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Week of January 25, 2005 - January 31, 2005 Armory Results As always, we have them first, although we're sure we missed a name or two in our hurry to get to Coogan's for some food before the long subway ride home. We also have 122 photos to go through, most of which will make it up here next week. Also, a few new best times: Sarah Rivlin moves up one spot, to sixth, on the 3000m list, Andrea Haver makes her debut on the 800m list in seventh place, and Kate Irvin improves on her 400m time, but stays in seventh place on that list. Remember, the Armory is closed next Tuesday, so the road group will meet at the Daniel Webster statue at 7:00 pm. The middle distance group will receive instructions from Coach Devon via email. We'll see you all on Wednesday. Vacation We'll do our best to get the results from the Armory race posted tomorrow night, but given how long these meets can last, we may not have the time to do anything else (like write silly little journal entries). And then we're off to Vegas for the weekend, and won't be back until Tuesday morning. Unless we win an obscene amount of money, in which case we might not be back until it gets warmer here. Anyone who'd like to write the journal and/or post race results over the weekend can email us at webmaster@centralparktc.org. Since that probably won't happen, you're all on your own until Wednesday. Since we don't want you all to be too productive at work, we suggest you go to Television Without Pity and read all their snarky recaps of pretty much every drama on TV. The Armory Remember, Thursday Night at the Races is tomorrow (or, really, today, because of when you're reading this). Also, the Armory will be closed next Tuesday. The road group will meet at 7:00 at the statue of Daniel Webster. We don't know yet what the middle distance and track groups will be doing. Marathon Study I have a favor to ask of anyone who has completed a marathon. My friend Melyssa is doing her Psychology thesis on the messed up minds of Marathoners. She asked me if I knew anyone who has competed in any and I said "only 100 or so." Anyway, she has a short survey for anyone who has done a marathon and would be willing to take it. She will mail it to you with a self address envelope. All you have to do is fill it out and then drop it in the mailbox. If you are willing to participate please send me your address and she will drop a survey in the mail for you. Thanks in advance and if you know anyone else who has run a marathon and would be willing to participate please feel free to pass it along to them as well. Thanks,
P.S. With the help of Melyssa's research maybe one day we can cure this horrible mental illness know as marathoning. Awards So a bunch of movies we either didn't see or didn't like were nominated for some big awards. And another bunch of movies we didn't see were nominated for a different, but more fun, set of awards. And we really couldn't care less, but it's been hard to avoid all the news about it. What we would care more about is the 2005 Bloggies, at least if we'd been nominated. Why didn't anybody nominate us??? Is it because we don't put the word blog in our title? Is it because our graphics aren't so trendy? Is it that we don't really fit any of their categories (unlikely, since they list low culture as a political blog, which is a bit of a stretch)? Whatever. It's an open poll, so go vote, if you care. Reservoir Run Running around the block not enough for you? Urban Athletics has now introduced their Reservoir Challenge. On February 19, show just how fast you can complete the 1.577-mile loop. The winners (male, female and overall age-graded) each get $500. Safety While Central Park and Prospect Park are usually safe places to run, it's still important to be alert, as this letter warns:
Meet the Mets We know the Mets are trying to do something for the fans by having Jose Reyes and Kris Benson sign autographs at the Mets Clubhouse Shop (11 W. 42nd Street) tomorrow afternoon (1:00 pm - 2:00 pm), but couldn't they have gotten Kris' wife Anna instead? Idiotarod Want to run something more interesting than the 10-Miler in Central Park this Saturday? Check out the Idiotarod from Fulton Ferry Pier to Tompkins Square Park, in which teams of five people race while pulling a shopping cart. It's kind of like the real Iditarod, if the real Iditarod involved people pulling shopping carts across Alaska. You might recall that we mentioned this last year, when Chris Solarz led team Urgent Sperm Delivery to a second place finish. And please, if any of you do race this, take some photos. We'd do it ourself, but we'll be out of town. Week of January 18, 2005 - January 24, 2005 Thursday Drinks Everyone knows that the best thing about the Armory races is the chance to run on one of the fastest tracks in the world. And the second best thing is the opportunity to go to Coogan's for drinks afterwards. So this Thursday, all of you who are racing, watching the race, or just want to take the subway up to Washington Heights are invited to stop by and join your teammates for a few post-race eats and drinks at Coogan's, on Broadway between 168th and 169th. Memeber Page CPTCer Kelly Karavites has set up a webpage to show off his artwork. Definitely worth a look. Snow Man This is what happens when you run 17 miles in 0 degree weather. And that was before the snow started!
The Worst Day of the Year According to some arbitrary formula cooked up by a part-time tutor at Cardiff University, today is the worst day of the year. And this was before he knew we'd have to deal with the snow, not to mention the hangover from yesterday's football games. (An Eagles-Patriots Super Bowl? Who the hell wants to see that?) Of course, it's possible this only applies in Britain, so beware that there may be worse to come. [Link via the Flyers] Best Times Congratulations to Amerigo Rossi, whose 1:52.88 at a Cal State Northridge meet this weekend moves him into the top spot on the 800m Best Times list. Photos We thought running on Saturday was ridiculously cold, but we imagine that Richard Brounstein of the Flyers was even colder as he stood around and took photos. He managed to snap a few pictures of CPTC runners, and we've posted them here. Raffle for a Great Cause We received the following from Doug Stern:
Indoor Triathlon The JackRabbit Indoor Tri series in New York City is filling fast! Experienced triathletes and total novices are enthusiastic about the format, and are excited to be able to race in the dead of winter. The races are: All three races are fundraisers for the different facilities, to support their youth and adult athletic programs. The race format is simple: 10 minutes in the pool, 30 minutes on a spin bike, 20 minutes on a treadmill. The longest distance in each event gets the highest score, and the highest combined score is the winner. We have prizes for overall winners as well as age group winners. For more information and registration, go to www.jackrbt.com/indoortri. If you'd prefer to volunteer at the January 30 race, please email Jonathan Blyerat jonblyer@yahoo.com. We need about 20 volunteers for various easy, fun jobs on race day.
Westchester Trails Joe Garland has set up a new site, westchestertrails.com, with information on all the good trail running in Westchester County. We plan on trying them all out as soon as it gets a little warmer. Letter from NYRR Dear Club Team Members, Thank you for your input at last Monday's night's Club Council meeting and since. It was helpful and illuminating. Some facts as I see them:
The conclusions:
The goals:
Thanks again for all your feedback, and I, together with all of us at NYRR, look forward to working together with you as we seek to strengthen our services and further our mission as we plan for 2006. With best regards, Mary Wittenberg Really? We Do Just Fine On Only An Hour a Day Study: Watching Fewer Than Four Hours Of TV A Day Impairs Ability To Ridicule Pop Culture [From The Onion, obviously.] Oh, Alessandra Stanley. We mock you so much for your TV reviews in the Times. True, it's not as much as we mock your colleague Virginia Heffernan, but if you wanted more attention from us, you just had to ask. You didn't have to include this passage in your review of "Point Pleasant":
Yes, the cast members of The O.C. all look their age, and that's the problem. Benjamin McKenzie (nee Schenkkan), who plays Ryan, was born the same day as our younger brother, Noah. (Noah's 26 and teaches chemistry at Middle College High School in Brooklyn, and no one has ever mistaken him for a student there.) The other "teenagers" (all playing characters 16-18 years old) on the show aren't much better:
The person who comes closest to the age of the character she plays is the aforementioned Mischa Barton, who's just shy of 19. Unfortunately, she's also the least talented and least popular performer (we really can't justify using the word actress to describe her) on television today, and is generally so emaciated that she can barely pass for human. And somehow the actors on "Point Pleasant" look less appropriate than this crew? Now we're almost tempted to check it out. The Return of the Half-Marathons, or "No Sleep Till Brooklyn" New York Road Runners released a full (or at least fuller) 2005 schedule today, and the half-marathon grand prix is back on. That's Brooklyn on March 19; Queens, May 19; the Bronx, July 10; Manhattan, August 28; and Staten Island on October 16. We'd like to claim all the credit for the continued existence of the Brooklyn Half (while avoiding any blame for what our father keeps referring to as the "Bronx Death March"), but we doubt that our influence is that great. NYRR also has their usual compliment of other road races. There is no info yet on their outdoor track series, but we hope it will still take place. Also, the schedule of team scoring races is not posted yet, and, from what we hear, is not quite finalized. Most likely the Snowflake 4M will be the first scoring race, which is good for us as that's always a big race for CPTC. In other scheduling news, the Public Theater has announced that they will once again be putting on two shows for Shakespeare in the Park: "As You Like It" from June 25 to July 17, and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" from August 9 to September 4. Just Remember, the Camera Can Lie Some friends on the Flyers asked us to write a recap of their Awards Dinner last weekend. We were trying to find a way to do it that wouldn't embarrass anyone (especially not us), but it's too late for that, as Toby's website had the following post today:
Whatever you're thinking, we categorically deny it. Opera While this page isn't exactly a blog it does have many blog-like attributes. That means we can devote some space to the two primary roles of most blogs: shameless self-promotion, and well-deserved promotion of one's friends. Since the last post was full of the former, here's some of the latter: The New York Chamber Opera presents: Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas
Conducted by Lucy Arner Dido - Elisabeth Batton Symphony Space Thursday, January 20, 8:00 pm Tickets: $28 ($23 for Members, Students and Seniors) We've promoted Karen Frankenstein's career here before, but for those of you who don't remember, she's a fellow wage-slave whose cubicle is about 12 feet away from ours. (Yes, our job is so boring that we measure the dimensions of the cubicles.) We appear to be condemned — for what crimes committed in some past life we know not — to a long stay, but won't you help our innocent friend to escape from this cruel workplace where we don't even get internet access? Also, the girl can sing, and we've heard the opera is pretty good, too. But Think How Much Less Time It Would Take Us If We Didn't Post Things Like This We want to say first that we don't print every letter we get. For example: we never print any letters from people who ask us to keep their comments private; we see no need to share various minor questions we are asked; we keep most minor praise and criticism to ourself; and we ignore all complaints from coaches who feel that photos of them placed on the homepage are in some way unflattering, even if they are just meant as an homage to another classic team photo. But just as we shared a complaint with you last week, we wanted so share this bit of acclaim we received in response:
You may think we're repeating this just because it makes us look good, and you're mostly right. But it also serves as a good way of addressing the question we are most commonly asked about this site, which is "How much time do you spend on the website every day?" The answer is "we have no idea," and here's why: We received this email last week, after we had already done one or two quick updates to the site. Of course, as soon as we read it we had to email it to a few friends. The next thing we did was check out the Guardian Review of Books, since we'd never looked at it before. We didn't have to check out Slate, since we already read it regularly, and had just finished that day's discussion between Malcolm Gladwell and James Surowiecki about their respective books Blink and The Wisdom of Crowds (at which point we'd read enough articles and reviews about the two to feel that there's nothing left in the books themselves that we need to read). We'd also finished going through various blogs, the forums on Let's Run, ESPN Page 2, and various other sites from which we'd gleaned a few nuggets for the journal. We made it through the review of Michael White's new biography of Machiavelli pretty quickly, getting sidetracked only by the accompanying article in the Guardian itself on why British politicians should pay more attention to his ideas. Unfortunately, the next review we came across was of a new book titled The Joy of Laziness - How to Slow Down and Live Longer, which suggests that exercise and stress are the primary causes of aging. While we're not big fans of stress, we do know that the evidence that exercise slows down the aging process is a lot stronger that any evidence that it speeds it up. And for anyone reading the paper who isn't familiar with that information, the review does a good job of highlighting and correcting the errors in the book. But the review got us thinking about other, slightly similar advice we'd seen on staying young. A quick search turned up the advice, courtesy of the great Leroy "Satchel" Paige:
We're not big fans of rule five, but number six has always struck us as good policy, especially when running. But of course a search for Satchel Paige also turned up lots of good baseball sites, some of which we read, and others of which we bookmarked for later reference. Eventually we got back to the Guardian for one last review, this time of Haruki Murakami's new novel, Kafka on the Shore (and why didn't anyone tell us he had a new book coming out???). We haven't been so thrilled with Murakami's latest books, but we loved A Wild Sheep Chase, The Elephant Vanishes, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. And even if Kafka isn't as good as those, we'll still read it in one sitting. Luckily it didn't come out until today, so we didn't try anything foolish like rushing out to the nearest bookstore to buy it and then staying up all night reading it. Instead we just hunted down a few other reviews (not that we could ever be persuaded to pass on the book) and then added the book to our Amazon shopping cart. At which point we noticed that our shopping cart was getting pretty full, and that we needed to move a few items to the "save for later" area so that we could order the new novel, along with Jared Diamond's Collapse, The Simpsons Fifth Season DVD, the Marx Brothers box set, and one or two gifts. And then, finally, we could get to the next email, which was a request to post a short announcement in the journal. And that's an average night for us when there aren't any pictures to post. So out of those 1-5 hours, how many count as working on the site? If we can ever figure that out, we'll know how long we spend on the site. Week of January 11, 2005 - January 17, 2005 Photos We promised we'd have photos from the Thursday night race up this weekend, and — as long as you consider this to still be part of the weekend — we've succeeded. We're missing a few names in the captions, but we'll add those when the full results are published. Why You Have Today Off From Work
Or, see here for both the text and a recording of the "I Have a Dream" speech. Thursday Night at the Armory and Best Times So, in the end it wasn't that awful inside the Armory. There were still some slower times ("first race of the season," and all that), but also two best times: Micah Adriani took fourth on the 400m list with a 61.2 and Sarah Rivlin took seventh on the 3000m list with an 11:30.6 in the two mile (which converts to 10:43.7 for the 3k). Congratulations to both of them. And, as usual we have the results before anybody else. And we'll have photos up this weekend, which might be before anybody else, but might not. Best Hong Kong Blog From Roland Soong (most recently referred to as the 'old' webmaster):
TV or Not TV We really don't want to spend every day complaining about the television reviews in the Times, but what else can we do when they let critics like Alessandra Stanley start a review of ESPN's "Tilt" thusly: "God does not play dice with the universe, but Universal Studios is playing God with the dice." (And this just one day after the paper reported on a man who thinks that a World Series of Craps would be a good event to televise, notwithstanding the fact that Dave Chappelle already did a skit on the World Series of Dice.) We'll save you from both the rest of the review and from the show itself by letting you know now that neither one is worth your time. Half-Marathons Kevin Arlyck writes:
We respond — again, speaking only for ourself and not for the team, the Executive Board, the prior webmaster (we didn't mean to imply that he's old), Walrus Internet, our readers, or people who just like the color orange:
Free Runners Clinic #2 PLACE The Trainers Place TIME 1:00-PM January 22nd 20 minute presentation, and or demonstration, on: Running and Pilates - Pilates offers runners a systematic approach to overall stretching and core muscle development which are critical to injury prevention for long distance runners. A basic series of 10 stretches and exercises which can be added to your workout routine will be demonstrated by Tom Dessereau, assistant coach for the New York Flyers and certified Pilates Instructor for the last 10 years. Running and Alexander Technique - Alexander Technique is a postural re-education program which promotes poise and ease of movements. Its principles can be easily adapted to promote efficient running form to increase race performance and reduce wear and tear on the body. Learn how to reduce tension when running and get the most from your stride. Monika Gross is an avid distance runner and certified Alexander Technique instructor. Balance Training - Maintaining balance means having the center of mass within your base of support and hifting your center of gravity to match movements, adjust to deviations in terrain which can be a key to efficiency in our sport. We'll review various movements that are geared towards training an athlete's neuromuscular system to react to different terrain, conditions that can affect running performance. Balance Training can take on certain forms with various pieces of equipment found in most fitness facilities though you could just as easily improvise, challenge and improve your balance and agility without any type of equipment as well. Taught by Scott Cohen. RSVP to Toby Tanser at tobytanser@aol.com. A Good Day For Grammar Some people think that we are a humorless pedant with an unhealthy obsession with obscure rules of grammar and punctuation. These people have obviously never tried to slip an inccorect apostrophe past our dad or Jon Cane. Or tried to advertise on Google. The Times reports:
In fact, we think Google may go too far, since they rejected the phrase "check em out," and suggested replacing it with "check them out." Em, of course, is a printer's measurement known chiefly to crossword puzzle fanatics and copyeditors, who use it mostly as part of the term em dash. An em dash is the long line (—) which is traditionally used to interrupt a sentence to insert another thought or to show a shift in tone. It is different from an en dash (–), which is traditionally reserved for separating items in a range (e.g., 2000–2004), or to join compound modifiers made up of elements that are either open or hyphenated compounds (e.g., a New York–New Jersey agency or ). Neither of these should be confused with the hyphen (-) which is used to combine words (e.g., low-carb diet). These days – mostly because Microsoft Word favors it as part of that program's "autocorrect" feature – the en dash has become the punctuation mark of choice for inserting a thought into a sentence. With the en dash taking on these new duties, it has generally ceded it's role in separating items in a range, a process that should be complete within 5-7 years. The em dash is often still used to show an ubrupt break — and we should get back to Google. Google is right that "check em out" is incorrect. But it need not be replaced with the overly-formal "check them out." The proper correction is to "check 'em out," with the apostrophe in 'em marking it as a contraction for them. This provides the clarity Google seeks, while leaving intact the jocular tone favored by the advertiser. In other grammar news, a brave soul on Let's Run — the name does have an apostrophe, although it cannot be included in an internet address so the URL has to be letsrun.com — has embarked on a quixotic mission to teach the posters there about the difference between there, their and they're. We wish um, yea (the poster's pseudonym) the best of luck in this endeavor, although we do wish he would use capital letters in his posts. Finally, the Grammar Cop over at Banterist has finally gotten around to citing Paris Hilton for her "THATS HOT/YOUR NOT" t-shirt. You may recall that we nailed the talentless heiress on this back in November. We'll let him slide on this one, though, since he did toss a further criticism of Ms. Hilton into a piece he wrote — or, more precisely, will write in 2019 — for The Independent on the fate of celebrity couples:
Running Resolutions Toby Tanser suggests a few good New Year's Resolutions for runners. Race Tonight Remember, the first Thursday Night at the Races meet is tonight at 7:00. Distances are Mile, 400m, 800m and 2-Mile. It will probably be oppressively hot and dry in the Armory, so be sure to bring water, gatorade, etc. NYRR "Build-Up" Series Still no word from Road Runners, but about eight different people have told us that the half-marathons are gone and have been replaced by the new "build-up" series. The reaction around Brooklyn has ranged from disgruntled to livid, and we can see why. [And please remember that we do not speak for the team, the Executive Board, or even the old webmaster. We're speaking here just as a local runner and NYRR member. And while we are a resident and a fan of Brooklyn, we haven't run a half-marathon in two years, and don't plan to do so for several more years.] The half-marathons are popular races that draw people from all over the city. The Queens race drew about 2,000 runners last year, and Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Staten Island had about 3,000 each. With the exception of the Shea Stadium Fun Run, these are the only road races NYRR held outside of Manhattan last year. We don't want to believe that NYRR is ignoring the outer boroughs, but when they drop or downgrade races, and do it with little advance notice, it's hard to feel that they care much about things outside of Central Park. While a build-up series is good for a casual marathoner, the more competitive racers don't need it, and people who prefer to run races in the 10K to half-marathon range get nothing at all out of it (expect for automatic PRs at random distances). Only about 20% of NYRR members choose to run the NYC marathon, but it sounds like the entire race schedule is being designed for them this year. Of course, we don't know that for sure, because there's no schedule yet and the new series was only unveiled this week. NYRR takes a lot of flak, and we generally defend them. But we do think they've been pretty weak in relating to their members, especially the members who don't live near Central Park. We're not against ever changing the race schedule, but we'd like to see NYRR consult with the members more before they make these drastic changes. Note: This is based on our own dealings with NYRR and on specific complaints regarding the schedule change that we've heard from friends in the last two days. If you think we're mischaracterings NYRR, please send us an email, as we'd like to hear your thoughts, and maybe even print them here. Baseball Steroids Major League Baseball and the players union have agreed on a new steroid-testing policy that's an improvement over the old one, but still doesn't go far enough. The good changes are that players can be tested in the off-season, tested more than once per year, and will be tested for a more comprehensive list of drugs, including THG. The bad news is that stimulants still aren't included and the penalties are still weak: a 10-game suspension for the first positive test, and a one-year suspension after four positive tests. This is better than the old system (treatment, but no suspension, for the first offensive; a one-year suspension only after five positive tests), but doesn't approach the WADA's penalties. An official announcement of the plan should come tomorrow. Olympic Debate BBC World was planning to televise a debate between representatives of the five cities bidding for the 2012 Olympics. Then the IOC said they couldn't. King Kaufman at Salon.com questions the IOC' decision better than we can:
It's Gotta Be the Shoes Frank Morton writes "I don't remember this mentioned on the web site. Did I miss it or did you miss reporting it? Or is it not newsworthy?" He's referring to a Running Shoe Comparison in New York Magazine back in November in which "Veteran runner Kate Irvin of Central Park Track Club tried four new hi-tech pairs designed to go far—fast." The answers, in reverse, are "Yes, it is newsworthy," and "It looks like we missed reporting it, although we did know about it and we thought we mentioned it here." Our bad. We heard that Kate was also featured in a popular women's maagazine around the same time. Marie Claire, we think, although they're all the same to us. Whatever it was, we couldn't find it on line, but if any of you are subscribers and want to flip through two-month old issues, we'd appreciate it. Amazingly, This Story Wasn't Stolen From The Onion NORTH KOREA: OFFICIAL HAIR DAYS The government is telling men to keep their hair short and visit a barber twice a month, saying that long hair "consumes a great deal of nutrition" and could thus rob the brain of energy, according to the BBC, citing broadcasts from Pyongyang. The drive is being led primarily by state television with a series called "Let Us Trim Our Hair in Accordance With Socialist Lifestyle." (Agence France-Presse)
So That's Where They Get Their Ideas "The Secret Lives of Just About Everybody" — New York Times, January 11, 2005 "Study: 100 Percent Of Americans Lead Secret Lives" — The Onion, October 27, 2004 Half-Marathons We hear rumors that the NYRR half-marathon series is being replaced by a "marathon build-up" series, starting with a 12K in Brooklyn in March, and ending with a 30K in Staten Island in October. More info whenever NYRR gets around to posting an actual schedule with more info. Recruitment Yesterday we covered team recruitment. Today is job recruitment, courtesy of a friend:
Sleep It Off A new study found that overweight people get less sleep than people with normal weights. The authors note that "this study does not establish a cause-and-effect relationship between restricted sleep and obesity" but it looks like a lack of sleep causes a decline in the appetite-suppressing protein hormone leptin, and increases another hormone that causes a craving for food. The good news is that it may take just 20 minutes more sleep per night to lower a person's weight. The bad news, of course, is that getting those extra 20 minutes of sleep is probably hard. Week of January 4, 2005 - January 10, 2005 Shouldn't He Be Wearing Orange?
Welcome New Members Please extend a warm welcome to our newest members, Terence Gerchberg, Benjamin Gutman, Felice Kelly, Allan Piket and Marco Pulina. Recruitment points go to Jonathan Cane, Yves-Marc Courtines, Sid Howard (3), and Toby Tanser, with 4 Coach's Points to Tony Ruiz. This is the first time Tony has led in the Coach's Competition since January of 2003. See all this info in table form at the scoreboard. No word yet on who won last year's competition, but we'll let you know as soon as we hear. Also, check the bottom of the scoreboard page for a reminder on the rules of recruiting new members. Getting a runner drunk and tattooing a giant orange maple leaf on his back is apparently not enough to make him a member of the team. Which means we just wasted $150. Maybe the Atkins Diet Works Better Than We Thought From the Daily News:
Final Photos The last of the 2004 photos are now posted. There are three sets:
We'll have full stats on the photos soon, to go with the stats on the journal and the stas on race results (coming in the next day or two), but it looks like we published about 1,950 photos from about 50 events. That's about 200 more photos than in 2003, and about 15 more events. Not counted in those numbers are the top photos of the year, which we'll have up soon as well. Indoor Triathlon We are very excited to announce the JackRabbit Indoor Triathlon series this winter. Registration is open now for all three races at www.jackrbt.com/indoortri.
All three races are fundraisers for each facility, supporting their community outreach and fitness education programs for kids and adults. If you've never done an Indoor Triathlon, there are some differences from the classic triathlon format that will make these races a lot of fun for both new and experienced racers.
There will be prizes for the overall winners as well as the top finishers in each age group. This are a great way to test your fitness in the off season, and to make sure your training is on track. For more information, including the complete rules, go to www.jackrbt.com/indoortri. Each race is limited to 100 participants, so be sure to sign up early. Everyone's a Critic A reader writes:
The answer, of course, is that we write most of them, and we edit most of the others. In fact, we prefer not to have such poor writing on this site, so we've edited the above letter as follows:
We're still mystified as to what our "serious self-esteem issues" might be, but otherwise we're grateful for the criticism, which is almost as much fun as the letter last summer that commanded: "Get off your high horse!!!" Fat City Men's Fitness has released their annual ranking of the fattest cities in the United States, and New York has fallen from 21st fattest to 8th fattest. We haven't noticed any increase in obesity around the city, but then these rankings aren't based on the actual weight of actual people. Rather, the magazine uses a set of letter grades in 14 categories, some of which are hard to measure objectively (see the 2004 and 2005 rankings). Interestingly, New York is "The City That Eats the Least Junk Food" and " The City That Drinks the Least" (alcohol, we imagine). In other cities, Houston is back to being the fattest city, for the fourth time in five years (Detroit grabbed the title last year), and Seattle ranks as the fittest for the first time, although they've never finished worse than sixth in the past. Most other cities moved a lot more in the rankings, so it looks like these rankings are worth less as comparisons than as lists of which areas the city needs to address. Also, see The Onion for "Obesity, Obesity Reports on the Rise." Sculpture I have created a sculpture depicting a runner titled "Road Warrior." My desire is to create a series of sculptures with a humorous slant that captures runners from various backgrounds. I would like to see if there is a market in the running community before I invest further into this venture. I'd appreciate any feedback
Marathons Looking for a marathon you haven't done before? You could check out the Hyannis Marathon in Cape Cod on February 27. Race options include a marathon, half-marathon, 10K and a relay marathon. In the relay you can even run against a team boasting former marathon champs Bill Rogers, Patti Catalano Dillon and Belayneh Dinsamo. If you prefer to run a hillier course, the Lake Placid Marathon is on June 12. Best Times Stuart Calderwood and Stacy Creamer both set records in the 408-yard dash recently. First, a little backstory. Urban Athletics offered a challenge at their uptown store: run around the block as fast as you can. Run faster than the current record, and you win a free pair of running shoes. Stacy picks it up from there on Toby Tanser's blog:
Stuart ran 1:04 to win his shoes. If you think you can beat either of those times, call the store at 212-828-1906 for more info. We won't count them as race results, and we won't add a best times page for them, but we'll mention any winners (or even non-winners who request it) in the journal. Hagiographic A reader wrote: "Please tell me that I'm not the only person who had to look up hagiographic." Sorry, but as far as we know, you are. Alternatively, as far as we know everyone who reads this page had to look up hagiographic. We track a lot of stastics here, but even the Global Surveillance System can't tell what our readers look up in the dictionary (yet). For those of you who didn't get around to looking it up yet, here's what Merriam-Webster has to say :
If that defintion doesn't help you – and we're pretty sure it doesn't – here's the entry for hagiography:
A full etymology is available here, but the roots are the Greek words hagios (holy) and graphia (writing). We actually had to look up just where in the journal we used the word hagiographic, since we had no memory of it. That's because we didn't use it; Stuart Calderwood did, in his comments on handicap races and Joe Kleinerman. Winter Classic Series Just in case you don't read those emails from NYRR:
This sounds much cooler (pun not intended, but not avoided either) than the patches we got for running all those half-marathons. Crossfired CNN announced that they are canceling Crossfire, and that co-host Tucker Carlson was either fired, quit or just didn't have his contract renewed. CNN president Jonathan Klein said "I agree wholeheartedly with Jon Stewart's overall premise [that Crossfire is "partisan hackery" and is "hurting America."]." Sadly, partisan hackery will continue on some other CNN shows, and on a whole bunch of shows on MSNBC (including Carlson's new show there) and Fox News. Because Howard the Duck, Radioland Murders, Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones Weren't Unwatchable Enough "I'm going to make movies nobody wants to see. I've earned the right to fail."
Fad Diets Don't Work Or, as the Times clarifies:
Also, check out this chart, which breaks down the cost of various popular diet programs, and also shows how little emphasis they all put on exercise. Tofu We've got so many complaints about the Times from the last two days, that we might crash the site if we tried to post them all here. So we'll limit ourself to just one today: While it's nice to see the Dining section explore the wonders of tofu, we cannot excuse them for leaving Soy off their list of recommended restaurants. We don't know anything about the restaurants they did pick, but we're guessing none of them have a chef who's run a 3:14 marathon and has her own blog. (We're referring, of course, to our very own Etsuko Kizawa.) We expect better from the Times, especially since they implied a few months a go that all restaurant trends originate on the Lower East Side. Okay, one more complaint, about Virginia Heffernan's utterly bizarre review of "Alias," in which she appears to believe that people watch the show for the plots. We'll get to our complaints about it tomorrow, or whatever the next day is that we're not at work until midnight (we really hope it's tomorrow), but basically Heffernan comes across as a pretentious twit who's horrified to discover that her job as a television critic will require her to actually watch television shows. In the meantime check out this parody of it at The Minor Fall, The Major Lift (yes, he's back!). Jersey Shore House Shares We've rented a house for the summer in Point Pleasant, NJ and are looking for 2-3 more people (or a couple). So far the house consists of 3 couples (full-shares) & 2 single people/half shares, ages 25-30. It's a very nice Victorian house, just 2 blocks from the beach. The house offers Central A/C, multiple decks, offstreet parking, a huge eat-in kitchen, 3-4 bedrooms (easily sleeps 8-10), and 2 bathrooms. You can go down at your leisure anytime from Memorial Day to Labor Day. There will be plenty of good times, and the boardwalk and best bars are just a few blocks away. We're not planning animal house, but rather a group that wants a nice mix between the party scene and just relaxing for the summer. The cost is approx. $1888 per person ($3776 couple), which could be lowered depending on the final headcount. It's an easy train ride from Penn Station to Point Pleasant, and you may also be able to catch a ride with the other people in the house. It would be great to have another runner or two in the house for the summer long runs and all of the races at the Jersey shore. If you're interested, email me immediately for more details: sinclair_paul@yahoo.com.
More Photos Some extra photos from Club Championships, courtesy of Joe Golden. Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the new ones. That just leaves the Tribute to Roger Bannister Race (back in May we thought these photos were too blurry, but we found them again last week and decided they're usable) and a set of miscellaneous photos that Mike Rosenthal sent us last week. All these, and the top photos, will be finished by Monday. Then we can take photos at Thursday NIght at the Races and start this all over again. Year in Review: The Journal Last year we published a short summary of statistics related to this site in 2003. This year we’re giving you an in depth analysis. First up is the journal. In 2003 we published 926 journal entries, or roughly 17.75/week. Last year our output declined to 892 entries, or roughly 17.15/week. However, since we generally didn’t write anything on the weekends this year, the number of posts we published each active day increased. The total volume of words (not including titles, which are sometimes just as long as the entries) was 158,878. (That’s roughly the same length as both The Iliad and Emma , and don’t you wish you’d spent the year reading one of them instead?) That breaks down to an average length of 178.24 words per post and the median length was 103 words. (The mode, which is almost useless here, 47 words, with 11 entries at that length. There were also nine entries each of 76 words, 68 words, 57 words and 40 words.) We don’t have the software available to figure out a full distribution curve, but we did break it down by 100-word blocks
The longest (“Speech, Speech,” January 6) was 1,910 words, most of which was the text of movie speeches. The second longest (“Color Wars,” May 15), was a 1,722-word analysis of the origins of Syracuse University’s and Harvard University’s mascot names. Ten other posts broke the thousand-word barrier. Five of these were travel updates from Olivier Baillet and Anne Lavandon, two were workout reports that veered off on various tangents, and essays on steroids, over-racing and the holiday season rounded out the list. The shortest (“It's Awesome, Baby!” August 31), had no words at all, simply a picture of a Yankee Stadium scoreboard. Interestingly, the second shortest entry (“Who's Your Papi????” October 18), which read in full, “WE BELIEVE”) also concerned a Yankees’ loss, this time to the Red Sox in Game 5 of the ALCS. Only five other entries were under 10 words: the caption to a photo of Marion Labat Comess; a link to photos on this site; two links to articles by our members; and one link to an outside article on Paula Radcliffe. More important than the length of the journal is its contents. This page is billed as “The Life and Times of the Central Park Track Club,” but it often seems like there is more emphasis on the times (that is, the world we live in, not the length of time it takes us to run) than on the life of the club. We were glad to discover that this is not true. We went through every entry and placed it into one of four categories:
Amazingly, the “Other” category made up only 14.69% of our entries. Sports/Health took up 15.92%; Running, 17.49%; and a full 51.91% of the entries were directly related to the team, its members, or the website. There was some fluctuation on a month-by-month basis, but only between August and October did team-related content make up less than half the entries.
Things are a little different when we compare the number of words expended on each topic. Since many of the entries related to the team are short (i.e. “pictures are now posted” or “race results have been corrected”), and many of the running entries are links to outside articles, we find that proportionally more words are spent on the other two topics:
Still, no matter how you look it, over 80% of this page is devoted to the team, running and other sports, and health and fitness. That seems pretty good to us. The full breakdown of entries/month and words/month is:
As for the average words/entry in each category, in each month:
We’re at a loss as to why these entries fluctuate so much, but the one extreme outlying data point (477 words/entry for “Other” topics in October) is explained by the fact that there we only posted three miscellaneous entries that month, one of which contained the entire text of the classic “Contract” scene from A Night at the Opera, which on its own skewed the average higher. We’re not sure what all this additional information proves – other than the fact that there isn’t enough work at our office around the holidays – but if anyone wants to torture the data until it confesses to something else, we’re happy to send you all the numbers. Missing Journal Entries Amazingly, with all that content above, there were still a few entries we never got to post. Here are a couple of half-finished ideas that we never posted, with the reasons we omitted them.
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