Week of August 30, 2005 - September 5, 2005

Golden Boy
August 30, 2005

Congratulations to Neil Fitzgerald, who picked up a gold medal in the 800m (M35-39) at the World Masters Athletics Championships over in Spain.

Quiet Period
August 30, 2005

Our apologies for the light content here. We were out of town all weekend (which was mostly fun) and will be busy every evening this week (very little of which will be fun). We'll still get in a few updates, but we won't be back up to speed here until after Labor Day.

Week of August 23, 2005 - August 29, 2005

Really, No Amount of Fame or Success is Worth Having to Drink Wheatgrass Juice
August 25, 2005

Frank Morton sent us this interesting article from the Guardian on whether Paula Radcliffe might be getting a little too odd for her own good. Or, as the headline puts it, "Radcliffe treading thin line between marvel and comic" (which has nothing to do with Marvel Comics). It seems she's gone past ice baths and Breathe Right strips, and now relies on emu oil and a titanium necklace (which even the Times Styles Section recognizes does nothing). But as long as she keeps setting records we have no problem with that.

Who You Calling Fat?
August 25, 2005

A doctor in Rochester, NH, is under investigation for telling an overweight patient to lose weight. From all the accounts we've read, it sounds like Dr. Terry Bennett was giving sound medical advice, albeit in a very blunt fashion. According to the NH Board of Medicine, rudeness is not a cause for investigation, but maybe that doesn't apply when you comment on a patient's weight.

Corrals for This Sunday's Manhattan Half
August 25, 2005

There will be a special corral at the front of this Sunday's Manhattan Half Marathon. This will be available for Men and Women who have achieved a 74% age-graded percentage at any of this year's or last year's NYRR races.

If you are running the Manhattan Half Marathon this Sunday and your name is on the list below, you need to report to the start line between 6:15 AM and 6:50 AM to get a sticker that will allow entry into the special corral. Once a runner gets a sticker they are free to warm up any way they want but should make sure they are at the start line 5 minutes prior to the start of the race. Saul Zuchman and other NYRR staff will be handing out the corral stickers on Sunday.

CPTC members currently on this list are as follows:

Please email Alan Ruben at aruben@montran.com with any additions to this list.

Get On Your Bike and Ride
August 25, 2005

Jim Caple thinks Americans should commute by bicycle more, and wants President Bush to encourage this:

Some people criticize Bush for riding his bike too much these days -- he rode for two hours one day last weekend -- but I'm not one of them. I applaud his bike riding, as well as his position that it's a good exercise and a healthy alternative to running.

I just wish the President would take this golden opportunity to go much, much further. Rather than simply encourage Americans to take up the bike as a method of recreation and exercise, he should actively promote it as an alternative form of transportation. This shouldn't be some throwaway quote he says in response to a reporter's question while on vacation. This should be official national policy.

What better way for Bush to salute his fellow Texan's accomplishments at the Tour de France than by encouraging Americans to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by biking more and driving less?

...

This is a very, very modest proposal. I'm not talking about a dramatic change in lifestyle. I'm not suggesting that people sell their cars and ride their bikes 15 miles to work. I'm just saying that people who are capable of riding a bike on short errands should occasionally do so instead of driving their cars and perhaps -- perhaps -- commute one day a week to work on their bikes if that's safe and within reason.

...

Think about it this way. The average American drives 12,000 or so miles per year. If we rode our bikes just 10 miles per week -- for most of us, that's a couple of trips to the grocery store for milk and a couple others to the video store for "Sin City" and "Kung Fu Hustle" -- that would cut use by 500 miles, or around 4 percent. Because cars and SUVs account for 40 percent of U.S. oil use, that could reduce the country's oil consumption by 1.6 percent. That doesn't sound like much, but it's roughly the equivalent to 100 million barrels. That's not going to end our reliance on foreign oil but at least it would be a start in that direction.

...

Is this just some unrealistic dream by a guy who clearly needs to wear a bike helmet more often? Maybe. But then I read that Nike has sold more than 50 million Livestrong bands. And I think: If Lance can start a fashion trend and get Americans to wear yellow bands on their wrists, maybe with the help of the president, he can inspire us to do something even more dramatic.

Which got us thinking that Dubya isn't the person to lead this; Lance is. He's more popular than the President, and has a far better marketing system in place. (Yes, the latest doping allegations could change that, but most Americans seem to be ignoring that story). Bush annoucing that the government will be encouraging bicycle riding would get only a little more notice than when the government reminds us all that smoking is bad for our health. On the other hand, footage of Lance riding around various towns cities and suburbs on a three-speed with a basket in front and saddle bags on the rear would probably lead the local news for days.

This is not to say that government doesn't have a role here, but the nitty-gritty of getting people to ride bikes — urban planning, new bike lanes, better enforcement of traffic rules — mostly happens on the local level.

On a related note, see Slate on Amsterdam's bicycle culture, along with some info on the sex and drug culture there.

What Do You Thing Energy Bars Are, Anyway?
August 25, 2005

Again from Overheard in New York:

Girl: I never understand why people run on treadmills. It's like they're gerbils or something.
Guy: Yeah. They should be forced to eat all their food in pellet form.

Judging a Book
August 23, 2005

Forget about the writing, the most important thing about a book is its cover. Or maybe its size. No, definitely the cover.

Typo
August 23, 2005

Lynn Blackstone writes:

Just read “About this Website” for the first time, and found the typo in the first paragraph. Do I win a prize?

Sorry, but no. That page hasn't been updated in years, so the typo (which we've now corrected, so don't go looking for it) was clearly the fault of the old webmaster, who was never as obsessed with grammar and punctuation as we are.

Week of August 16, 2005 - August 22, 2005

Current Events
August 22, 2005

What happens when you ask a critic who can't review a simple TV show without making moronic statements to review an entire network? You get Alessandra Stanley's review of Current TV, the new channel created by Al Gore. We knew we were in for a gem with the very first sentence:

It was impossible not to snicker a little at the notion of Al Gore creating a hip, youth-oriented cable network, and sure enough, Current TV is at first glance a punch line: MTV without the music.

MTV still plays music? But it gets better (or worse, depending on your view):

Outsiders' films are labeled VC2 (as in viewer contributed content squared) and are selected by viewers who looked at them on Current's Web site (www.current.tv) and voted online for their favorites. Only a few of these so-called podcasts are truly distinguished, but they all have one thing going for them: they look nothing like the glossy, overpackaged and bottom-feeding fare found on MTV or VH1, which are both owned by Viacom.

First of all, "viewer contributed content squared" would be abbreviated VCC2. More importantly, the segments on Current are called pods, not podcasts. Podcasts are audio shows that people can download and listen to on their computers or iPods (whence the name podcast), or any other MP3 player. Stanley could have learned this by reading Virginia Heffernan's condescending piece on podcasts in last month's Times:

Admit it. You don't know what podcasts are. Your plan is to do that thing of half-reading tech articles and waiting in denial until it's scarily mandatory that you really understand it - for instance, you have to create your own podcast for some random reason in one hour - and then desperately turning to Wikipedia or a teenage relative for a last-minute explanation. Just as you did long ago with the World Wide Web.

But let's say today is the day you're going to understand podcasts. Before the emergency. Ready? Podcasts are little radio shows that people create on the cheap; you can download them at no cost from the Web, and listen to them whenever you want.

But getting back to the article at hand, at what may be the most offensive paragraph we've ever seen in the Times:

However amateurish, some of the podcasts blithely go where professional journalists are rarely welcome. Yasmin Vossoughian, an Iranian-American, went to Tehran to research the sexual attitudes of Iranian youth. She attended an underground "X party," at which young Iranians defied the Islamic police to don jeans, drink, take Ecstasy and dance to the music of 50 Cent. Ms. Vossoughian suggested, somewhat ingenuously, that the stealth partying proved that young Iranians actually admire the West. (Not all Americans view sex and substance abuse as our proudest exports, and some might take one look at her big night out and conclude that the fundamentalist mullahs have a point.)

Unless Stanley is leaving out the part where Vossoughian's night out led to an orgy — hell, even if it Vossoughian was at an updated version of Bachelor Party — there's nothing here that would even remotely justify the repressive regime in Iran, where the young Iranians at this party could be publicly beaten by the religious police if they dared to wear jeans outside. We suspect that Stanley was just making a bad joke here, and doesn't really support a theocractic dictatorship, but it's hard to tell.

TVgasm writes that this review "reveals just how disconnected [Stanley] is with youth culture," but she seems just as ignorant when it comes to everything else. For the record, there's a lot of evidence that young Iranians do admire the West, a fact that was also reported in the Times. And sex and substance abuse are hardly unique to America, as the globe-trotting Stanley should be aware.

But Stanley has a history of making grand pronouncements with no evidence to back them up. That's the kind of sloppy commentary we expect to see on TV, not in writing about TV.

Club Champs
August 21, 2005

CPTC was out in force at Club Champs, with 72 runners and many spectators. Then man placed 6th in the Open category, 5th in Masters, and 6th in Veterans. The women were 3rd Open, 6th Masters, 5th Veterans. The top five women — Katy Masselam, Kate Irvin, Andrea Haver, Margaret Schotte and Kathy King — missed second place by just one point, which is a good reminder of the importance of passing even one person whenever you can.

In the more important sporting event of the day, the CPTC softball team beat the Front Runners by the score of 18-15. The winning pitcher was Fred Trilli; the defensive star of the game was Tyson Smith, who, while playing catcher, made a diving grab of a pop up; and the MVP was James Seigel, who pitched three innings of relief and also hit two home runs. Coach Tony provided his usual unique brand of encouragement ("If you blow this lead you have to run 20 x 1 mile!"), and Kevin Arlyck both managed the lineup and kept score of the game.

We have several hundred photos that we're working our way through (we promise to post these quicker than we've posted other photos recently), but Sue Pearsall has already put up 170 photos from the men's race, 156 photos from the women's race, and 142 photos from the softball game.

If He's As Slow As You Are, It Probably Took a Very Long Time
August 21, 2005

From Overheard in New York:

He Pulled His Hamstring Nearing Hawaii

Girl: ...so you injured your knee running cross-country?
Guy: Yeah, right before the season starts, too...
Girl: So how long did it take you to run across the country?

--F train

[Note: Scott Sehon and Dave Bronfenbrenner ran across the country in 160 days.]

Writers Who Live In Glass Houses Should Learn to Type Better
August 16, 2005

Typos are fun, especially when they occur in an article about the importance of proofreading. They're even more fun when the person pointing out the typo turns out to have been busted a few weeks ago for making her own typo in a post making fun of another typo, and said busting was done by the very people who made the typo in today's article. (If that's too hard to follow, here's the simplified version: Two weeks ago Gawker made fun of a Craigslist post with a typo, and Mediabistro promptly pointed out a typo in Gawker's post. Today Mediabistro made a typo in an article on proofreading and Gawker made fun of it.) This is exactly the sort of thing the folks who invented the internet would have been hoping for if they'd been grammar geeks rather than science geeks.

$20 Says This Story Will Be Real Within Two Years
August 16, 2005

From The Onion: Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory

Week of August 9, 2005 - August 15, 2005

Bridle Path
August 15, 2005

We received this anonymous rant today:

It has become impossible to run in Central Park on the trails or the bridle path without running into folks on the wrong side of the trail....ALL traffic is to the right!! A runner should never be on the left hand side of the trail....no matter what direction you are running just stay to the right...don't curse out the people who remind you are on the wrong side!!! The trail system in America is not "whatever"...so many road runners have now joined us off road and their indifference to the etiquette of trail is not welcome...need we remind you how many people are out there trying to train on the dirt yet we have the incredibly arrogant "faster" runners who do exactly as they please.....enough!!! get on the right!! stay on the right!!!!

The tone is a little harsh for us, but the writer does have a point. Be considerate when running in the park.

Bad Boy Cross-Country Race
August 15, 2005

Tha Manhattan Track Club's Bad Boy XC race returns this year on Saturday, November 5. This is probably not a good race to enter if you'll be running the NYC Marathon the next day, but the rest of you should enjoy the nice 8K (5K for women) in Van Cortlandt Park. There's some nice prize money, including a $50 Gift Certificate to George Keeley's Irish Pub for the team with the greatest participation.

Summer Speed Series
August 14, 2005

If this Saturday's Club Championships 5-Miler isn't enough racing for you, head out to Prospect Park on Wednesday, August 17 and Wednesday, August 24 for the final two editions of the Summer Speed Series, sponsored by the Prospect Park Track Club. Registration for the 5k races starts at 6:30 at the Oriental Pavilion (near the Prospect Park stop on the Q train), and the races start sometime after 7:00 pm.

More Eponyms
August 14, 2005

Jeff Wilson sends us two more, Shavian and Wavian. That's "of, relating to, or characteristic of George Bernard Shaw or his works" (43,500 hits) and "of, relating to, or characteristic of Evelyn Waugh or his works" (1,180 hits, though most of them relate to a web-design firm). See the Guardian for more info on the terms.

Mystical Fog
August 14, 2005

That's how the organizers of the San Francisco Marathon describe what Ian Phillips and Alan Piket are running through in the below photo (see here for proof). Thanks to Wayne Lambright for the photo.

Fit to Be Tied
August 10, 2005

The Times examines some of the effects of "obsessive exercise." And also some of the signs, which include:

• Continuing to train even when ill or injured.
• Experiencing anxiety when a workout is missed.
• Constantly talking about their sport, training schedule and diet.
• Neglecting other important areas of life.
• Justifying excessive exercise as necessary to their sport.
• Having friends and family notice a loss of perspective.

That ought to cover everyone who reads this page.

Ahtlete-Friendly Jobs
August 10, 2005

MetroSports New York Magazine is currently writing an article about the best places for athletes to work. If you work for a company that is "athlete-friendly" we'd love to speak with you about your experiences.

We're looking for employers who do any of the following:

• Help pay for part or all of their employees' gym memberships
• Sponsor a company running team or other group activity
• Allow employees to work flexible hours to accommodate training schedules when possible
• Allow employees to occasionally take time off (paid or unpaid) to participate in major organized events
• Sponsor CPR classes, nutrition classes, or yoga classes on site
• Have a gym in the building
• Provide indoor, secure bike parking for bike commuters
• Have showers available on site for lunch-time runners, walkers or other athletes

We'd love to spotlight a variety of employers including corporations, schools, nonprofits, small employers, service establishments and any place of employment that may be a good place for athletes to work.

To nominate an employer for inclusion in the article, please contact Stephen Crowe at crowenyc-bike@yahoo.com or 212-243-0493. All suggestions are appreciated.

Week of August 2, 2005 - August 8, 2005

Hawaii
August 8, 2005

From Frank Morton:

The amazing Sid Howard won the 800 and 1500 at the US Masters National Championships in Hawaii. It was the fourth year in a row that Sid has won the 1500 and the third year in a row that he has won the 800.

Mary Diver took Silver in the W50-54 2000 meter steeplechase in 9:56.01.
Mary also ran 21:22.50 for eighth in the W50 race, which is sub-7 minute
pace. That time is faster than she ran in the nationals 2 years ago and 3
years ago! That same time would have been second in the W45 division.
Mary was unlucky enough to be in the the women's 50-54 age group, which was the most competitive division with the most competitors, including Kathy
Martin, who won the race.

Anthony Baker ran 2:45.67 in the 800m for the men's 50-54.

Athlete's Paradise
August 8, 2005

Jonathan Cane offers some suggestions on how to make New York City a better place for athletes in this month's MetroSports. We're not suprised that one of his suggestions is "Open the Staircases of Large Buildings." Our favoirte is "Open the Central Park Reservoir to Swimmers," but we also like the idea of "BASE Jumping off the G.W. Bridge."

Why "Stanleyesque" Will Never Be Used to Describe Anything Good
August 8, 2005

From Alessandra Stanley's review of "Weeds" in Friday's Times:

Suburban ennui has been a favorite American theme for half a century now, and words like Cheeveresque and Updikean are enshrined in the popular culture lexicon along with the 50's sitcom equivalent, Beaveresque.

Google Results for these terms:

• Cheeveresque (John Cheever) - 203
• Updikean (John Updike) - 446
• Beaveresque (Leave It to Beaver) - 137

A few eponyms you're probably familiar with:

• Shakespearean - 789,000
• Fruedian - 643,000
• Homeric - 488,000
• Kafkaesque - 106,000

A few that are less common:

• Clintonesque (Bill Clinton) - 33,200
• Spielbergian (Steven Spielberg) - 10,700
• Hemingwayesque (Ernest Hemingway) - 7,600
• Seinfeldian (Jerry Seinfeld) - 7,210
• Ruthian (Babe Ruth) - 6,720
• Shatneresque (Wiiliam Shatner) - 1,820
• Simpsonesque (The Simpsons) - 1,750

Some we've never heard of until we started plugging random names into google with "esque" at the end, but that turn out to be "enshrined in the popular culture lexicon" at about the same level as the ones Stanley used:

• Grishamesque (John Grisham) - 590
• Oprahesque (Oprah Winfrey) - 398
• Rowlingesque (J.K. Rowling) - 369
• Lewinskyesque (Monica Lewinsky) - 220
• Eggersesque (Dave Eggers) - 160
• Lethemesque (Johathan Lethem) - 74

We Hate It When They Sneak Steroids Into Our Flinstones Vitamins
August 4, 2005

You probably expected us to write a bit about Rafael Palmiero getting busted for taking steroids, but the whole thing is just too cliched for us to have anything to add. We did enjoy this list of excuses given by steroid users on Slate, which show just how dumb these athletes think we are. Our favorite is Seattle Mariners minor leaguer Damian Moss, who blamed his positive test on falsely labeled supplements, but declined to identify them because "he didn't want to get any companies in trouble."

Roger Ebert Is Going to Owe Us So Much Money
August 4, 2005

Sony has agreed to pay $1.5 million to people who saw movies such as " Hollow Man," "Vertical Limit," "A Knight's Tale,""The Patriot" and "The Animal" based on quotes in ads for those movies from fictitious critic David Manning. While we believe in truth in advertising, we also feel that anyone who sees a movie based on the quotes in the ads deserves what they get. But this settlement raises and interesting question: can we now sue real critics for the fawning reviews they give to awful movies?

World Championships Webcast
Augsut 3, 2005

You can get 58 hours of live webcast coverage of the 2005 Track and Field World Championships for $4.95 at World Championship Sports Network. Coverage starts this Saturday, August 6, with Paula Radcliffe in the Women's 10,000m final and Alan Webb in the Men's 1,500m heats.

Empire State Games Addendum
August 3, 2005

Also, John Affleck and Glen Carnes set meet records for their age groups in the 1500m. Way to go!

Road Winner
August 2, 2005

Congratulations to Stacy Creamer, who won the Southern Parkway Mile - Elite Masters Division in Louisville, KY last Saturday.

Empire State Games
August 2, 2005

Took two gold medals (10K, 5K) and a silver (1,500), all on the track. Overall happy with the times. The 10K was Fri. AM, the 5K Sat. AM followed by the 1,500 at noon. I basically ran against two different groups; long distance (10K & 5K) and the middle distance milers. I was particularly pleased with the 1,500 since I was beat from the previous two races and these guys were fresh. In fact, I had too much left at the end and had I pushed harder in the middle I might have taken the gold. I was concerned throughout that these guys were faster and that I was feeling tired before
the start. Turned out I felt better and faster than I had expected. But I didn't know that until the end.

Lessons learned: just showing up gets you more than half way to success and if you can't get faster get older.

— Norman Goluskin

Also John Affleck picked up the gold in the 1500m, beating his nemesis from last year, and Glen Carnes took home gold in the 1500m and silver in the 800m.