seeing this foe, exclaims "Mongo! Santa Maria!"
while crossing himself, and promptly faints in shock. God,
as they say, is in the details.
- REVISED HISTORY [2/3/2003]
On the list of best marathon times, Bill Gaston ("recruited
by my longtime hero, Frank Handelman") should be credited
with nine sub-3-hour races:
(3) New York City Marathon (2:53 in 1980, 2:38:30 PR in 1981,
2:41 in 1983)
(2) Virginia Beach Shamrock Marathon (both in 2:53, in 1977, and
1978)
(1) Boston Marathon (2:48 in 1978)
(1) Maryland Marathon (2:47 in 1979)
(1) Moscow (Russia) Marathon in 2:42 in 1984
(1) Taylor Wineglass Marathon in 2:59 in 1992.
- POST-RACE
EVALUATION [2/2/2003] Context ... it's all about
context ...
- RACE GOALS [2/2/2003] So
Margaret Angell went out for a training run and won the
Al Gordon 15K. The training goal was achieved, and
the actual achievement was larger.
Meanwhile Steven Paddock has these immediate goals:
- an indoor 3,000m on February 22nd: "If I don't beat
9:20.4 (editor's note: Tony Ruiz's time at the Thursday
Night At the Races), I will be switching to the high jump.
I think ..."
- the Flora London Half Marathon on March 22nd: "I
will probably get some grief from Tony Ruiz for I am having
my annual attempt at a half marathon. This should be interesting
at least until the miles get too much (although hopefully I might
be able to make it this year round without an MI)."
- FAR EAST REPORT
[2/2/2003] Our Far East correspondent has returned from
his long trip, and is sharing his photos and memories with us.
Why is there no restaurant review (which would be consistent with
our proclivity to tell you about places that you will never visit)?
He explains, "Unfortunately for you, I have no complaint
about every place that I ate at, from the exclusive Kowloon Club
down to the seedy backstreet dives and food courts. Even
the canteen was serviceable. The fact is this --- the Hong
Kong economy is a service economy based upon a strict Darwinian
survival-of-the-fittest logic. A bad restaurant would be
out of business within a week. Those horrible New York City
restaurants would never be around."
- CROSS TRAINING FOR RUNNERS [2/1/2003]
In the NYRR Monthly Lecture Series, this month's speaker will
be Scott Willett. The date is Tuesday, February 11,
the time is 6:30-8:00pm and the place is NYRR, 9 East 89th Street
(between Madison and Fifth Avenues). Our speaker is credentialed
as 'Coach of NYU Triathlon Club and NYC Triathlon Team in Training.'
Not stated is the fact that he is a member of the Central Park
Track Club. Admission is free for card-carrying NYRR members
and $5 for non-members. Lecture is limited to first 35 people
to show up. The topics will include:
- Benefits of cross-training, including performance enhancement,
injury prevention and rehabilitation, running longevity, and just
plain boredom-busting fun
- The best cross-training options for you
- How to integrate cross-training into your running program
- ESSENTIAL GUIDE [2/1/2003]
Officially available on February 4 from Amazon.com will be Toby
Tanser's The
Essential Guide to Running the New York City Marathon.
The sections of the book include:
How to Enter
Three 16-week Training Guides
The Top 14 Tips for Surviving in the City
The Weather and What to Wear
Hotels
Volunteering
The Race Expo
Where to Run in NYC
Getting to-and Surviving-the Start
Best Bagel and Pizza Restaurants in the City
Spectator Essentials
The Course-for the Marathoner and for the Spectator
NYC Sports Doctors
Tips from the Pros
What!? Bagel and pizza restaurants only?
- UPDATE ON OBED MUTANYA [2/1/2003]
Last year, Toby Tanser organized a fund-raising campaign
to raise money for Obed Mutanya to fly from Zambia to go
to Central Arizona College. Here are two updates:
Obed Mutanya has
asked me to give a big thank you to everybody who gave donations
toward the cost of his air ticket from Zambia to Phoenix so
that he can commence studying at Central Arizona College.
Obed will arrive in Phoenix this evening and starts classes
at CAC tomorrow (Tuesday). Administrative problems that
were out of his hands, and those of CAC, meant he will arrive
in the US about a month later than anticipated - it was hoped
that he would get to the US before Christmas - but he is enrolled
for this semester and is eagerly looking forward to the athletic
and academic challenges ahead.
Severe rains in Zambia during November and December meant that
his training was severely curtailed before Christmas but Obed
has had several good weeks of training since the start of the
year. He is not yet in the shape to run a 13:25 5km like
he did in 2001 (his PR on the track is 13:25.25) and he has
only had one race since the Commonwealth Games in July due to
the lack of opportunities at home, but he is raring to get back
into competition and is looking forward to running in CAC vest.
For the average person in Zambia it is difficult to make ends
meet, the country is going through a severe economic crisis,
and Obed comes from a tough background even by local standards.
Obed would have been unable to continue his education without
a scholarship from an American institution but, to be eligible
for such a scholarship, the rules and regulations demand that
an athlete actually gets to the institution by his own means,
and under normal circumstances that wouldn't have been possible
for Obed.
Athletically, it is impossible to say with any certainty what
the future holds for him but Obed has the potential to run very
fast and also rewrite the JUCO record book. He has the
tentative targets of winning the JUCO 5km in the spring and
breaking Noureddine Morceli's JUCO 5km record of 13:25.10
from 1990, although the latter may have to wait until his second
year of eligibility of CAC next year. If these things
happens, and I believe they will, then the sponsors can take
great pride in knowing that they contributed to making it happen.
If you ever get the chance to meet Obed in person, I am sure
you will find that your faith and generosity have not been misplaced.
Best regards
Phil Minshull
Dear all - After
your contributions to getting Obed Mutanya to Central
Arizona College, I thought I would briefly let you know how
things are going with him after a week there. In two words,
his situation can be summed up as 'very good'. He went straight
into classes on Tuesday after arriving in Phoenix on Monday
night after a 36 hour journey from Lusaka.
The initial tests to determine his ability levels, and so which
classes he will attend, went well and even better than
expected in mathematics. Not being familiar with the US education
system, I can only pass on what I have been told by CAC but
they are confident he will graduate with an associate degree
in four semesters and be able to go on to an NCAA I school.
Despite being tired from his journey and all the inevitable
last minute things to do back in Zambia, he is in good shape
and has had no problem adapting to the CAC training regime.
"He's clearly been training hard before he came here and
during the sessions he's been looking at me as if to say, 'Is
this all you're doing?'" Coach Gray at CAC commented to
me at the weekend.
He has his first race in three weeks' time - apologies, I don't
know where - and Obed has already set his sights on running
very fast in April in the right competition, maybe an open race
like Mt Sac as JUCO competitions may lack the opposition to
push him.
Obed himself is delighted with everything he has found, especially
the reception he got at CAC where all the staff - academic,
coaching and administrative - have gone out of their way to
introduce him to life at a US college and look after him. He
said that the first week was incredibly busy. Registration,
tests, classes, finding out where to get books and other daily
essentials etc but the culture shock hasn't been too huge and
he said that by the end of the week the bewilderment was starting
to subside.
He is in a small comfortable apartment on campus which he is
sharing with CAC's other top runner, Kenya's Jonah Maiyo. His
only one grumble is about the cafeteria food... but this comes
from a man who is an adept fisherman used to catching his own
supper!
Once again, many thanks to everyone for making a difference
to one young man's life. I am not proposing to send regular
updates but will pass on the occasional bits of good news.
Best regards
Phil Minshull
At this moment, the
Central Arizona College
track web page does not even have Obed listed on the roster.
The first track meet of the season is on February 15, culminating
in the NJCAA championships on May 9-10.
On the Central Arizona College all-time list, the top ten 5,000m
times are:
13:55.39 |
Mark
Roberts |
1988 |
13:58.20 |
Art Redhair |
1976 |
14:03.20 |
Simon Kilili |
1981 |
14:06.50 |
Kristen Bowditch |
1996 |
14:28.76 |
Jaime Rodriquez |
1990 |
14:34.50 |
Steve Preston |
1985 |
14:41.46 |
Frank Kinhead |
1996 |
14:42.30 |
Gary Schnakenburg |
1986 |
14:43.54 |
Zepherinus Joseph |
1999 |
14:44.24 |
Finion Cronin |
1986 |
According to the IAAF,
Obed Mutanya has a 5,000m time of 13:46.33 set in 2000
at the IAAF World Junior Championships in Santiago de Chile.
In 2001, he ran 13:25.25 (PR) in San
Sebastian. At the 2002 Commonwealth
Games, he ran 13:39.74. It is therefore almost certain
that Obed will be the best 5,000m runner for the school.
- CANADIAN
ROAD RANKINGS [2/1/2003] As of 1/26/2003, RunningTimes
ranked the Canadian women as follows:
1 Carol Howe (CAN)
No races past two months
2 Sarah Dupre (CAN)
30 Nov 2002 003 0369 XC 6 km Moncton CAN
3 Lucille Smith (CAN)
12 Jan 2003 001 RD 8 km Saanichton CAN
30 Nov 2002 004 0369 XC 6 km Moncton CAN
4 Nicole Stevenson (CAN)
19 Jan 2003 002 0300 RD Half Mara Carlsbad CA /USA
26 Dec 2002 001 RD 10 mi Hamilton CAN
5 Sarah Dillabough (CAN)
30 Nov 2002 008 0369 XC 6 km Moncton CAN
6 Tania Jones (CAN)
No races past two months
7 Lisa Harvey (CAN)
No races past two months
8 Veronique vanderSmissen (CAN)
No races past two months
9 Angela Strange (CAN)
No races past two months
10 Sandy Jacobson (CAN)
No races past two months
11 Danuta Bartoszek (CAN)
No races past two months
12 Nancy Tinari (CAN)
No races past two months
13 Maria Zambrano (CAN)
30 Nov 2002 013 0369 XC 6 km Moncton CAN
14 Alayne Adams (CAN)
15 Dec 2002 003 RD 10 km New York NY /USA
At the end of 2002, Alayne Adams finished at number 15
in the open rankings, on the strength that exuberant 24th place
overall finish in the New York City Marathon. If there were
a separate ranking for masters, Alayne would be behind only Nancy
Tinari.
- GLOBAL CORRESPONDENCE [2/1/2003]
The following emails were exchanged during late January:
MC: I'm a runner from London. I'm
due to be in NY between 22-30. Can I join
you for the Thursday 7pm run?
RS: I am presently in Hong Kong,
so it is rather odd that someone in Hong Kong should be telling
someone else in London about a road workout in New York City.
Yes, our road workouts are open to everyone. We meet on
Thursdays at 7pm by the Daniel Webster statue at the intersection
of West 72nd Street and West Drive, just a few blocks north
of Tavern On The Green. If you think you are getting lost,
just remember that all the lampposts inside Central Park are
painted with the street numbers (E66, E67, ..., W66, W67, W68,
etc).
MC: In fact, it is coincidental that
you are writing from Hong Kong (to a person in London about
running in NY!). I have recently moved from Hong Kong
to London. There are some good hill runs on Hong Kong
island, and the weather at this time of year should not be too
oppressive. For a flat-ish run, if you are near the mid-levels
area, go up the long escalator all the way up to Conduit Road,
there is a nice run which takes you to Queen Mary hospital.
From the top of the escalator, turn right (heading west) and
follow Conduit Road to the end of the road. From there, turn
left (you should be heading up hill, not down) and run about
50m until you hit a set of public toilets. Next to the public
toilets is a set of stairs going downwards. Follow this on to
the trail and go the end of it. It's not very long, about 2.5km
max, so around 5K there and back. But unusually pretty for middle
of urban HK. For a hilly run, try the challenging Morning
Trail off Conduit road to the Peak for a really steep ride!
Have fun in Hong Kong. I'll try and catch the club on Thursday.
Thanks for the tip re street markings.
RS: Unfortunately, I live on the wrong side of
the harbor in Hong Kong. Over on the Kowloon side, I suppose
there is nothing much to do other than run down Waterloo Road,
straight over Lion Rock and all the way to Shatin and then take
the train back ...
Indeed, the internet has made the world smaller
now ...
- WEB ACCESS STATISTICS
[2/1/2003] And so we rolled on again through this new year,
every month better than the month before. The mystery is
that our top user came from this domain: blueyonder.co.uk, with
almost 5000 hits from just five sessions --- his/her arm must
be falling off ...
- THURSDAY RACE REPORT [1/31/2003]
Coach Tony Ruiz had been promoting last night's meet as
the big CPTC night at the races. So what happened?
We had three more runners present this time than we did two weeks
ago. Still, whatever we may have lacked in quantity, we
certainly made up for in quality. Margaret Angell
started things off by winning the first race, the 3000m.
She was quickly followed by Alexandra Horowitz, who won
the second heat. A strong men's field came next, led by
the coach himself winning his heat. We don't know who came
up with the odd 1500m relay (500m, 400m, 300m, 200m, 100m), but
it didn't faze team Orange Scream, which won the coed division.
And anybody patient enough to hang around until 10:00 pm caught
Devon Martin's first place finish in the mile. The
most popular event of the evening, however, was the 800m, which
drew twenty CPTCers. Chris Sicaras won his heat,
and another heat featured five orange singlets.
It wasn't all fun and games, though. Several members lost
count during the first race, and ran only 14 laps in the 3000m
(including Yves-Marc Courtines, who would make up for his
mistake by running all the other races, making him 8.93/9 over
two weeks). Unfortunately, the officials at these races
can't keep track of everybody's laps, and some people will slip
through the cracks. Indeed, it is our counting skills rather
than our running preferences that have kept us from ever attempting
any race longer than a mile at the Armory.
The only other problem was that the meet didn't end until 10:30,
and the A train doesn't run express late at night. The slow
ride home did give us time to learn two interesting facts about
Jonathan Cane: (1) he can multiply three digit
numbers in his head quickly, and (2) his idea of fun includes
a race in March where he will run up the stairs of a 32-story
building for three hours straight.
Note: We included splits for a couple of runners
with the results. However, we know that many other people
have race splits that we didn't get a chance to copy. Please
send your splits in to rolandsoong@centralparktc.org
so that we can add them to the results.
- UPDATES [1/30/2003] A few
updates to our stories:
As we predicted, Serena Williams won the Australian Open.
She currently holds the trophies for all four Grand Slam events,
but because three of them are from 2002 and one from 2003, some
commentators have taken to referring to her feat as a "Serena
Slam," much as the phrase "Tiger Slam" was bandied
about a few years back to mark Tiger Woods' similar achievement.
Since we have a hard time conceiving of an actual "season"
in either tennis or golf, we tend to think that winning all the
major tournaments in a row is a worthy Grand Slam, whether or
the victories come in the same calendar year.
The Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on the United States
Olympic Committee Tuesday, and the committee behaved as maturely
as we've come to expect. CEO Lloyd Ward accused former
ethics officer Pat Rodgers of spying on Ward's electronic
calendar (Rodgers said the calendar was publicly available).
Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO), continued to question
Ward's membership in the all-male Augusta National Country Club,
saying "I wouldn't belong to any organization that had a
rule that gays, women or people of color couldn't be a member.
I don't know what kind of example you are setting."
Ken Duberstein, who led the ethics investigation of Ward
continued to claim that he was never asked to fill out a conflict-of-interest
disclosure form. And both Ward and USOC president Marty
Mankamyer portrayed themselves as innocent victims of a smear
campaign led by the other's forces (with Ward leading the staff
members against Mankamyer, and Mankamyer mobilizing the volunteers
against Ward). The Commerce Committee will meet again in
two weeks to begin hearing from experts on how to fix the USOC.
Replacing everyone involved would probably be a good start.
In other Olympic news, track and field officials have asked Tim
Montgomery and Marion Jones to explain their connection
to Charlie Francis, Ben Johnson's former coach.
Francis was banned from the sport for life by Athletics Canada
after Johnson tested positive for steroids at the 1988 Olympics,
but no action was taken against him by any other nation.
Although neither Jones nor Montgomery will confirm the connection,
they have been seen training with Francis in Toronto and Hawaii
since December. As the USOC has shown recently, the appearance
of wrongdoing can be as bad - or worse - than actual transgressions.
There is no evidence the sprinters are doing anything wrong, but
their secrecy is troubling. The doping scandals have unfortunately
placed a presumption of guilt rather than innocence on many top
athletes. Jones and Montgomery should explain their actions
before that presumption grows stronger.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) has decided that the Zimbabwe
matches will be played as scheduled. With many calling for
the games to be moved to South Africa as a protest of Robert
Mugabe's regime, the English players made an informal request
to the ICC to move the matches on safety grounds. The ICC
declined today, saying that the situation in Harare was safe.
(Sadly, the latest crackdowns by Zimbabwean police, military and
government-allied militias, mean it probably will be safe for
the players, though not for the average citizen there. Meanwhile,
the government has responded to the drought afflicting the nation
by ordering the government's weather service to clear all forecasts
with the president.) The ICC also ruled that New Zealand's
matches in Kenya are also safe. The Kiwis had made an official
request to have their matches moved out of fear of terrorist attacks.
The ICC has been more active on other fronts, announcing that
fans who wear clothing promoting non-World Cup sponsors will be
ejected.
- DEM'S FIGHTIN' WORDS! [1/30/2003]
Our resident legal scholars no doubt all remember Chaplinsky
v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942), in which Justice
Murphy, writing for the court, discoursed at length upon "insulting
or 'fighting' words-those which by their very utterance inflict
injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.
It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential
part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social
value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived
from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order
and morality." 315 U.S. at 572.
Mr. Chaplinsky had stood in front of the City Hall of Rochester,
NH shouting "You are a God damned racketeer and a damned
Fascist and the whole government of Rochester are Fascists or
agents of Fascists." The test of whether such words
are fighting words or not depends not on the reaction of the listener,
but whether the words are "what men of common intelligence
would understand would be words likely to cause an average addressee
to fight." Id. at 573. Times have changed, of
course, and with them the words that cause an average person to
fight. Chaplinsky was speaking in 1940, when actual Fascists
controlled most of Europe. These days, denouncements of
local governments as Fascist or Stalinist are greeted mostly with
a shrug, a sigh of pity for the deranged crackpot spouting such
idiocy, and occasional wonderment and how said crackpot got a
job on Fox News.
In a society where almost no speech can shock so much as to provoke
a strong reaction, we barely gave our conversation with the Workout
Reporter a second thought. As we recall, though, the reporter
suggested that he might fill his story with a lot of uninteresting
drivel that had no relation to running. While we have no
objection to drivel or to non-running-related stories (before
we wrote for this page, we spent more time reading this journal
in an average day that we spent reading any running magazines
in an average month). We demand only that non-running stories
(and hopefully running-related news, too) be interesting and fun.
While we don't recall the specific suggestion the reporter made,
we do recall that it met none of our criteria, so we responded
that he was free to write whatever he wanted, but we, as editor,
would edit out any of the nonsense he had just suggested.
And that should have been that. Imagine our surprise, then,
when we received the workout report. It seems that our usually-reliable
reporter found our editorial advice far more disturbing that any
of Chaplinsky's listeners found his political rants. (It
should be noted that, despite any tendencies toward incitement
present in Chaplinsky's speech, nobody actually responded
with violence. While not always a fan of violence ourselves,
we have long felt that much of the stupidity in the world could
be erased simply by smacking some sense into our fellow citizens.)
Instead of submitting his normal account of the goings-on of club
members, he accused us of censorship (we have done none; had we
cut out any objectionable material, there would have been no report
left to publish), compared us to King John (we find the comparison
so remote as to boggle the mind), insulted our socks (we think
he's just jealous), and generally retreated into a self-righteous
funk (actually his normal state).
As an editor we try to strike a balance between the interests
of our writers and our readers (we have, in fact, rejected many
of our own ideas as being too esoteric or too controversial for
this site (and you thought the stuff we did publish was
strange...)), and we never expected to be able to please all of
the people all of time. Nor are we so thin-skinned as to
lose any sleep over the attacks on our character. Since
the reporter suffered no real challenge to his writing, his complaints
are merely theoretical objections to a potential (though unlikely)
future action, and he can claim no harm here. It is only
the readers who are victims, since they are the ones who were
deprived of the knowledge that Sid Howard was at his first
Tuesday workout since returning from Bermuda, or that one team
member tried to hide the fact that he was celebrating his 28th
birthday, or that Tony Ruiz managed to get several of the
more pedagogical members to tutor his son on the A train between
168th Street and 34th Street, or the dozens of other items of
interest that we expected our reporter, with his "journalistic
integrity" to keep us all informed of.
- TUESDAY TRACK WORKOUT REPORT (AS 'TWERE)
[1/29/2003] Please note that the journalistic integrity
(no giggling, dammit!) of this report has been severely corrupted:
For our substitute webmaster, who shall remain unidentified, but
who seems to have forgotten what happened to "King"
John when King Richard came back from the East and, what is more,
who was certainly wearing atrociously colored "Aloha"
socks at the workout, has threatened to "edit out the nonsense"
in our report. We thought of submitting a blank report,
more out of necessity than protest, for we have little but nonsense
to offer. But then the brave circular exertions of our intrepid
track warriors would have gone un-noted; and, as anyone who's
been to DC lately must know: if it isn't reported, then
it didn't happen. So, for the sake of the club and of history,
we will put aside our righteous and highly merited indignation
at this dastardly act of foulest censorship; we duly pledge to
keep this report (it's coming, worry not) safely within the cozy
confines of the Real World (with our sincerest apologies for the
Puckish remarks above). Be warned, however, that the opposite
of "nonsensical" is "boring and short":
Thus:
We counted 38 people at the start of the workout. Please
note the careful, suit-proof, wording of that statement.
We observed that the workout began at 8:16. For those racing
on Thursday, the assignment was perfectly symmetrical, 2x4, followed
by 4x2. The 200s were to be run at "mile pace."
The C group thus seems due for a breakthrough, given its projected
4:04 mile. For those not racing on Thursday, there was a
punishment of 2x1 mile at the end of the 200s.
Oh yes, and Regina Jacobs was on the track. She isn't
slow...
- ALL WORKOUT AND NO PLAY [1/28/2003]
Fifty-one weeks out of the year, The
Economist is filled with sober, weighty reports on politics,
finance, international relations, etc. The Christmas issue,
however, focuses on less weighty subjects. The articles
in the 2002 edition addressed such important topics as Barbie,
Champagne, Vietnamese Food and "The Cult of the Gym."
This last story prompted our favourite (it's a British paper,
we use the British spelling) letter to the editor :
SIR People exercise for the same reasons
that they drink: it makes them feel good but without hangovers,
ill health and a depressed mood. If only insight was accompanied
by discipline, I would exercise more than I drink.
Tom Ellefsen
Bangkok
- COLOR
COORDINATED [1/28/2003] The New
York Mets unveiled their new batting practice uniforms today.
We're skeptical of the Mets' chances this year, but we do admire
their fashion sense.
WEEK OF JANUARY 21, 2003 - JANUARY
27, 2003
- I SAY, THAT'S NOT CRICKET [1/27/2003]
Craig Chilton informs us that Canada has qualified for
the Cricket World Cup for the first time since 1979. This
means little to us (although our many Canadian members may be
more interested), but some other cricket news caught our attention.
We reported last month on the controversy surrounding the World
Cup matches scheduled to be played in Zimbabwe in February.
There had been pressure on the English team to boycott the matches
as a protest to the increasingly repressive and destructive regime
of president Robert Mugbabe. Mugabe has long been
more concerned with the welfare of his cronies that that of his
people, but his recent economic and agricultural policies have
hit new lows even for him, causing the economy to shrink by 20%
in three years and causing a famine that affects two-thirds of
the population.
The British government made it clear that they would prefer that
the cricketers not play, but refused to make the decision for
them. The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), faced with
a potential £1 million ($1.5 million) fine from the International
Cricket Council (which feels matches should be moved only if players'
or officials' safety is in question), decided to participate in
the games as long as safety could be assured. Since then,
the capital, Harare, has seen food riots, fire bombings, and an
attempt by two of the president's top deputies to force Mr. Mugabe
out of office and set up a power-sharing coalition with Morgan
Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change,
who would probably be president right now if the last election
had been even remotely clean. When Harare's mayor admitted
that he could not guarantee the security of the English cricket
team or its fans, the players asked that their game be moved to
South Africa, and the ECB threatened to pull out of the match
on safety grounds if it remains in Zimbabwe. The International
Cricket Council is reviewing the situation, and is scheduled to
report more on Thursday.
- MARY ROSADO [1/27/2003] Mary
V. Rosado has been selected by the USATF Masters LDR Committee
to be the LDR Team Manager at the WMA Championships in Puerto
Rico in July. Anyone wanting an application and booklet
should contact her by email (mvrosadoesq@prodigy.net)
or telephone (212.758.2104).
In addition, the USATF Women's LDR Championship Committee has
selected Mary to be the Team Manager for the national team going
to compete in the Yokohama (Japan) Ekiden on February 23, 2003.
Mary and the team will spend 5 days in Japan.
Finally, any teams who want to be a part of the Millrose Masters
Women Relay event in 2004 should have their coach send Mary their
email address so that they can be included when the information
becomes available. [Mary was also the Coordinator of the
Masters Women Relay event.]
- NEW YORK RACE REPORT [1/26/2003]
Once again, we don't have one. We meant to run this morning,
we really did, but when we woke up we knew it wasn't going to
happen. See, last night was the New York Flyers awards dinner,
and we felt that, as club chronicler, we should check out what's
going on with some of our competitors. Of course it didn't
hurt that we have a number of friends on the Flyers, or that we
attend so many of their functions that a number of them think
that we're a fellow member. (The same is true of the Prospect
Park Track Club, who also had their annual dinner last night.
We've been to both parties before, and we feel that the Flyers
bash is the more fun one, although reports suggest that the Brooklyn
crew may have had the better food last night).
Of course this party could not compare to the CPTC 30th Anniversary
Gala, but it was still a lot of fun. And there was an open
bar, so we had a few drinks. We've often been known to run
the day after a party; we once even set a 5K PR after a particularly
raucous Halloween fest. We learned a long time ago that
the best way for us to overcome any of the lingering effects of
alcohol is to engage in some kind of physical activity, preferably
one involving fresh air. So why skip the race? Because
we've also learned that one of the worst things we can do when
we're feeling dehydrated and woozy (whether alcohol-induced or
not) is to get into an automobile. The last thing we needed
to do was to ride up to the park, or subject our dad (who was
providing said ride) to our uncomfortable presence.
So, no race, more sleep, some Gatorade, and we were all ready
to dig into the vat of chili at the annual Super Bowl party.
Of course watching the game left a worse feeling in our stomach
than any amount of booze ever could (we're pretty sure the Book
of Revelations has some warning about cities like Anaheim and
Tampa Bay winning sports championships). Returning home,
we found a photo from the party waiting, and since the Flyers
have been nice enough to put a link to our journal on their site,
the least we can do it put a photo from their party on ours.
That, and we didn't have any other new photos for the front page.
Somebody, please get out there with a digital camera at one of
these races! Do you really want more photos like this up
here?
- FAR EAST RACE REPORT [1/26/2003]
On Sunday the 26th of January I ran the first of the Kawasaki
Monthly Time Trials for 2003, a 10-K race along the Tama River.
Jesus Montero is in town and was to have run as well but
sent me the excuse of working at a trade show everyday from 10-6
while here. Obviously choosing a job that interferes with
running is courting disaster. This is not true if your boss
runs as well and will let you train.
To the race. Running on the banks of riverbed are nice when
the weather is fine. The week before rained a bit so the
dust was packed and the dirt firm. Despite the loose gravel
covering much of the course, the flat terrain helps pacing a lot.
Unless of course you are running alone and being taunted.
Let me explain. There are some runners who are born fast
while the rest of us must train. There are guys like Alan
who are born fast AND train but they are the exception and have
wisely chosen to throw in their lot with CPTC. So at the
start of the race the few rabbits jumped ahead of the pack only
to fade in the second 800 meters. After 1-k there were about
four of us near the front. The guy in front was a good 100
meters ahead and accelerating. That left us three laggards
to run hard. Keeping to the pace instilled in me by dutifully
following Coach's workout I managed to pull ahead of the third
place guy at 2-k and the second place guy at about 4-k (remember
there are only about 60-100 competitors total in the race so this
is not the fantastic thing it seems). That left me in second
with 6-k to go.
Running alone I could not see the guy in
first until the turn around point at 5-k. He was a good
800-1,000 meters in front. He didn't look to be breathing
hard. Thinking I could psyche him out I had to pretend to
be happy and unconcerned and waved to him and said "good
luck". He just ran on by. So I pushed and pushed
and pushed. Slowly reeling in the distance as he seemed
to just jog along at the final turn with 1-k to go he was less
than 400 meters in front! One lap of the track! I
know I can do it! Less than the Stuart Mile to go.
I started to sprint (OK, not sprint just run a little faster).
With 400 to go I was within 50 meters. Just a little more
effort. So what does he do? He looks back and just,
barely, not even moving his arms much, picks up the pace to keep
the 50 meters between us until the finish! How can he do
that!?? Who was this guy who ran at an obvious sub-optimal
pace, not sprint not even care enough about me and the other competitors
only caring to jog to victory? Obviously someone who was
born fast, never trains and never joined a track club to know
you have to give your best every time! Final time 37:04.
(5:58 per mile).
Charles Allard, Jr.
- WEST COAST RACE REPORT [1/25/2003]
We're still adjusting to our duties here, and one area in which
we need a lot of work is the posting of race results. We
do okay with the New York Road Runners races, but we're less proficient
when it comes to out of town results. A case in point:
we diligently posted Stuart Calderwood's San Diego Half-Marathon
result earlier this week, but we posted his result from last
year's race. When Stuart returned to New York he pointed
out the error, and sent along the following race report:
It might be worth noting that we were delayed
a minute and 38 seconds before we got onto the course.
We have to work on our baby handoffs; the horn sounded when
we were in the process of putting our son Kieran in the charge
of my saintlike parents (who live nearby and took care of
their grandson so we could both race). We then had to
dodge through a 4,000-plus crowd in the first couple of miles;
it was actually Stacy's second-best half-marathon ever when
this is taken into account . She ran a much-impeded 7:44
first mile and then averaged 7:02 for the next 12.1.
Her chip time was a full minute better than her previous best
time on the course, too. Not that I'm proud of her or
anything.
Of course, we'd already caught the mistake,
since Stacy Creamer had sent along own report several
hours earlier:
Stuart and I returned moments ago from our
trip to California. What do we do as soon as we're in
our door?
(a) Check on our five cats who seemed to have missed us terribly?
(b) Unpack Kieran from his stroller and tuck him in bed?
(c) Open the mail, carefully checking for unpaid bills that
may now be overdue?
(d) Fire up the computer and check the Central Park Track
Club website?
Answer: (d), of course!
We were happy to once again gaze upon the orange screen for
the first time in more than a week. However, we were
sorry to notice that the San Diego Half result posted is from
2002! If you can find the 2003 results, you will see
that Stuart, though a year older, ran even faster and I, no
longer pregnant, ran as well. Well, maybe not as well
as Stuart, but pretty well for me. You will also notice
that we both experienced the largest gap between our gun and
net times. This is because we failed to practice our
Kieran hand-off. We failed to connect with his paternal
grandparents in time to make the start. Hence the delay.
Glad to be back home although only one of us (Stuart!) is
sorry to have missed the severe cold.
We're glad to see that our members have their
priorities straight, and consider checking the website the most
important thing to do upon returning home, but we're a little
disturbed to learn that the CPTC website can not be viewed from
California.
- WAR OF THE WORDS [1/24/2003]
Even a casual observer to this site would quickly realize that
more than one writer deserves the credit and blame for this page.
After all (barring any late-breaking news in the world of quantum
physics), a person cannot be in New York and Hong Kong at the
same time. And even if there were no geographic indicators,
no one person could have so many diverse interests, keep abreast
of so many different subjects, and spew forth so, so, so many
paragraphs of updates every day. Of course there is no shame
in having multiple writers. It's what keeps us from being
merely a pathetic blogger -- putting forth our ill-informed opinions
in the hopes that someone, anyone, will read them -- and makes
us, instead, the unofficial voice of a major running organization
(though it does not necessarily make our opinions any more valuable).
"But," you say, "you are not the voice of anything;
you are, at minimum, three voices, clearly distinguishable,
and often in conflict. Worse than being a blogger, you are
actually the web equivalent of a Sunday morning talk show."
We would contest this, but the facts are against us. A small
sampling of the chaos here includes: the Editor accusing
the Tuesday Workout Reporter of insanity; the Tuesday Reporter
calling the Far East Correspondent a tyrant; and the Far East
Correspondent offering unceasing criticism of the Editor, the
latest accusation being that the Editor is a closet Francophobe.
(In fact, we are quite upfront about our feelings towards Gallic
politics and culture, and it has nothing to do with the heckling
directed towards le maillot jaune.)
"But," you cry, "this internal bickering has no
place here! You should keep these squabbles to yourselves,
and present a unified front. You call yourself an editor,
why don't you edit all this out?" Frankly, we're just
too lazy. It's not that we are against editing (we edit
all submissions to some degree, at the very least fixing typographical
errors and formatting everything in a uniform style. The
'mangled accents' stemmed from our correspondent's decision to
use a non-standard method of entering the foreign characters,
which we didn't notice at first. We have now corrected this,
and those readers who speak just enough French to understand the
correct words, but not enough to infer the three or four misspelled
ones, will now be able to enjoy the full poems.)
But if we did eliminate all the sniping and back-biting from this
journal, we would then have to write more about the Olympic Committee
(nothing new today) or the America's Cup (Alinghi was just fined
$5,000 when its chase boats spent too much time in Team New Zealand's
part of the harbor) or Reality TV (we'll spare you) to fill the
empty space. That would be a lot more work for us, and a
lot less fun for you. And remember, despite appearances,
we all get along here. At least, as long as the Far East
Correspondent stays thirteen times zones away and the Tuesday
Reporter remains in his padded cell.
- MORE FAR EAST REVIEW OF BOOKS [1/24/2003]
As it turned out, our bookshelf here contains a more recent book:
Somerset Maugham's On A Chinese Screen, published
in 1960. The preface began with: "I travel because
I like to travel. I like the sensation it gives you of freedom
from all responsibility. Time never spreads out so spaciously
before you as on a journey and, though perhaps you do little of
what you had in mind to do, you have the feeling that you have
leisure for everything. You have long empty hours that you
can fritter away without the uneasy consciousness that time is
flying and there is not a moment to waste. Though I think
the traveler is a fool who does not secure for himself such comfort
as is possible I can very well do without it. I like a good
dinner, but I can enjoy the roughest and (what is worse) the most
monotonous fare."
The reason that we mention this book is not to use it to explain
why we are traveling at this moment (note: our reasons are quite
different), nor to begin a restaurant review (note: but we could
...). Rather, we want to lead you to Chapter XLVIII, titled
'A Student of the Drama' in this book. The chapter begins
with a description of the person:
He sent in a neat card of the correct shape
and size, deeply bordered in black, upon which under his name
was printed Professor of Comparative Modern Literature.
He turned out to be a young man, small, with tiny elegant hands,
with a larger nose than you see as a rule in the Chinese and
gold-rimmed spectacles. Though it was a warm day he was
dressed, in European clothes, in a suit of heavy tweed.
He seemed a trifle shy. He spoke in a false falsetto,
as though his voice had never broken, and those shrill notes
gave I know not what feeling of unreality to his conversation.
He had studied in Geneva and in Paris, Berlin and Vienna, and
he expressed himself fluently in English, French and German.
In the middle of the chapter, we read:
He flattered me by asking me what were the secrets
of the craft.
"I know only two," I answered.
"One is to have commonsense and the other is to stick to
the point."
"Does it require no more than that to write
a play?" he inquired with a shade of dismay in his
tone.
"You want a certain knack," I allowed,
"but no more than to play billiards."
"They lecture on the technique of the drama
in all the important universities of America," said he.
"The Americans are an extremely practical
people," I answered. "I believe that Harvard
is instituting a chair to instruct grandmothers how to suck
eggs."
The reason that we cite this paragraph is not
to bash Americans (as that would be too easy). Nor is it
to insult the alma mater of Tom Phillips-Margaret Angell-Margaret
Schotte-Lee Shearer-Sara Grillo, as the use of the Harvard
here should be taken as a compliment for being the educational
institution with the highest top-of-mind awareness. Rather,
we just want to point out that the student of the drama was our
grandfather.
- FAR EAST COMPLAINT DEPARTMENT [1/24/2003]
We were dismayed to see someone mangled the French accent marks
in our carefully typed entry a couple of days ago. Perhaps
the person is a cyclist who has not forgiven the French people
who yelled 'Dope!' at Lance Armstrong last year.
- THURSDAY ROAD WORKOUT REPORT [1/23/2003]
Did we complain too much about the cold in last week's workout
report? If so, just transfer all those complaints to tonight's
report. How we longed tonight for the balmy 20° weather
of last Thursday! Those glorious days when the mercury reached
double digits, when the arctic wind wasn't cutting into our face,
when ... Actually, it wasn't all that bad tonight. Sure
it was cold and windy, but once we got moving we didn't notice
the cold too much, and once we made it to the East Side and started
running south the wind was at our back, so even that wasn't so
bad. Not that it was particularly fun, but we just
glanced over at the shelf that has all our books on Scott, Admundsen
and Shackleton's Antarctic expeditions, and realized that the
weather could have been a lot worse, especially since we were
probably wearing warmer clothes than some of the explorers (though
not as warm as those worn by Stacia Schlosser, who
claimed, with only slight exaggeration, to have on twenty layers
of clothing).
The workout itself was the lower five-mile loop. Warm up
(exercise-wise, if not temperature-wise) to 89th Street, then
run the remaining 4.1 miles at half-marathon pace. There
were thirty people present at the start of the workout (including
one unidentified runner in shorts). Unfortunately, that
number did not include the "new" Tony Ruiz.
We're guessing that he isn't the "old" Tony in his place,
but nobody seemed interested in waiting around to find out, so
Audrey Kingsley started the workout at 7:06 pm. While
we can't speak for the whole history of the club, this is definitely
the fastest start of any workout we've been to, with the possible
exception of one track workout at East River Park. Coincidentally,
Coach Ruiz wasn't at that workout either.
Tony did eventually show up tonight (along with Alan Ruben,
who joined the workout two minutes after the start, so the real
total should be 32 people), and loitered on East Drive offering
encouragement. He was also briefly glimpsed again at the
end of the workout, but we hung around the statue just long enough
to make some plans for a weekend run before everyone rushed off
in search of warmth and dinner. Next week is the big Thursday
Night at the Races, so our next workout report should be completely
free of temperature-related gripes. But that bookshelf got
us thinking again about the Antarctica Marathon....
- I'M JUST WILD ABOUT SAFFRON
[1/23/2003] Yesterday, New York City approved Christo's
plan to set up 16-foot tall arches with 9-foot saffron curtains
hanging from them on 23 miles of Central Park pathways.
Saffron, as you may recall from our story on this subject last
month, looks quite a bit like CPTC orange. The gates will
be put up for two weeks in February 2005. Christo's website
offers the following description of the work:
For those who will walk through The Gates,
following the walkways, and staying away from the grass, The
Gates will be a golden ceiling creating warm shadows.
When seen from the buildings surrounding Central Park, The
Gates will seem like a golden river appearing and disappearing
through the bare branches of the trees and will highlight
the shape of the footpaths.
The 16 day duration work of art, free to all, will be a long-to-be-remembered
joyous experience for every New Yorker, as a democratic expression
that Olmsted invoked when he conceived a central
park. The luminous moving fabric will underline the organic
design of the park, while the rectangular poles will be a
reminder of the geometric grid pattern of the city blocks
around the park. The Gates will harmonize with the
beauty of Central Park.
We just think it'll look cool.
- FIVE RING CIRCUS [1/22/2003]
After the rash of resignations at the US Olympic Committee last
week stemming from the ethics investigation of CEO Lloyd Ward,
we hoped the USOC would spend some time getting its act together.
Instead, the committee is preparing for next week's meeting between
committee officials and Senators Ted Stevens (R-AK) and
Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO), by embarking on its latest
attempt at total self-destruction. Yesterday, seven members
of the USOC's executive committee (all five vice presidents, the
chairman of the athlete's advisory counsel and the chairman of
the national governing bodies council) demanded the resignation
of USOC president Marty Mankamyer.
The No-So-Magnificent Seven say that Mankamyer repeatedly brought
up "questions about Mr. Ward's character, his performance
of his obligations as USOC chief executive and the process by
which he was selected by a search committee, to undermine Ward."
They also allege that she interfered with the ethics committee's
investigation of Ward, and that she organized a campaign against
him to "present the most damaging information and to present
it in a way that would encourage the executive committee and the
public to prejudge Mr. Ward as unfit for continued employment."
Assume, just for the sake of argument, that these accusations
are true. Mankamyer would hardly be the first person to
question Ward's performance or the way he got his job. Ward
was hired despite having no experience in sports management.
He did have experience in the corporate world, but it wasn't of
the sort one would normally brag about. He resigned from
Maytag in November 2000, after 15 months as CEO, due to "a
difference with the board of directors over the company's strategic
outlook and direction." It seems that, in the middle
of the biggest stock market boom in years, the board had the unreasonable
expectation that the company's profits and stock price should
actually increase. Three months later, Ward became
CEO of iMotors; five months after that, the company folded (it
has since been acquired and resurrected by Next Phase Media).
Ward's tenure at the USOC has been successful only when compared
against his track record.
Ward's character has been called into question as well.
Some USOC officials are concerned about having a CEO who belongs
to the all-male Augusta National Golf Club, and anyone who can
simultaneously assert that he "made an error in judgment"
but "did nothing wrong," as Ward did earlier this month,
seems to have a peculiar definition of the word 'wrong.'
Then there's his assistance to Energy Management Technologies,
the company run by his brother, Rupert and friend Lorenzo
Williams. Ignoring the potential conflict of interest,
it boggles the mind that Ward would give EMT any assistance
in obtaining a contract to supply back-up power to the Pan Am
Games, since EMR has no experience with the Olympics, nor, apparently,
with providing power. The Justice Department has now begun
their own investigation, stemming from Pan Am Games project manager
Lowell Fernandez's charge that Williams tried to bribe
him to get the disputed contract.
The conspiracy allegation is more troubling, but only because
if it's true, then Mankamyer would have to be one of the most
comically-inept plotters in recent history. The ethics committee
(which she supposedly influenced against Ward) found only the
appearance of conflict, and recommend no action be taken against
him. The executive committee followed up by not taking any
action, leaving open only the possibility that Ward's bonus might
be reduced by the compensation committee. And Mankamyer's
voice has yet to be heard in the growing chorus calling for Ward's
resignation.
While the leadership fiddles, the USOC continues to burn.
John Hancock, a major Olympic sponsor, has announced that it will
no longer advertise its connection with the USOC, and other sponsors
are getting antsy; members of the International Olympic Committee
have been making their displeasure with the USOC clear; and at
least one major donor has just withdrawn a gift. Jim
and Elmore Inscoe had pledged a 22-acre Greek garden with
several existing buildings in Montgomery, Alabama (worth $5 million,
along with a $5 million endowment for upkeep) to be used as an
Olympic Academy. Among other subjects, the academy was to
teach ethics.
- TUESDAY TRACK WORKOUT REPORT [1/22/2003]
The Armory was warm last night, at least in comparison to the
frigid conditions outside. As we entered the building, we
ran into fellow sufferer Jonathan Cane. After a moment
to regain our bearings, we decided that something needed to be
done. And so: we propose that the Central Park Track
Club issue an Official Resolution Against the Weather. (Whereas
we are freezing our tootsies off in the park, Therefore be it
Resolved that...) This should be as effective as our old
college's recent Official Resolution Against the War.
Speaking of resolution, Noah Perlis has shown great resolve
in extracting an identity for the substitute webmaster from out
of a great deal of hype and misinformation. And he does
indeed have it right (and no, it isn't us, we are only a yeoman
reporter, not a noble webmaster). So go bother Noah if you
haven't figured it out yet. Noah, don't tell them...
Now this report, according to the recently deposed Generalissimo
Soong, centers around two key numbers: the people count
and the start time. But the integrity of both were, as we
shall explain, corrupted a bit this week.
First, the counting of CPTC runners, much like the national census,
depends on a certain stability of population which will always
be absent, given that members go off to the bathroom, stray from
the group, decide to run a few more warmup laps, &c. According
to Mr. Soong, we are meant to count "those present AT THE
START OF THE WORKOUT." But that, as you may see
in the next paragraph, is itself a poorly-defined concept.
In addition, the count is never helped by intentional misinformation
and signal noise, provided this time by Christopher Price,
who decided to yell out random numbers during the count.
Ne'ertheless, we present to you the following Objectively True
statement: "There were 41 people present at the start of
the workout." If you disagree, you must find all the people
present and get a sworn affidavit.
Second, the noting of the start time demands a certain degree
of attentiveness from your workout reporter; and we did provide,
well, a certain degree (-273 Celsius, perhaps?). In fact,
we didn't think of this weighty statistic till we were reminded
of it during the warmup 200s by Jesse Lansner. So
we declared unilaterally and categorically that the workout Officially
began at 8:12. Anyone saying different will have to prove
it. (This is called "misuse and abuse of the Law of
the Excluded Middle," taking the assertion "the workout began
at 8:12" as our statement in question).
As for the rest of the workout, it pales in importance to the
above two numbers, and so we will condense it into: Runrunrunrunrunjogjogrunrunrunrunrunjogjogrunrunrunrunrunjogjogrunrunrunrunrunjogjog,
followed by three 300s. All clear? We will note, however
(and here we make a point involving numerical calculation, thus
True) that the C group should now be running 16:40 for the 5K
based on its "1000 at 5K pace" pace.
On the train ride home, we noted that Kevin Arlyck's habitual
Tupperware o' Pasta was absent. And Joe Tumbarello,
when questioned about his dinner plans, replied, "oh granola,
maybe some lentils..." Perhaps there is a hunger strike
afoot amongst the A group? Tune in for updates.
- OUR FAVORITE NEWSPAPER? [1/22/2003]
The paper of record for the USA is supposed to be the New York
Times. Indeed, years ago when we had to live in places like
Santa Fe (NM) or Columbia (MD), we used to drive long ways to
purchase the condensed national edition of the venerable NYT.
Right now we are living on the other side of the world, and still
the NYT is available via airlift for some astronomical price.
Of course, nowadays, we can read the Internet version instead.
Distance and access speed has the effect of forcing us to take
a closer and deeper look at what actually transpires at the NYT.
In particular, we are covering the big story on Venezuela from
the other side of the world. Overall, we must grade the
coverage by the traditional press, especially the New York Times,
as APPALLINGLY
BAD (or, in Spanish, MUY MALO). It began in April
2002 when coupsters seized power, and the New York Times wrote
an editorial lauding the ouster of the dictatorial tyrant.
Within one day, the coupsters were routed by a massive demonstration
of people power and military rebellion, at which point the New
York Times issued a meek mea culpa editorial, admitting
that they were hasty in condoning an obviously unconstitutional
and undemocratic coup.
Fast-forward to December 2002, when Venezuela was racked by a
series of business lockouts and economic sabotages. NYT
reporter Juan Forrero filed a story interviewing a small
business owner and an academic political scientist, and it was
noted that s similar story appeared in the LA Times, whose reporter
managed to interview the same small business owner and the same
academic political scientist out of twenty-five million Venezuelans.
We are left to guess if that was a sheer coincidence (with probability
of twenty million or more to one), or if the reporters from rival
newspapers decided to do a story together (with even more unlikely
probability odds), or if the whole things was stage-managed by
some unnamed parties. Then another NYT reporter, Francisco
Toro, resigned because his extracurricular activities as a
political organizer for the opposition was possibly incompatible
with newsreporting objectivity. Oh, really? And how
did they ever hire him in the first place?
Why are we telling you any of this? After all, what do you
care about Venezuela (apart from rising gasoline prices)?
If there is one lesson that we can teach, it is DON'T TRUST THE
MEDIA! You should obviously treat the supermarket tabloids
with skepticism, as they are more entertainment than information.
You should even regard the newspaper of record with some skepticism
as well. And then your skepticism should also extend to
the 'news' that is posted on your favorite website, the Central
Park Track Club website. While the information here
is not necessarily simulated disinformation, it is most often
useless. But if you treat it as high entertainment, at least
you will get some value for your subscription fee (of zero dollars
per month) ...
- FAR EAST REVIEW OF BOOKS [1/22/2003]
So here we are, a stranger in a strange land. The comforts
of our New York City home are such that we can always count on
reaching for a book on our book shelves to while the hours away.
Over here on the other side of the world, the books on this bookshelf
are ... out of this world. We picked up a book titled Modern
French Verse (published by Manchester University Press in
1954 and possibly the newest book on this bookshelf) and we discovered
that the modern era ended with Paul Valéry's (1871-1945)
Le Cimitiegrave;re Marin, which every schoolboy knows by
heart:
Ce toit tranquille, où marchent de
colombes,
Entre les pins palpite, entre les tombes;
Midi le juste y compose de feux
La mer, la mer, toujours recommencée!
O récompense après une pensée
Qu'un long regard sur le calme des dieux!
This volume includes a poem by Francis Jammes,
whom we had never heard of before.
Il va neiger
Il va neiger dans quelques jours. Je
me souviens
d l'an dernier. Je me souviens de mes tristesses
au coin du feu. Si l'on m'avait demandé: qu'est-ce?
J'aurait dit: Laissez-moi tranquille. Ce n'est rien.
J'ai bien réfléchi, l'année
avant, dans ma chambre,
pendant que la neige lourde tombait dehors.
J'ai réfléchi pour rien. A présent
comme alors
je fume une pipe en bois avec un bout d'ambre.
Ma vieille commode en chêne sent toujours
bon.
Mais moi j'étais bête parce que tant de choses
ne pouvaient pas changer et que c'est une pose
de vouloir chasser les choses que nous savons.
Pourquoi donc pensons-nous et parlons-nous?
C'est drτle;
nos larmes et nos baisers, eux, ne parlent pas,
et cependant nous les comprenons, et les pas
d'un ami sont plus doux que de douces paroles,
On a baptisé les étoiles sans
penser
qu'elles n'avaient pas besoin de nom, et les nombres,
qui prouvent que les belles comètes dans l'ombre
passeront, ne les forceront pas à passer.
Et maintenant même, où sont mes
vieilles tristesses
de l'an dernier? A peine si je m'en sourviens.
Je dirais: Laissez-moi tranquille, ce n'est rien,
si dans ma chambre on venait me demander: qu'est-ce?
Very simple and none of the Greco-Roman-mythological
pretensions of "Zénon! Cruel Zénon!
Zénon d'élée! M'as-tu percé
de cette flèche ailée! ... Pour l'âme,
Achille immobile à grands pas!" Such are the
joys of the reader on a wintry night ...
P.S. Winter has a different meaning here. In New
York City, winter means outdoor temperature of 10 degrees.
Over here, yesterday is the coldest day of the year listed on
the almanac and the temperature came in at ... 68 degrees.
- TRY SOMETHING NEW [1/21/2003]
We received an e-mail today from our cousin Karl.
We last saw Karl when he stayed with us for the 2000 New York
City Marathon, and one of these days we hope to pay a reciprocal
visit to him in Berlin for their marathon. That day won't
be too soon, however, as his work currently has him living in
Sao Paolo and traveling all around the Caribbean (this doesn't
sound like a bad deal to us, but it's not great for Karl, whose
wife and daughter had to stay in Berlin).
In November he was in Port of Spain, Trinidad, doing an evening
run when he spotted a sign advertising an upcoming triathlon.
Even though it was now late Friday evening, with the race was
on Sunday, and despite the fact that Karl had never attempted
a triathlon before, he decided to sign up for the race.
He borrowed a bike, practiced a little on Saturday, and on Sunday
went out and completed the Olympic distance tri. Due to
his near-complete lack of training and the small field (11 individuals
plus some relay teams), Karl was, not-surprisingly, the last finisher.
He was, however, the only member of his age group there, which
got him a nice trophy. His take on his new sport?
"Triathlon is nothing special. You only have to be prepared."
And, as we learned long ago, it's good to pick small races.
WEEK OF JANUARY 14, 2003 - JANUARY
20, 2003
- DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME [1/20/2003]
We don't normally read the Styles section of the Sunday
Times (that's the New York Times, in case any of
our British members were thinking of a different paper).
Not only do we not care about most of the topics covered there,
but often we can actually feel our IQ drop with each turn of the
page. We decided to risk the potential damage to our faculties
when we saw yesterday's front page article explaining how 20 minutes
of weight lifting a week is better for us than the five hours
of running we normally do.
Just 20 minutes! And all of it indoors! Just think
of it: No more 20-mile runs at 7:30 am on a Saturday.
No more hour-long slogs in 15° weather. No need to spend
several hundred dollars a year on running shoes, not to mention
race registrations, pool membership, and the endless, incalculable
expenses that go into our bicycle (and we have a relatively cheap
bicycle; imagine if we could afford the kind of bike we really
want!). This truly is, as the headline put it, a "workout
revolution!" But surely there's a catch, right?
I mean, nothing could be this good.
The catch, of course, is that the whole idea is utter nonsense,
as anyone who actually reads to the end of the article will discover.
After fawning profiles of the different exercise gurus (whose
credentials were not specified, but their main qualification seem
to be that they each have at least one celebrity client) behind
this idea, the story finally gets around to quoting some actual
doctors . Dr. Tim Church, director of clinical research
at the Cooper Institute (and a two-time Ironman), Dr. Edward
R. Laskowski, director of the Mayo Clinic Sports Rehabilitation
Center, and Dr. Eric B. Rimm, co-author of a study that
examined the effects of different types of exercise on the heart
(which some of the weights-only proponents incorrectly interpret
to support their claims) all strongly argued for a more balanced
exercise regime.
But this article isn't aimed at people who read past the line
that says "Continued on..." (the quacks appear
on page 1, the doctors on page 9). These trainers are looking
for people who are looking for shortcuts. The people who
follow the latest fads in exercise are the same ones who will
try any diet idea that promotes a 'magic bullet' ("All fat,
no carbs!", "All carbs, no protein!", "Eat
as much as you want except for foods that start with the letter
'L'!"), but not one that involves a balanced diet with fewer
calories.
The health pages in the Science Times section of Tuesday's
paper are full of articles on proper nutrition, diet and exercise.
It's a shame that the rest of the paper doesn't treat these subjects
as seriously.
- WORKOUT REPORT [1/20/2003]
Tyronne Culpepper writes: "I arrived on time
for the Thursday workout, and realized that out of the 15-20 people
there, I knew no one. By the time I completed the workout, everyone
was gone." We gather from this that there were 15 prospective
members present at the start of the workout, all of whom had lost
interest in us by the time the workout ended. Our own memory
is that there were fewer than five people we didn't recognize
(and perhaps not even that many, but some faces were obscured
by hats, scarves, etc.) and that the cold air sent everyone scurrying
home within two minutes of finishing the workout.
- SO DUMB WE CAN'T RUN AND TALK AT THE SAME
TIME [1/19/2003] Lyndon Johnson once said
that Gerald Ford was "so dumb he couldn't fart and
chew gum at the same time" (the media of the day sanitized
fart to walk, which just goes to show you how prudish the press
used to be). We got to thinking about our own multitasking
abilities while reading the January issue of Running Times.
(First we wondered why we suddenly had a subscription to Running
Times, but we decided that it probably had something to do
with our participation in Reach the Beach.) Towards the
back of the magazine (page 70, for those of you who are interested)
their was a short article by Gordon Bakoulis about talking
while running. Gordon is apparently a fan of chatting while
racing, a concept rejected by her husband, who feels that "if
you have enough energy to talk during races then you're not working
hard enough."
We've tried talking while running (but never to Gordon, since
she is always well ahead of us), and not talking (which hasn't
enable us to finish any closer to Alan Ruben), but haven't
decided which is a better strategy. The only other opinion
we've received on the matter came from Sarah Gross, who
shouted "less talking, more running" as we passed by
her during the New York City Marathon.
- ODDS AND ENDS
[1/18/2003] We had hoped to provide a recap of today's race,
but we lacked the energy to get out of bed this morning, so we
simply turned the alarm clock off and went back to sleep until
well after the race had finished. As a result the only thing
we know about the race is that it was cold and that Alan Ruben
won. We would, of course, be happy to publish any account
from one of our members. This journal is for all members,
not just whichever crackpot happens to have the password, and
we encourage all of you to contribute anything at least as running-related
as the nonsense we normally publish.
Speaking of nonsense, we have a couple of follow-ups from our
previous stories. As expected, Swiss team Alinghi won the
Louis Vuitton Cup, and advances to the America's Cup Finals to
challenge Team New Zealand. Less expected, but not all that
surprising, was the report of further resignations at the USOC.
This time it was Steve Potts, Ed Petry and John
Kuelbs, all members of the ethics committee, who quit.
The three men reportedly had supported the original report on
CEO Lloyd Ward's potential conflict of interest, but resigned
because they had lost faith in the USOC's commitment to enforce
its own code of ethics.
- THE RESPECT OF ONE'S PEERS
[1/18/2003] Over the last two days we got a chance to chat
with first the webmistress and then one of the webmasters of another
running club. While we are friends with both, we hadn't
seen either of them in the two weeks since we took over management
of this site, so this was our first chance to talk shop with them.
We were somewhat envious to learn that their programming skills
have enabled them to automate much of the web updates, such as
workout descriptions and race results. Also, they have three
people working on their site, easing the burden on each of them
(we can claim only a passing acquaintance with the other webmaster,
which kept us from hitting the trifecta for the weekend). Our
friends, however, were amazed by the sheer amount of content that
can be found on this site. The webmistress turned out to
be a regular reader of the journal, and had even deduced our identity
over a week ago!
- ANOTHER RESIGNATION
[1/17/2003] Two days after Brian Derwin resigned
from the United States Olympic Committee, he was joined by Patrick
Rodgers, the USOC's ethics compliance officer. Rodgers
charged that Kenneth Duberstein, chairman of the USOC's
ethics oversight committee, had pressured him to drop the investigation
of whether USOC chief executive Lloyd Ward improperly aided
his brother's effort to obtain a contract to provide power for
the Pan Am Games. (We noticed that our previous update on
this matter may have given the impression that Ward's brother
was successful in his bid; he was not.). The investigation
continued, but Rodgers did agree to recuse himself. The
ethics committee concluded that Ward had not broken any rules,
but had given the appearance of a conflict of interest.
Oddly enough, the report also criticized Rodgers for not preventing
Ward from engaging in the questionable behavior, giving the impression
that the CEO is not competent to understand the ethics code.
While Rodgers believes that more members may resign, it looks
like that group will not include either Ward or USOC president
Marty Mankamyer. The USOC has had four CEOs since
2000, and Mankamyer has made it clear that her paramount goal
is to maintain "stable leadership" as the committee
prepares for the 2004 Athens Olympics and begins to renew long-term
sponsorships. Ward's effectiveness as a leader was questionable
even before this affair; further controversy will only make it
harder for him to lead. Meanwhile, a scandal-plagued organization
will continue to make headlines for all the wrong reasons.
There's even the possibility of another congressional investigation.
That's stability, all right, but it's not the kind of stability
they should be looking for.
- THURSDAY NIGHT ROAD WORKOUT REPORT
[1/16/2003] There's really only one thing to report about
tonight's workout: IT WAS COLD!!!! VERY, VERY COLD!!!!
A sign on the side of a building we passed on the way to the workout
gave the temperature as 22°, but we think it was being generous.
Even so, 34 runners showed up (and the number would have been
higher if we didn't have so many members at the Armory for Thursday
Night at the Races), including Jerome O'Shaughnessy, who
apparently didn't feel it was all that cold, since he was wearing
shorts. Tony Ruiz, of course, agreed with the rest
of us regarding the temperature, so he skipped the announcement,
hurried through the workout description (something about a bunch
of lamppost pickups, then two loops of the Harlem hills at 10M
pace, and some more lampposts on the way back), and got us off
an running at about 7:12. After the workout, nobody showed
much inclination to hang out and chat, so we saw one of the quickest
dispersals in team history, with nearly half the runners heading
down the West Side together. Since most of our energy during
the workout itself was devoted either towards running or towards
figuring out which parts of our body had gone numb, we have nothing
else to add to this account.
- MAN VS. BEAST [1/16/2003]
Last week we criticized reality programming in this space, but
our strong sense of duty compelled us to watch FOX's Man vs.
Beast last night. For those of you who missed it, the
show featured various competitions between men and animals, including:
a speed-eating competition between Nathan's hot dog eating champion
Takeru Kobayashi and a kodiak bear (There's an old adage,
"some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you."
Since Mr. Kobayashi weighs 132 lbs., and the bear weighs about
1000 lbs., it was a good thing they didn't go head to head.
In any event, the bear was a faster eater); a Navy SEAL
racing a chimpanzee through an obstacle course (the SEAL won);
and, of course, 44 "little people" (their words, not
ours), trying to pull a DC-10 faster than an elephant (the elephant
won). (We lost our own battle with the animal kingdom when 100
monkeys banging at typewriters turned out a journal entry faster
than we could. We would post it here, but they sold it to
a Hollywood production company for $2.7 million.)
What makes this all relevant to a running website, however, was
the 100 meter dash. This race featured American sprinter
Shawn Crawford in two heats, the first against a giraffe
and the second against a zebra. Crawford is a top 200m runner
(19.85 PR), and his PR for the 100m is 9.95. The giraffe,
with an unknown PR, seemed to not have his heart in the meet.
He (we actually don't know the animals' gender, so we just assigned
them all a masculine one) ran with a rather odd stride, didn't
appear to be trying very hard, never recovered from a slight stumble
in the middle, and lost by several seconds. The zebra didn't
make the same mistakes. He broke well from the gate, accelerated
to a comfortable speed, and cruised to an easy victory of about
ten meters.
Six decades ago, Jesse Owens often competed against horses
in exhibitions, since the racism of the day left him with few
other options. Things have changed since then, and Crawford
enjoys success as a professional runner. What he does not
enjoy is a lot of name recognition. The average American's
knowledge of active track stars is, at best, limited to a vague
recognition of names like Maurice Greene and Marion
Jones. We claim a bit of knowledge in this area, but
we confess that Crawford's name did not ring a bell, even though
we saw him compete last year in both the indoor nationals and
the Millrose Games (where he won the 60m in 6.49). We doubt
Crawford's TV appearance will make him a household name in the
United States, but it probably made him tens of thousands of dollars
richer.
Owens' races against horses were demeaning to him, and to America.
Crawford's race against a zebra enriched him. What it says
about a culture (and a web editor) who will watch anything, is
unclear.
- A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE [1/16/2003]
Brian Derwin, a former Olympic weight lifter, resigned
from the United States Olympic Committee to protest the USOC Executive
Committee's decision not to discipline USOC chief executive Lloyd
Ward. On Monday, the committee, in a 15-4 vote, chose
not to address the ethics of Ward's actions when he helped his
brother's company get a contract to supply backup power for the
2003 Pan American Games. Instead, the executive committee
referred the matter to the compensation committee, whereupon Derwin
resigned on the spot. The USOC's ethics code requires all
staff to "avoid conflicts of interest, both real and perceived,"
noting that "because the appearance of impropriety can be
just as damaging as actual impropriety, conduct which appears
to be improper is also unacceptable."
The past few years have seen the bribery scandal that gave Salt
Lake City the 2002 Winter Olympics, a high rate of turnover among
the leadership (including the resignation of one USOC chief executive
when she was found to have lied on her resume), conflicts between
the USOC and the International Olympic Committee over anti-doping
policy, and numerous complaints that the USOC is being mismanaged.
The executive committee's decision to ignore a clear ethics violation
(whether or not Ward acted improperly, his conduct certainly fits
the "appearance of impropriety" standard) gives us little
hope that USOC will be able to turn things around any time soon.
- AUSTRALIAN OPEN & AMERICA'S CUP
[1/15/2003] We may not know much about cricket, but that
doesn't mean we're oblivious to all sporting events Down Under.
In the second round of the Australian Open, Justine Henin-Hardenne
defeated Anna Kournikova 6-0, 6-1. We were rather
surprised when we read this, as we were not aware that Henin now
hyphenates her name (or even that she was married, since we never
remember anything we read in gossip columns). We've never
been all that big a fan of Anna's, since we prefer to watch people
who actually play, but we know that she attracts a lot
of attention, and with it ticket sales and TV coverage.
Of course it would be nice if people paid as much attention to
the players who actually win some matches on their way to an inevitable
loss to Serena Williams.
Meanwhile, a few miles away (actually 1337 miles away, but in
the same part of the world) in Auckland, New Zealand, the Louis
Vitton Cup is winding down, with Team Alinghi leading Tean Oracle-BMW
3-0 in the best-of-nine finals, and almost assured of winning
the right to challenge Team New Zealand for the America's Cup
next month. Alinghi's sponsors, led by Ernesto Bertarelli
have spent approximately $80,000,000.00 in an attempt to win the
Auld Mug on behalf of ... Switzerland? SWITZERLAND?????
What in the world is a landlocked country doing in an ocean yacht
race? Bertarelli is a billionaire who has been sailing since
childhood, which explains his involvement (he's even been serving
as his boat's navigator in many of the races), but what do the
other backers hope to gain? There is no monetary prize for
winning the cup, and even the tourism boost that New Zealand has
enjoyed during the competition would be of little use to the Swiss,
since they have no ocean port in which to hold the next competition.
Alinghi has been dominant on the waves, but back on dry land they
have faced strong competition for best story. The last few
weeks have seen accusations of cheating and spying, conflicts
over the rules, challenges to boat designs, captains banishing
their billionaire sponsors from the boats, and splaying musical
chairs with their crews. Still, the other teams are just
playing catch up with Alignhi, who have been the center of controversy
for two years, ever since they hired Russell Coutts and
Brad Butterworth, the captain and tactician of Team New
Zealand's 1995 and 2000 cup victories, and got them to bring along
a number of other Kiwis for the crew. Since they take sailing
rather seriously in New Zealand, this has not gone over particularly
well, with responses ranging from billboards and websites vilifying
Coutts and Butterworth to anonymous threats that have led the
team to hire bodyguards for the remainder of the competition.
Look for things to get really ridiculous if Alinghi makes it to
the finals.
- CLUB NIGHT [1/15/2003] The
New York Road Runners Club Night Party will take place on Saturday
February 22, 2003 at the Hilton New York Hotel, 1355 Avenue of
the Americas (between 54th and 55th street). The schedule
is:
6:30-7:30 cocktails/silent auction
7:30-8:30 sit-down dinner
8:30 dessert/awards ceremony
9:30 dancing, etc.
Details on purchasing tickets through the team will be posted
here soon.
Of course, February 22 is also the first points race of the year,
the Snowflake 4 Miler, followed by our annual post-Snowflake party
at The Parlor. This will be a busy day, so plan in advance,
making sure that sometime between the race and Club Night you
have time to shower and change.
- TUESDAY TRACK WORKOUT REPORT [1/15/2003]
Really, the important part of this workout report lies in the
following string of numbers (along with some spaces; we avoid
machine code orthodoxy for the sake of, ahem, clarity):
35 810 1200 400 400 400 400 400 400 1200
But if you require a little narrative with your reports, read
on:
The crowds were a bit more manageable this time, as only 35 (the
first number above) people were present at the start of the workout
(as opposed to last Tuesday's 46 person fire hazard situation).
Tony Ruiz got us onto the track in almost record time (this
is pure speculation of course; he did get us out there quickly,
at 8:10 (the second number), but for the historical record you
must consult Mr. Soong).
The workout itself was, come on now, just a workout (the distances
are the remaining numbers above, but you probably figured that
out by now). Nothing interesting there, just people running
around a small oval for some reason, certainly not an evolutionary
one (you can't really escape a lion by running in circles, we
imagine, unless it's a particularly stupid lion). Although
we did observe Jesse Lansner getting "boxed in"
on the first 1200. C'mon Jesse, show no mercy, where are
those elbows?
No, it was, as usual, after the workout that things got interesting.
First, we had Audrey Kingsley's impromptu (although she
may have been planning it all along) modeling of the new singlets.
Ms. Kingsley also exhibited a truly subtle color sense by referring
to the new singlets as "mustard," rather than the more
pedestrian "orange." Perhaps she can be brought
in as a consultant with Christo's "saffron" project.
Then we overheard the following dialogue:
Michelle Santomassino [holding cellphone, talking to CPTC
member]: hold on, I've got a kidney offer on the line.
Dion Mulvihill: I'll sell you mine for fifty...
We would like to point out to Mr. Mulvihill (and here we attempt
to salvage some coherence for this sorry report by synthesizing
the last two observations) that, were he to have completed the
sale, he could then have bought one of the singlets, and had twenty
bucks to spare. Perhaps the new CPTC motto should be "Give
a kidney, get a singlet. Plus twenty bucks!" Patent
pending.
- FAR EAST RUNNING NEWS [1/15/2003]
Next month's Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon has just
closed its entries after a record 16,874 runners have been accepted.
This is amazing for a place of fairly sedentary people whose interests
revolve around eat, drink, karaoke and ... nevermind. We
don't know the race course, but it starts on Nathan Road in Kowloon
and ends at the Hong Kong Convention Centre. So somewhere
the runners have to traverse a harbor through a tunnel. Anyone
who has done the Lincoln Tunnel race in New York City would know
that this is not easy -- a long steep downhill followed by a long
steep uphill. There will be about 40 invited elite men and
women in the race. Last year's winners were Kenyan Benjamin
Matolo in 2:16:07 and Chinese Zhang Shujing in 2:36:27.
Of course, we will not be at the starting line ...
- LATIN [1/14/2003] Craig
Chilton asks:
I've never had the opportunity to study Latin
(or if I did, I never availed myself of that opportunity),
but as a runner I know that the Asics shoe company took as
its name the acronym for the Latin phrase "Anima Sana
In Corpore Sano," meaning "A Sound Mind in a
Sound Body." What is the subtle difference between
that Latin translation and your's ("mena sana in corpore
sano")?
We only studied Latin in 6th grade, and remember
none of it, but we know from doing crossword puzzles that anima
means soul. What we didn't know is that mena doesn't
mean anything. It's a typo of ours, and should have been
mens, meaning mind. So why did we go with mens
sana instead of anima sana? Quite simply,
becuase that's what we found when we looked up the quote in
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (you didn't think we actually
know this stuff off the top of our head, did you?). Still,
it's unlikely that Kihachiro Onitsuka simply made up the alternative
Latin when he renamed his company ASICS in 1977, so when did
mens become anima, or was it anima from
the start, and Bartlett's just got it wrong?
A quick search around the net turned up plenty of examples of
both phrases. For the most part, the quote was just referred
to as a "famous Latin saying," but both variations
were also attributed to Juvenal (also known as Decimus Junius
Juvenalis). We're inclined to trust Bartlett's
over random internet sites, but short of seeing an original
copy of Juvenal's Satires we can't really be sure. Still,
assuming that the original was mens, we have two theories
about how anima came to be used.
Theory one is that over time most people became more familiar
with the phrase in their native tongues than in Latin, and at
some point somebody translated it back incorrectly, and by the
time anybody noticed, the two variations were both equally common.
This seems a little far fetched, even for us. The
second theory is that the phrase was intentionally changed for
religious reasons. The subtle difference that Craig asks
about would be from a focus on intellectual development (mens
sana) to a focus on spiritual well-being (anima sana).
We found some support for this theory when a couple of
websites attributed the phrase anima sana in corpore sano
to St. Catherine of Sienna. As befits a woman known for
her care of the sick (among other things), the phrase is translated
on these pages as "a healthy mind in a healthy body."
The idea of developing both the body and the mind (or soul)
probably wasn't all that original even 2,000 years ago (we seem
to remember a junior high school teacher attributing it to Greek
society from several centuries earlier), and it is certainly
possible that Juvenal was simply writing down an already common
adage, with Catherine doing the same 1,100 years later.
Among the other things St. Catherine is known for is her prolific
writing, with one book and 400 letters of hers surviving. We
would be curious to see any originals of either Catherine or
Juvenal that could help settle this question.
-
NYRRC AWARD NOMINEES [1/14/2003]
The following CPTC members have been nominated for Runner
of the Year:
Tom Phillips, M45-49
Alan Ruben, M45-49
Alston Brown, M50-54
Sid Howard, M60-64
|
Margaret Angell, F20-29
Alayne Adams, F40-44
Yumi Ogita, F40-44
Irene Jackson, F55-59
Sylvie Kimche, F55-59 |
WEEK OF JANUARY 7, 2003 - JANUARY
13, 2003
- DOES THIS MAKE ME LOOK FAT? [1/13/2003]
Yesterday the book review focused on Greg Critser's "Fat
Land." Today we read again that most schools eschew
juice and fresh vegetables in favor of soda and junk food. The
reason for this is very simple: money. Preparing healthy
meals costs money. Letting outside companies install vending
machines provides money. As schools across the country see
their budgets cut, they increasingly turn to non-traditional revenue
streams, like vending machines while at the same time cutting
their physical education budgets. The result is that 25%
of children are now overweight (and two-thirds of those are obese),
and many more are probably not eating anything close to a balanced
diet.
What can be done about this? Phys Ed is more often cut to
save time than to save money, and many parents seem willing to
sacrifice gym for the extra academic time that results. The
idea that we should strive for mena sana in corpore sano
(a sound mind in a sound body) dates back at least to the writings
of Juvenal nearly two millennia ago, but it seems to be generally
out of favor these days, the presence of 2300 participants in
yesterday's race notwithstanding. As long as the school
day stays the same length it is doubtful that students will be
given more phys ed, and even an extension of the school day would
be unlikely to be used for gym.
Food is a different matter. School lunches are regulated
by the Department of Agriculture, which even supplies much of
the food by buying up surplus agricultural
products. Last year the department spent $338 million on
beef and cheese, but only $159 on fruits and vegetables, most
of them canned or frozen. An increase in financing, or at
least a reallocation in favor of healthier foods could have a
major impact. Advocates have asked Congress to add $1 billion
to the $10 billion school nutrition program. The Bush administration
is proposing no new financing, but the under secretary of agriculture
for food and nutrition, Eric Bost, thinks there might be lots
of money in weeding out students who turn out be ineligible for
subsidized lunches.
We don't know exactly why the administration is
opposed to this small increase. ($1 billion may sound like
a lot, but as a portion of the federal budget it's puny. As
Sen. Everett M. Dirksen remarked about the budget, "a billion
here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real
money.") No doubt lobbying by agribusiness has played
a role, but beyond that it's likely that the "compassionate
conservatives" just don't care. The result will be
more overweight kids, with all the health problems that come with
obesity, and the $1 billion we save now will cost us $100 billion
down the road.
- SUNDAY RACE REPORT [1/12/2003]
The first New York Road Runners race of 2003 fell on a bitterly
cold and windy day. This, combined with a bland shirt, and
the fact that it wasn't a point race, may explain the low turnout
from our club. Twenty brave and/or foolish CPTCers showed
up to run the lower loop, with at least half that many spectating,
including Toby Tanser, who had planned to take pictures,
put was stymied by a camera that would not funka (that's
Swedish for "work") in the cold (which means it probably
wasn't a Swedish camera). One team member confessed that
he had originally shown up at 9:30 on Saturday looking for the
race. We had a hard enough time motivating ourselves for
the race even once, so we are very impressed by anyone who got
up to run it twice.
- REBUTTAL [1/11/2003] As if
to prove his insanity, Paul Bendich sent us the following
retort:
ahem,
some e-inkstained wretch alleges that "Paul Bendich is
an even more bizzare person in real life than his Tuesday
Night workout reports would suggest."
Sweetheart, you have no idea...
May we also point out (please note that you can't stop us!
The pointing is embedded) that the ontological statuses of
the 10th and 11th words in your quote are problematic at best.
Clear now?
Good.
To save the rest of you from having to look
it up, ontolgy is the branch of metaphysics that deals
with the nature of being. We've never concerned ourselves
much with metaphysics of any sort, since we can think of
much better ways to spend our time than debating whether or
not we really exist.
- NEW ARRIVAL [1/11/2003] On
December 27, Jiyon Lee gave birth to her second child,
Aaron. She adds "I hope to be contributing some marathon
news this coming spring."
- HOUSEKEEPING [1/11/2003] We
had hoped to take advantage of a slow Saturday to catch up on
all our neglected chores, both around the apartment and on the
web. Unfortunately, a late night and an early run left us
too wiped out to accomplish much. A quick nap and a bit
of football later (another week, another controversial call that
obscures the fact that the losing team played at a level that
would embarrass most Pop Warner teams) and we found that nearly
the entire day had slipped by us and we hadn't crossed a single
item off of our to do list. We wanted to get cracking on
the unsorted papers covering our desk, but we knew that our duty
lay in updating the web page, especially since we had race results
piling up in our inbox.
- WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? [1/10/2003]
Actually, we know who we are, but we've noticed that many
of you don't (know who we are; we assume you know who you are).
Sarah Gross sent us an e-mail addressed to "Paul",
so we imagine she thinks we are Paul Bendich, or maybe
Paul Sinclair (we aren't). Noah Perlis took
the following guess at our identity:
You are likely female, not a sprinter or middle
distance specialist, younger rather than older, with perhaps
a graduate degree within the last 5 years, not very new to
the team, and not originally from New York City.
We're unsure what led to these deductions. Our running preference
can no doubt be inferred from the fact that we are present at
the distance runners' workouts. Our age, we would guess,
is based on the fact that we still share an apartment with roommates
(we sincerely hope this is not the case when we are older rather
than younger). As for the rest, we struggled to figure out
the logic behind the guesses (and until we see any evidence we
will neither admit nor deny the claims). Are we perhaps
not cynical enough to be a native New Yorker? Does our tendency
to ramble on for endless paragraphs without saying anything relevant
peg us as a graduate student? (We believe that our skill
at padding weak material until it fills several pages was fully
developed by high school, if not before.) And just what
is it in our entries that implies a gender?
We tried to analyze some of the other writers on this page to
see if we might notice clues to their identity in their writing,
but all we could deduce is that Roland spends a lot of his time
thinking about things that we can't understand (like statistical
analysis and cricket), and that Paul Bendich is probably insane.
This latter assessment is no doubt influenced by the fact
that Paul is even more bizarre a person in real life than his
Tuesday workout reports suggest.
- THURSDAY ROAD WORKOUT REPORT [1/9/2003]
We wondered if tonight's seasonable weather would bring
out substantially more runners than last week, but the final total
was 46 people, only four more than last week (plus, of course,
Kieran Calderwood, who is well on his way to a lifetime
attendance record). Tony Ruiz started his introductions
at exactly 7:00 pm (at least according to his watch, although
some of us would question his punctuality). Tyronne Culpepper
complained "Yumi Ogita and I raced over here from the subway
because we'd heard about the 'new' Tony Ruiz plan, but it looks
like he's already back to his old form." In fact, the workout
started at 7:14 pm, which ranks somewhere between the new and
old Tony schedules.
The workout started going south to Tavern on the Green, a pick
up at the "Stuart Mile" (at 4-mile pace), recover through the
72nd Street transverse and back, and then a two mile pick up (at
10K pace) up the East Side and through the 102nd Street transverse.
After a recovery to 88th Street, we ran a final mile (again
at 4-mile pace) back to the statute. It all seemed like
a fairly simple concept, but we hadn't even started running when
a debate began on what, exactly, our 4-mile and 10k paces were.
You might think that we are all smart enough to remember our paces,
or at least to figure them out when we read the workout e-mail,
but it seems we always wait for the last minute, and then make
up some pace that may or may not be related to our actual race
pace. In the end, Zeb Nelessen decided that
his 10K pace was about 5:55/mile (which would be about a 37:00
10K), while Paul Bendich felt that a 6:40/mile pace would
probably be too fast (which just barely gets him in under 42:00
for a 10K). We would criticize them both for not belonging
in the 39-42 group, if it weren't for the fact that Zeb didn't
lead the group, and Paul wasn't the last runner in the group to
finish. (Nor would we be the one to cast the first stone
here, as we have run a sub 39 minute 10K ourselves.) The
day may not be far off when the team is forced to abandon the
idea of separate groups in favor of one large mass that splits
itself up as the workout progresses.
The most amusing moment of the workout came when a runner we passed
asked "Is this some kind of group thing? You guys are really
hammering!" and an unidentified teammate of ours responded
"No, it's a torture thing."
- PHOTOGRAPHER WANTED [1/9/2003] We
are able to substitute for the regular webmaster in many ways,
but there is one prominent exception. Since we do not have
a digital camera (and will probably be running at the time), we
cannot take photographs of this Sunday's Fred Lebow 5 Miler. Hopefully,
some of the other team photographers will be out there to document
this event.
- CHEATERS, PART 2 [1/9/2003] Last
week it was Violetta Kryza having her winning time in Pittsburgh
disqualified. Yesterday the New York Road Runners announced
that Olivera Jevtic of Yugoslavia had been stripped of
her third place finish in the 2002 marathon after testing positive
for ephedrine. Unlike Kryza, Jevtic has not been suspended
from competition, although she did forfeit the $45,000 she had
won. We assume the discrepancy in the penalties is in some
way related to the two athletes testing positive for different
substances, but we cannot verify this as Pittsburgh officials
have not identified the drug that Kryza used.
- CARS OUT OF PROSPECT PARK! [1/8/2003]
We don't know how much of this is due to all those petitions
we keep signing, but the Department of Transportation (DOT) just
announced new restrictions on cars in Prospect Park. While
previously cars were allowed in the park 24 hours a day on weekdays
during the winter, starting January 21 drivers will be allowed
in the park only from 6:00 am - 9:00 am and 4:00 pm - 7:00 pm.
While it's not the total ban we continue to hope for, it
is nonetheless an important change, and not just for the Brooklynites
on the team (although since that group includes Tony Ruiz,
Eric Goetze and Kevin Arlyck, we expect many of
them to outrun any automobiles they should come across).
Some advocates of car-free parks feel it is harder to get restrictions
in Prospect Park that in Central Park. Why? Because
DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall lives directly across the
street from Prospect Park, and is worried that banning cars from
the park will cause more traffic in front of her apartment, despite
the fact that nearly all traffic experts agree that banning cars
from the park will probably lead to less traffic on the
surrounding streets. Regardless of the effect on traffic,
cars do not belong in the park any more than runners belong on
the BQE. Hopefully the DOT will soon realize this.
While numerous civic groups and elected officials support either
a total ban on cars in the parks, or at least a temporary ban
in order to test how well such a policy would work in the long
term, there are some who are notably absent. At the top
of this list are Mayor Michael Bloomberg (although his
other traffic policies show an understanding that the automobile
is not king in New York, so we hope he will change his mind),
Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields, Brooklyn
Borough President Marty Markowitz (who both seem hopelessly
tied to a "windshield perspective"), and, amazingly, the
Central Park Conservancy and the New York Road Runners Club. It
is regrettable that the borough presidents will let their personal
preference for cars prevent them from doing the right thing, but
the silence of these two organizations on an issue that is so
important to their core purposes mystifies us. We know that
some of our members are in positions of influence at the Road
Runners Club, and we hope they will be able to push the club into
taking a stand against cars in the parks.
- TUESDAY TRACK WORKOUT REPORT AND SHORTEST
CHOCOLATE CAKE RECIPE IN HISTORY [1/7/2003] First,
to show our dedication to this reporting job, we offer the following
dedication, which first appeared in a 1759 running journal:
My Lord,
I maintain this to be a dedication, notwithstanding its singularity
in the three great essentials of matter, form, and place:
I beg, therefore, you will accept it as such, and that
you will permit me to lay it, with the most respectful humility,
at your Lordship's feet,--when you are upon them,--which you
can be when you please,--and that is, my Lord, when ever there
is occasion for it, and I will add, to the best purposes too.
I have the honour to be, [Your Tuesday Night Track
Workout Reporter]
On a related note, and to begin the report from the end (non-linear
narratives have enjoyed great currency since Pulp Fiction,
doncha know), we, along with Christopher Price (the president
of a certain book club, as attentive readers will no doubt recall),
were accused by a certain female runner of being "overeducated."
This runner went to Harvard, of course, so this shouldn't
be taken too seriously. Nevertheless, in our defense, we
must point out, "de tényleg csak nagyon hόlyes vagyunk!"
[the workout left us a bit, er, famished, you understand]
To further avoid anything to do with running, may we point out
that, once again, Joe Tumbarello won the Tuesday Night
Fashion award. The hip streets of Williamsburg will influence
even a high school teacher, we guess.
Ok, fine, to legitimately exist within the 'track workout report'
medium, perhaps we must actually "report the workout," although
it really has been done to death, doncha think? Well, anyway,
here's a sop for the reactionaries:
The workout started a bit late, around 8:15. But Coach Tony
Ruiz cannot be accused of breaking his New Year's resolution;
for we weren't let in till 8:00 by the Armory staff, so it wasn't
his fault at all (full disclosure: we received no funds of any
kind from Mr. Ruiz). Continuing with the subject of new
year's resolutions, there were 46 people present at the start
of the workout, which quite overwhelmed the old A/B/C/D group
paradigm, since 46 divided by 8 was (and is) a bit more than 4,
we fear. Somehow, this problem was overcome, and we ran
our 6X600, followed by 3X300. On the last 300, Zeb Nelessen
made an important innovation in semiotics: apparently, he discovered
that the utterance "we'll do this one at 55 seconds" has the same
meaning as "we'll do this one at 50 seconds and leave the workout
reporter gasping for air." Oddly enough, "well do this one
at 56 seconds" had the exact same meaning on the first 300 meters.
Finally, also on the subject of information exchange, we received
some positive feedback from the Armory public address gentleman:
"Central Park and Front Runners, good job staying in your
lanes!" Now if we can only transfer this good behavior to
the roads...
- REALITY TV [1/7/2003] It has
been pointed out that much of the information in this journal
is useless (although entertaining), and having been in charge
of it for several days now, we find this assessment difficult
to contradict. However, having been granted this platform
from which to discourse, we feel an obligation to not just entertain,
but also to educate (although we use that term very loosely).
We considered, like the regular webmaster, simply commenting
on a nearby book, but the closest book at hand was The Return
of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien, which we just finished, and
we would need far more space than we care to use here to list
all our criticisms of the book. (A party guest who kept
referring to the differences between the Lord of the Rings
book and film editions as differences between the movie and "real
life" asked us why we were still reading the book if we dislike
it so. We can only say that we like to finish what we have
started, a mindset that has led to many slow, painful races finishes
instead of more sensible DNFs.) Rather than try to read
an entire book in one night in order to comment on it (which would
remind us too much of our college days), we offer the following
commentary on reality programming instead.
We normally don't care much for the entire "Reality TV" genre
(which we feel usually has little or no connection to reality
anyway). We couldn't tell you where half the Survivor
shows took place, have no idea who was on Big Brother,
and never even figured out the premise of The Mole. Occasionally,
however, a show comes along that seems worth a try, and last night
that show was Joe Millionaire, broadcast, of course, on
FOX. FOX, you may recall, used to dominate the reality field
with shows like When Animals Attack and World's Scariest
Police Chases 4. A few years back, FOX was responsible
for Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire, which ended with
a quick annulment and the revelation that the groom did not actually
have a million dollars, but did have a restraining order filed
against him.
This debacle was seen at the time as the end of reality programming,
but rumors of its death turned out, sadly, to be exaggerated.
(The story goes that when Mark Twain was asked about a report
that he had died, he replied, "Rumors of my death have been greatly
exaggerated." While this quote has become well known over
the years, another version (which we prefer) has it that the reporter
merely asked Twain if he was dying, to which he replied, "We are
all dying, but I don't know that I am doing it any quicker than
anyone else.") The fuss over FOX's specials has barely quieted
down when the success of Survivor, resurrected the genre,
transforming the typical reality show went from an occasional
sweeps-week special to a full-length series.
Since then reality shows have taken over the airwaves, but all
the new shows took themselves too seriously, with too many pretensions
towards art. What Reality TV needed was a return to its
roots. It needed a show that was sleazy. It needed
a show that was exploitative. It needed a show that started
in the gutter and never tried to claw its way out. It needed,
in short, a show from FOX. Oh, sure, FOX had tried before
with Temptation Island (couples are tempted to become singles
again) and Love Cruise (singles are tempted to become couples),
but both those shows got too bogged down in arcane rules for anyone
to actually follow the action on the field (kind of like the NFL
playoffs...).
So it happened that at 9:00 pm last night we found ourselves in
front of the TV in hopes of seeing further evidence of the decline
of Western civilization. The premise of the show, for those
of you who've missed the ads for it, is much the same as The
Bachelor: a wealthy man chooses a potential bride from
a group of women, eliminating a certain number of contestants
at the end of each episode, until he is left with one woman whom
he proposes to. The twist in Joe Millionaire is that
the bachelor in question does not actually have the $50 million
he supposedly inherited, but is just an average Joe making $20,000/year.
This time around FOX had the sense to eliminate the complicated
rules, but somewhere along the way the producers eliminated all
the fun as well. The only joke is that the women's judgment
is clouded by his imaginary fortune (no doubt they were cast for
this very reason), and they tend to be overly impressed by his
talents as a result. It's not enough to make one hour interesting,
let alone seven. We had thought the genre might be redeemable,
but we've learned our lesson From now on, we'll get our
unscripted entertainment form ESPN.
- CHARITY [1/7/2003] Sandra
Scibelli is helping to organize a marathon fundraising team
to run the Vermont City Marathon. She is looking for runners
and committee members to organize the event. Runners of
all abilities are welcome.
Charity: Teach For America (http://www.teachforamerica.org)
Marathon: Vermont City, Burlington, VT
Date: May 25, 2003
Fundraising obligation: $2,000
Each runner receives: entry to race, transportation
to VT, accommodations in VT, organized training runs
E-mail Sandra Scibelli for
more information.
- NEW MEMBERS [1/7/2003] The
following new members were accepted at the Executive Committee
meeting on January 6, 2003:
- Thierry Beniflah
- Bob Holliday
- Edward Kasparek
- Dawn Schneider
- Maureen Upton
- Shai Waisman
Recruitment points go to Sid Howard, Audrey Kingsley, Shula
Sarner and Roland Soong, with honorable mention (but
no points) for two new recruits to Tony Ruiz. Check
out the full recruitment scoreboard for more info.
WEEK OF DECEMBER 31, 2002 - JANUARY
6, 2003
- FAR EAST RUNNING NEWS [1/6/2003]
Our far east correspondent could have filed quite a few
restaurant reviews by now, but it seems unbecoming to say nothing
about running. On this past Sunday, the Nike 10km Challenge
was held at the Tseung Kwan O Industrial Estate in Hong Kong,
with a field of 3,000 strong. The race was won by Daniel
Lee in a time of 32:02. Not a slow time -- for a triathlete,
that is. Lee is ranked number two in Asia and number 64
in the world. On the women's side, the race was won by a
European, Christine Block, in 36 minutes.
On the organizational side, the newspaper reports that "confusion
at the finish area meant many runners were unable to record an
accurate time as they were ordered to form a queue that stretched
up to 150 metres."
Hong Kong is an island, but being at sea level does not mean that
the terrain is flat. As in Riverdale, there are some heartbreaking
hills right in the middle of the city. For one, we grew
up in a house halfway up a hill "where taxis fear to tread."
- MYSTERY WOMAN [1/6/2003] We
received an e-mail from Frank McConville linking us to
http://psc.disney.go.com/disneychannel/kimpossible/site/index.html
and asking us "Who does this look like?" We took a quick
look at the site, and discovered that Kim Possible is a cartoon
character who looks like ... well, we'll just let you guys check
it out for yourselves. Don't worry -- it doesn't look like
us.
- DEAR DIARY [1/6/2003] Every
Monday we read the Metropolitan Diary section of the New
York Times, hoping to find some amusing anecdote about life in
the big city. Instead, most Mondays we find only a collection
of uninteresting stories, often written in so sloppy a style that
we must reread each story two or three times before we understand
the point of it (yes, we have too much free time some days). Today's
Times offered the usual bland assortment of tales involving precocious
children and kind strangers, but it at least supplied an anecdote
about runners:
Dear Diary:
While riding the First Avenue bus the other afternoon I noticed
a white-haired man of about 70 boarding, carrying a number
of packages. As he was paying his fare, the bus kept lurching
because of heavy traffic, forcing him to grope for a handrail.
When he finally gained his footing, packages and all, a woman
seated nearby directed his attention to an empty seat a few
feet away. He politely thanked her, but nodded to indicate
he was fine standing where he was.
At that point the woman, perhaps intent on performing a good
deed for the elderly, vigorously extended her hand, pointed
to the unoccupied seat, and in a booming voice ordered him
to sit down.
His equally forceful response: "Cool it, lady, I run the marathon!"
Grins all around.
Morris Tarragano
- ANOTHER WORK STOPPAGE? [1/5/2003]
Is some higher power angry at the Central Park Track Club
website? First the regular webmaster is called away to the
other side of the world. Now it appears that his replacement
may be even less useful than previously thought, as we will be
losing our phone service (and with it our home internet access)
tomorrow. A little background: After six years in
the same apartment we decided it was time to move on, and we found
a nice condo in Brooklyn, which we expect to close on within a
month. Unfortunately, our roommate found a new place a few
blocks away and moved in there yesterday (although, inexplicably,
her cat remained here until late in the afternoon today). But
what does all this have to do with the phone?
Since we are moving to a new borough, we obviously could not keep
our 212 number. This did not concern us too much, as we
rely mostly upon our cell phone, and plan to get some sort of
high-speed internet access in the new place, which may make a
regular phone line unnecessary. The roommate is staying
in Manhattan and has no cell phone. She asked if she could
take the phone number with her, and we of course consented, figuring
we would just use a new number for the few weeks we have left
in our current pad. As it turns out, however, we could not
simply give our number away. The only thing we could do
was transfer our service into our roommate's name, and let her
then move her service to the new apartment. Of course, when
this happens, our own phone will be disconnected, and possibly
not reattached for a few days.
Why does any of this affect you? Because we have very restricted
internet access (basically, none) at our desk at work, and can
only update this page from another computer in the next room.
Of course our bosses frown upon us spending too much time
at the other computer (since it is impossible for us to be working
while we are sitting there), so we will be trying to squeeze in
updates at any available intervals (lunch, just after work, etc.),
but we cannot promise to be as productive as we would like. We
fully expect some new criticism from the other side of the world
over our inability to perform even the simplest tasks.
- CHEATERS [1/5/2003] Cool
Running has the following report:
Violetta Kryza Disqualified From 2002 UPMC/City
Of Pittsburgh Marathon
American Magdalena Lewy Declared Official Winner
PITTSBURGH (January 4) -- Violetta Kryza of Poland,
the first woman to cross the finish line at the 2002 UPMC/City
of Pittsburgh Marathon, has been disqualified from the race
due to a positive drug test. Magdalena Lewy,
29, of Berkeley, Calif., the runner-up at the May 5 event,
has been declared the female winner by race officials. Her
finish time was 2:36:48.
Kryza, 34, was found guilty of a doping offense last month
by the Polski Zwiazek Lekkiej Atletyki, the Polish athletics
federation. She was not only disqualified from the Pittsburgh
race but was suspended for two years.
"We strongly support drug testing and a drug-free sport,"
said race director, Larry Grollman. "We followed all
the procedures specified by both the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency
(USADA) and USA Track & Field. Obviously, we are
disappointed with the outcome, but it shows that the system
works. We congratulate Magdalena Lewy on her victory."
In accordance with USA Track & Field rules, Kryza's prize
money was held back until the final outcome of her test was
known. Lewy, and the other top finishers in the women's
race, will receive additional prize money payments reflecting
their increased finish positions in the race. Lewy,
who received a special bonus for being the top U.S. finisher,
will receive a revised total of $10,000.
The 2003 edition of the UPMC/City of Pittsburgh Marathon will
be held on May 4, and for the second consecutive year will
finish inside of Heinz Field, the home of the famed Pittsburgh
Steelers football team. Race information and on-line
registration is available at http://www.pittsburghmarathon.org.
On a more positive note, the next article announces
that the Berlin Marathon will now start in front of the Brandenburg
Gate, and that runners will pass through the gate with 300 meters
to go, making for some pretty impressive finishing photos.
- COMPLAINT DEPARTMENT [1/5/2003] This
note came from the far east (for the record, this is not Charles
Allard Jr.):
It has come to our attention that someone has usurped the Ancien
Regime de Terreur that was in place. Gone are the rancor,
acridity and bitterness. Still, we point out the new regime
has still much to learn from its forebear.
First, never admit to having nothing to write about. There
is always something to write about. Was it not another out-of-town
correspondent who wrote, "I read so much on the website every
day -- much of it useless -- but nevertheless I laugh at them"?
Second, we noticed that in the past, the trick was always to start
an entry with, "So we reached our hands over to the bookshelf
and pulled out a book at random. And we read ..." And
another interesting story thread begins (and so what if it is
useless?).
Let us show you an example. At this moment, since we are
seriously working, we only have two books with us: The
Matching Methododology: Some Statistical Properties by Prem
K. Goel and T. Ramalingam and Statistical Matching:
A Frequentist Theory, Practical Applications, and Alternative
Bayesian Approaches by Susanne Raessler. Slim
pickings, you might think. Well, let us take the more ominous-sounding
second tome and we look at the opening in the preface, which is
a quotation from D.R. Judkins:
I might describe statistical matching as imputation
out of desperation and against our better judgment [...] Heroic
appeals to conditional independence then produce imputed microdatasets
from which one can supposedly draw inference about the impact
of Y if X is changed. Further discussion of that approach
[...] is unnecessary given the thorough discrediting by Rodgers
(1984).
What has this got to do with running? Plenty, if not
everything. For example, suppose you are required to predict
a runner's finishing time. If you know nothing about that
runner, then you are at a total loss. If you are told
that this is a male, that he is twenty-eight-years old, that
he is Kenyan, that he is from Eldoret, that his fastest mile
is 3:55, etc, then you can match him up with people with those
characteristics and use their times to make a prediction with
this runner. Reasonable approach, you might say, but not
according to D.R. Judkins! But while statistical matching
does not get you 100% accuracy, surely it must be better than
guessing with zero information. Right?
Third, we must say that we were not surprised that the fifth
test of the Ashes series received scant coverage. As Steven
Paddock correctly inferred from the first time that The
Ashes series was mentioned, this was obviously an opportunity
to bash the pommies over some imagined ancient slight. Therefore,
the coverage was heaviest when the going was especially good
for the Aussies in the third and fourth tests. When England
looked like as if they had a fighting chance in the fifth test,
the coverage consists of an excuse of not being able to decode
the scorecard! Unbelievable!
This is doubly disappointing since Australian captain Steve
Waugh entered this history books as the third player ever
to reach 10,000 runs and also tied Sir Donald Bradman
at the top with 29 centuries in Test cricket. Howzat!
- SPANNING THE WORLD... [1/4/2003]
We received news today from France and Sweden:
First, Pam Bohl reports:
On Dec. 21, 2002 at 17h49 Joel Jakob Arthur
Babb was born at the American Hospital of Paris. Jakob
weighs 3.43 kg and is 51 cm long. His parents (Pam Bohl
and Joel Babb) think he must be the most wonderful
baby ever to be born (even during his nightly social hours
of 1 a.m. to 6 a.m.).
All of us wish all of you a wonderful 2003!
Pam
From further north, Toby Tanser's website
informs us: "It is Minus 16 celsius here in Sweden, and I have
a pulse! Believe it or not Iceland was warm with no snow at all!"
Of course that's 3 degrees Fahrenheit, so we don't know
what he's complaining about.
A quick check of the Weather Channel's website confirms both parts
of his story: Stockholm is listed at 0 degrees, and Reykjavik
is a balmy 41 - warmer than New York. We've always wanted
to go back to Sweden (we were there over a decade ago), but we'll
plan a summer visit.
- WRITING STYLE [1/4/2004] We had a request to use shorter paragraphs (or a larger font) to make
reading this easier. It would be wrong to mess with Roland's
layout without his permission, so we'll try to adjust our writing
instead.
- THE ASHES [1/3/2003] Despite
many attempts to learn something about cricket, we have only the
slightest idea of how the game works, and no comprehension at
all of the scoring system. However, a quick check of the
BBC's website revealed that England led Australia 92-1 when the
teams stopped for tea, and has just added a quick 14 somethings
(points? runs? wickets? widgets? the
beeb doesn't say, assuming instead that the people who read about
The Ashes actually understand it), to lead by 106. We assume
this is a good thing for England, but twenty minutes of poring
over the details has left us unsure of exactly what all this means,
and we include this update only to keep CPTC's coverage of The
Ashes as complete as possible.
- SLOW NEWS DAY [1/3/2003] Can
an entire day truly transpire with nothing worth entering in the
journal occurring? We had hoped our tenure here would begin
with plenty of events to record, but it's only the second day
and already we've hit a wall. The midweek placement of the
holidays seems to have led the entire nation (and many parts of
the rest of the world) to embark on a two-week break. Sure,
some people (including your correspondent) had to be in the office
some of this week, but how many did any real work? We usually
got through the entire newspaper by noon and spent part of the
afternoon engaged in other reading, all the while watching the
hands on the wall clock move slower than any we can recall since
high school. We longed for conversation, but few of our
coworkers were in, and none of our friends had to work. Even
our reading provided little diversion. With nobody working,
so little was happening in the world that the New York Times ran
a story on the front of the metro section on how nothing was happening
because nobody was working. We did receive an update regarding
the Midnight Run, and have dutifully added the Kozuskos
to the list of participants, but that was hardly enough for a
full journal entry.
- WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?
[1/2/2003] If you read this journal in chronological order
(that is, bottom to top), you've noticed the two workout reports
below, one from somebody who was there, and one from somebody
who wasn't. Is this a sign that we've lost our mind, or
have a split personality (which might explain the use of the first
person plural all the time)? While we may be completely,
or at least partly, insane, the explanation here is much simpler.
Your normal webmaster, journalist, and friend Roland Soong is
currently on the other side of the world, where he has trouble
updating this site. Hearing this, we volunteered to fill
in for him, as we possess both some knowledge of HTML and the
password for the website (and despite the fact that our previous
contributions to the website got us dismissed as a mere "juvenile
prankster"). Roland immediately accepted this offer and
then supplied an exhaustive list of things we would need to do
in his absence. It quickly became apparent that our work
would fill two purposes. First, it would keep the website
somewhat current. Second, and perhaps more importantly,
it would make everybody appreciate just how indispensable Roland
is as they watch us flail about struggling to keep the site even
half as fresh as he does. By then, however, it was too late
to back out, so we dusted off the computer and got to work.
Since Roland also supplied us with access to his e-mail account
(he's far too trusting), you can keep sending your race results,
journal updates, and general snide comments to the good old rolandsoong@centralparktc.org
address you're used to.
-
REAL THURSDAY ROAD WORKOUT REPORT
[1/2/2003] It was the first workout of the new year, and
a good time for all of us who resolved to get ourselves back
into prime running shape to show up. Despite the "icy
particles" alluded to in the earlier note, 42 hardy souls willing
showed up to run and 1 very young member (no point for guessing
which one) showed up with some reservations about the idea of
being pushed around the park in his stroller. Much of
the early conversation focused on the team's respective New
Year's activities and how many people were not expecting to
run well as they were still recovering from their Tuesday night
parties. For our own part, we had engaged in very little
debaucheries or self-destructive behavior on New Year's Eve,
but made up for it with some highly-questionable behavior at
a New Year's Day party. By the time the workout rolled
around we were mostly recovered, but work was certainly an unpleasant
experience (although it usually is, anyway, but that's not really
what we're here to discuss).
As for the workout itself: Tony started things off just
after 7:00 pm by announcing his New Year's Resolution to start
the workouts quicker. This was greeted with loud guffaws
from the assembled runners, but, lo and behold!, after a couple
of quick announcements the first group was off and running at
7:09 (nearly stranding Tyronne Culpepper, who arrived
just as we were starting in the expectation that it was still
last year's Tony Ruiz running the show). The workout was
a simple 3.25 mile run at marathon pace up the west side, through
the transverse and down to the needle, and then in reverse back
to the statue, this time at half-marathon pace. Our own
39-42 minute group started off at something that was a little
slower than marathon pace, although no one seemed too concerned,
but then our pace-leader, who promised that she was going to
run slowly today, decided to run the second mile at her
marathon pace, which few of us could keep up for long, and from
which we certainly could not have sped up 10-15 seconds per
mile for the second half of the workout. We won't identify
this pace leader by name, but will simply mention that she can
be found at the top of most race results and the top of the
membership list. Despite that very fast second mile, most
of us did settle back into our appropriate paces, although some
people seemed to interpret "10-15 seconds faster per mile" as
"2 minutes faster for the second half," but since none of the
mathematicians on the team were present we had no way of knowing
whether this was a valid interpretation or not.
-
THURSDAY ROAD WORKOUT REPORT
[1/2/2003] What report? As we walked home this evening,
icy particles were falling on our faces. Plus the fact
that we had not slept last night was enough to persuade us that
the warm bed is the place where we really needed to be ...
-
MIDNIGHT RUN [1/2/2003]
This was a fun run in which only the top three finishers are
listed. This year, those listed finishers were fast as
course records were set for both men and women:
Men
1 Karl Savage, 23, Voorhess, NJ 19:07 COURSE RECORD
2 Dan Wilson, 23, Lenoir, NC (ASICS) 19:07
3 Nigusu Urgie, 36, Washington D.C. 19:17
Women
1 Janelle Kraus, 25, Providence, RI 22:05 COURSE
RECORD
2 Jeanne Hennessy, 25, Mahopac, NY 22:13
3 Alemtsehay Misgnaw, 22, New York, NY 23:33
As for the other runners, history would have no record except
for the following illustrious Central Park Track Club folks
Olivier Baillet (in very alluring drag, including
a shiny red thong)
Blair Boyer (in a tuxedo shirt, but not accompanying
Olivier)
Stuart Calderwood (chasing the next participant, who
continues to gain weight despite high mileage)
Kieran Calderwood (in aero-tuck position, with race
number pinned to baby blanket)
Stacy Creamer (ran 8 miles in the morning, considering
the race to be part of the following day)
Jonathan Cane (with shaved legs, no bike, and wife
Deidre)
Ross Galitsky (with no bike, no goggles, and
wife Aubin)
Aubin Sullivan (with chic hairstyle and debatably
chic husband Ross)
Dave Howard (had to be wrestled away from Champagne
aid-station)
Michelle Santomassino (slowing down to steady an
unnamed teammate)
Sylvie Kimchι (remarking that it was not midnight
in France)
Joseph and Laura Lee Kozusko (identical in
speed despite vast disparities in height, gender, and coiffure)
Harry Morales (led CPTC men, first in translators'
division)
Dion Mulvihill (What? No American flag?!)
Yumi Ogita (first master, led CPTC women, looked half-asleep)
Andrea Ostrowski (made New Year's resolution to run
in the mornings; had to show up)
Mary Rosado (ran the middle-distance workout en route)
Cheering:
Audrey Kingsley (dressed as if pulled
away from nonexistent high-class party)
Armando Oliveira (no relation to Olivier;
not in drag)
Sue Pearsall (pretending to ride the
Cat Hill cat)
-
PROFESSIONAL OCCUPATIONS
[1/2/2003] In our application
form, we have an optional entry for occupation.
Of course, anyone can rightfully question the relevance to running,
and that is why it is optional. As we scroll through the
current roster, we see many of the traditional occupations in
this city --- medical professionals, lawyers, teachers, students,
financial analysts/traders, managers, etc. But then there
were some eye-catching entries, of which the following five
impressed us the most:
- 'Scab'
- 'Degenerate'
- 'Teri Garr impersonator'
- 'DOOM game expert'
- 'Fed'
We are not going to tell you who's who here. Some are
easy to guess (namely, the 'Degenerate' and the 'Teri Garr
impersonator'), some would be impossible to guess (the 'DOOM
game expert) unless he/she 'fesses up and the last one ('Fed')
is listed here to make sure that no more drug-related jokes
are tossed around.
-
1000 LOGGERS [1/1/2003]
After one year's operation, Larry King's The Running Log has 983 registrants.
There has to be at least 17 of you out there just waiting, right?
-
DAY ONE [1/1/2003]
On the first day of the year, Stacia Schlosser won a
road race in Presque Isle State Park, Erie, Pennsylvania.
If we were battered by the rains down here in New York City,
it must have been atrocious up there right by Lake Erie.
Stacia is older by one year now since we last saw here at a
workout a couple of weeks ago, so this is a lovely birthday
present.
-
WEB ACCESS STATISTICS
[1/1/2003] Historically, the month of December had no chance of matching up with
the preceding November.
This year, November was bolstered by the New York City Marathon
and furthermore by the 30th Anniversary Party, whereas December
was brought down by the long Christmas--to-New-Year holidays.
So what? 1,049 user sessions per day is still a phenomenal
number. Best yet, there were 81 user sessions originating
from Australia (.au domains) and they must have enjoyed our
coverage of the Ashes.
On a year-to-year basis, we have the following totals:
|
2001 |
2002 |
%change |
Home pages |
98,999 |
135,053 |
+ 36% |
Page views |
404,206 |
558,952 |
+ 38% |
Hits |
2,138,436 |
3,525,991 |
+ 65% |
Bandwidth |
43,581,823 |
85,309,124 |
+ 49% |
There is no end in sight ...
-
AN ORANGE JACKET FOR SALE
[12/31/2002] Ladies' small Pearl Izumi CPTC
jacket, worn once. $50 or best offer. kimberleymannen@hotmail.com
or 212-779-4740.
-
WORK DELAY? [12/31/2002]
Ooops! It looks like we have to make an unscheduled family
visit this week. Since 'family' means the other side of
the world, website maintenance may be affected (negatively).
We will certainly bring a laptop, but we remembered that the
last time we went, our modem could not pick up the local telco
dial tone!
|