The Central Park Track Club Journals --- September 2002

The Journal: The Live & Times of the Central Park Track Club

WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 24 - SEPTEMBER 30, 2002

RUN NIKE ON THURSDAYS [9/30/02] From Jonathan Cane: "Central Park Track Club team members are invited to stop by the Nike truck the next two Thursday nights before and/or after the CPTC road workouts. We're parked outside Equinox on Amsterdam between 76th and 77th and we have a variety of gear that anyone is welcome to sample during the CPTC workouts. We have shoes (mostly Althea, Skylon and Shox) as well as heart rate monitors, speed/distance monitors and watches available. We just need some form of ID from the runners. We've also got PowerAde, water and Clif bars at the truck. The truck is there by 5:30 and stays until 8:15 or so (or until the runners get back with the loaners)."
REACH THE BEACH RELAY UPDATES [9/30/02]
(1) The results page now contains the splits for the Central Park Track Club Masters and Orange Crush. Please be tolerant about the listed distances, which are not totally accurate.
(2) We reported that "our sick and injured get to stay home, drink a lot of milk and chicken soup and wonder what is happening." That is not completely correct, because an injured person managed to drag herself to accompany the team on one foot and will therefore be acknowledged here. Her adventures will continue on Monday when she celebrates her birthday at a dinner where she will get to drink a lot of milk (upon her doctor's orders) and jealously watch other people drink other kinds of beverages.
(3) The final roster for the first-place men's supermaster (40+) team consists of 11 men and one woman (Alayne Adams). No Equal Rights Amendment was required --- it was the consensus choice.
(4) The open question is, "2001, Hood To Coast. 2002, Reach The Beach. What is left for Tom Phillips to plan for next year?"
TERRY FOX 5K RUN [9/30/02] This Central Park race is organized by the Canadian Club of New York to raise funds for cancer research. The date is October 19th, the time is 9:30am and the place is Tavern On The Green in Central Park. Bagels, coffee and plenty to eat before and after the race.
OUR GOOGLE.COM LEADERS [9/29/02] Surprise, surprise, surprise! We now have a tie at the top of the table, with Audrey Kingsley and Alan Ruben tied with 197 citations within our website. Former leader Stacy Creamer is still within striking distance at 191 citations.
NAOMI REYNOLDS GETS ANOTHER WIN [9/29/02] This time, it is the PSAL Invitational cross country meet at Van Cortlandt Park on Saturday, with a winning margin of 34 seconds over 2.5 miles.
REACH THE BEACH RELAY QUICK REPORT [9/29/02] From Alan Ruben:

"Quickly, the CPTC Men's Masters won it's division and were 2nd overall (to the Bucknell open team). We beat the Bucknell Masters team (featuring Hank Berkowitz) by over 30 minutes - this meant we eventually overtook them with one leg remaining (they started at 4:00pm, we started at 4:30pm).
Orange Crush won the mixed open division and were 4th team overall (with the exact same time as the Bucknell Masters team!).

Clockwork Orange battled bravely with 11 people, but the late start meant they had to miss 3 legs so that the volunteers could go home and get out of the rain.

The weather was heavy rain at night, but there was glorious sunshine in the morning."

                          "We are sooooooooo tired!"
REACH THE BEACH RELAY TEAM ROSTERS [9/29/02]   While we do not have the results yet, we know the following people were listed on the team rosters:

Central Park Track Club masters (men's super masters (40+) division): Tom Phillips (captain), Peter Allen, Tim Evans, Alan Ruben, Graeme Reid, Victor Osayi, Noel Comess, Alayne Adams, Stuart Calderwood, John Kenney, Tony Ruiz, David Walsh

Orange Crush (mixed open): Erk Goetze (captain), Stacy Creamer, Lauren Eckhart, Ali Rosenthal, Stephanie Gould, Steven Paddock, Richie Borrero, Margaret Angell, James Siegel, Kevin Arlyck, Audrey Kingsley, Michael Rymer, Danny Campos

Clockwork Orange (men's open): Sarah Gross (captain), Paul Sinclair, Rich Hollander, Chris Price, Joe Tumbarello, Jesse Lansner, Joseph Kozusko, Rich Piccirillo, Phil Vasquez, Shula Sarner, Noah Lansner, Maria Chale. The official race entry list does not permit the listing of a co-captain, but we need to acknowledge that Paul Sinclair gave his heart and soul to form this team.

Please note that these are the listed rosters, and we know for sure that several people have been knocked out by injuries/illnesses at the last minute and were replaced (e.g. Margaret Angell by Stefani Jackenthal). Instead, our sick and injured get to stay home, drink a lot of milk and chicken soup and wonder what is happening.

We also note that these so-called men's teams include women. Besides being fast, the ebullient Alayne Adams is also an inspiration to the rest of her teammates.

In addition, Bola Awofeso and David Bosch are running on a Warren Street team. This is not so unusual, as this is not a USATF club race. For example Danny Campos on the Orange Crush team runs regularly for the West Side Runners locally. P.S. Hank Berkowitz was running for the Bucknell Alumni Fossils.
BURNING THE MIDNIGHT OIL [9/29/02] Now that Steven Paddock's farewell brunch is over and done with, we can tell this story. How do you tell everyone that we want to get together and give him a present? Post a message on the website? Or use the Central Park Track Club cool list? But then Steven would see it.

Instead, Toby Tanser described his project: "Last night till 0200 AM, I cut and pasted the entire CPTC email list into the AOL 'send to'. I was told to remove commas and names, so I ran through the list with the arrow key deleting all the appropriate bits... eventually (after the 2nd midnight candle had scorched the table) I hit send. ERROR: Too many addresses... I hit the back button and all the names have disappeared! Ouch - Fate ... I give up." We just thought that this effort merits some praise ...
COLOMBIAN RADIO SIGNALS [9/29/02] To his astonishment, Jeff Wilson received this email from us: "If you run the cross tab of audience against the frequency question, there is some scaling but very small (e.g. average audience was 0.2% and the frequency question breaks them down into 0.4%, 0.3%, 0.2%, 0.1% and 0.05%. that's nice, but it is nothing like the 99%, 75%, 50%, 25% and 1% that I would see if the question was asked properly. The consequence of the small scaling is that reach builds very slowly. Just think, what is the likelihood of reaching someone with a five-day schedule. With 99% at the top scale, it is with near certainty. With 0.4% at the top scale, it is just 1-(1-0.004)**5 which is nearer to zero than 1. This is therefore an unacceptable solution."

Jeff replied: "Just guessing but I think this message was intended for someone else. Otherwise I'm flattered at what you consider my range of interests." Ergo, when you receive some incomprehensive email from us sent out at 3am, you were probably not the intended recepient.
FIFTH AVENUE MILE WRAP UP [9/28/02] To the jaded veteran of many previous Fifth Avenue Miles, this one was muted and lightly watched. There were no mega-stars like Regina Jacobs, Suzy Favor Hamilton, Paula Radcliffe or the like, and no mega-sponsors like Donald Trump (and his daughter Ivanka). But for the first-timers, this was exciting with the deceptive terrain, swirling winds, the burning lungs and the rubbery legs.

This year, our team's presence was affected by the fact that we have 38 runners at the Reach The Beach Relay in New Hampshire. At 730am, one of those runners called his wife to report on their progress. So far, our three teams are actually seeing each other on the road more often than they thought they would. But the 'fast guys' are leading by more than 3 hours in the staggered starts.

Here is a tip from Peter Gambaccini on how to read the result postings at the finish area: "Ah ... the slowest time was 17:21. Good! Now I know that I would not have finished last if I were in the race ... at least I think I can still run a mile faster than 17 minutes."

Frank Handelman said, "Dave Blackstone is no longer my coach. Devon Sargent is now my coach. I read her advice on the website. I really held back for the first quarter. I ran 74 seconds. I could have easily done 68 seconds, but I would have ended up with a slower time in the end."

There were several records falling today. The George Sheehan Mile Men 60-69 record was broken by Chicago's Vic Heckler, who ran 4:58 (previous record 5:04). Our club founders told us that Vic was a Central Park Track Club runner before he moved out there. The George Sheehan Mile Women 60-69 record was broken by Stony Brook's Marie-Louise Michelsohn, who ran 5:52 (previous record 6:04). It so happens that Stony Brook is our third hometown (residence terms: New York City 22 years; Hong Kong 18 years; Stony Brook 8 years; Sydney 4 years; Memphis 2 months; Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Bogota, San Salvador, Lima, Singapore, Taipei, ... wow, those years pile up ...).
STEALWARE/PARASITE-WARE [9/27/02] Quite often, people tell us that they just bought something on our Amazon.com and yet we never see this reflected in our records. Our original doubt tended to be directed towards Amazon.com for not crediting all purchases. But according to this New York Times article, there is now a significant amount of information highway hijacking conducted by the music sites (that is, Morpheus, Kazaa, LimeWire). When you visit these music sites, you downloard their software which performs an intercept to any purchase by substitute their own affiliate number so that they get the referral fees instead. As we said, this is information highway hijacking. One excuse was that it was an unintentional software flaw, which was nevertheless quite intricately constructed (that is, the diversting software program remains even after the original music sharing software is removed). Another justification was, "While I agree that this is realy a bit of a scam, it is a way for us to pay salaries while not adversely affecting our users."
THURSDAY NIGHT ROAD WORKOUT REPORT [9/27/02] Suppose we want to make a prediction about tonight's attendance. What factors do we know of?

(1) We have thirty-seven people entered into the Reach The Beach Relay, and two others had to drop out due to injury/illness
(2) The premier road mile race of the year --- the Fifth Avenue Mile --- will take place on Saturday morning
(3) And it has been raining steady and hard since midday

The correct answer is twenty-eight, of which the following breakdown can be made:

(1) Rain-conditioned Brit: In his last road workout with us, Steven Paddock said, "There are only two people on the team who likes to run in cold rain --- Alan Ruben and I. This is just like home for us, where it is like this every single day. When it rains like this, we usually finish at least 30 seconds ahead of the rest of the pack."

(2) Cold-conditioned Canadians: Craig Chilton and Kevan Huston. Honorable mention to Paul Bendich: "When you go to school in Ohio, you have to run even if there is a foot of ice out there. It's just that your normal 6 minute/mile pace becomes 8 minute/mile even though you are exerting more effort."

(3) Warm-blooded Puerto Rican coach: Nowhere to be seen. Probably will claim that his old and bruised body needs to rest for the relay. Instead, Audrey Kingsley served as the substitute coach tonight. Audrey Kingsley? Isn't she on the relay team? Yes, but she honestly did not overtrain tonight. She started the groups out at 72nd Street. After the first loop, she was seen across Bethesda Fountain. After the second loop, she was seen at East 68th Street. Then she accompanied the last runner to East 72nd Street, whereupon she points to the pedestrian crossing and said, "I cannot pass this white line. If I pass the line, I have to keep running another loop. So I will turn back and head home right now."

(4) Triathletes who can swim faster than they run: Olivier Baillet, Zeb Nelessen

(5) Workout reporter: Of course, we were going to be there. These are the moments when we discover who the true Central Park Track Club runners are. Based upon tonight's attendance, we know they are --- John Gleason, Andrea Costella, Patrick Cowden, Laura Ford, Kate Franch, Kira Morser, Yumi Ogita, Ana Echeverri, Brad Weiss, Dion Mulvihill, Mary Diver, Yves-Marc Courtines, Harry Morales, Rick Shaver, ... And then there was a new runner who picked this night for her first run with the team. So where were the rest of you?
SAFETY FIRST, PLEASE! [9/27/02] For the teams that will be running in the Reach The Beach Relay this weekend, this is a 200-mile-plus race that will take many hours to complete, include some hours in darkness. There are also the long drives up to New Hampshire and back. You know you should run and drive safely and, like your nagging mom, we are going to emphasize this again to you. Best of luck!

P.S. The first winning shot goes to the young upstarts: "The old guys have a boring name --- The Central Park Track Club Masters --- whereas we are the Orange Crush and the Clockwork Orange."

As a side comment, our favorite quote has always been from Clockwork Orange's author Anthony Burgess about the missing Chapter 21 in the American edition: "Life is, of course, terrible." It is probable that the members of the Clockwork Orange team have seen Stanley Kubrick's movie, but they probably have not read the novel. After all, Burgess said, "The ideal reader of my novels is a lapsed Catholic and failed musician, short-sighted, color-blind, auditorily biased, who has read the books that I have read" and we don't see that many people who fit the description ...
JOANIE AND JOHN [9/27/02] In the November 2002 issue of Running Times:

In the same magaine issue, to the left of this photo, there was a correction to the New Jersey Shore Marathon, where Bill Haskins has now been correctly credited with a third-place finish in 2:50:33.
NYRR ELECTION RESULTS --- TOBY TANSER IS ELECTED [9/26/02] From the NYRR website: "The Annual Meeting of Members of NYRR on Monday, September 23, 2002, resulted in the election of the following people to three-year terms on the Board: Bernard Cooper, Chairman; Julie Geisler, Nina Kuscsik, Norbert Sander and Toby Tanser." In case you spent the last month in Mongolia, we ran an active campaign for Toby Tanser and we are certainly happy to see him being elected. Although we might have made some people aware of this election, we have only one vote ourselves and it was you would cast all those votes.
BABYSITTER AVAILABLE [9/26/02] Laura Ford: "I love kids and have lots of experience with them - I taught kids gymnastics for four years, have done lots of babysitting, and currently volunteer with kids in the city from time to time. I'm also familiar with taking care of a wide range of ages. I'm free Mondays, Wednesdays, and sometimes on weekends - not Tuesdays or Thursdays, of course, since that is when we meet to run. Call daytime 212-572-2297 or cellphone 917-750-4622."

FIFTH AVENUE MILE [9/26/02] Saturday, September 28th. Start: 82nd Street. Finish: 62nd Street.

Open Categories:

11:05 Men and women over 8:30-minute mile

11:20 Men and women 7:30 to 8:30-minute mile

11:35 Men 6:30- to 7:30-minute mile

11:50 Women under 7:30-minute mile

12:05 p.m. Men 5:45- to 6:30-minute mile

12:20 Men under 5:45-minute mile

Invitational Categories

12:30 Masters women, ages 40-59

12:45 Masters men, ages 40-59

1:00 George Sheehan Memorial Mile, ages 60-69

1:15 George Sheehan Memorial Mile, ages 70+

1:35 Open women

1:50 Open men

From coach Devon Sargent:

FIFTH AVENUE MILE COURSE:

0--400m slight downhill
400--800m slight uphill
800--1200m almost flat
1200--1600m almost flat

Because the 1st 400m is DOWNHILL, you must be careful not go out too fast. Better to go out too slow for the 1st 400m, then too fast. Inexperienced runners will go out like rabbits, don't get sucked in! You know your mile pace! Stick to it for the 1st 400m.

OVERALL STRATEGY:

0--400m
Get out, RELAX, let the rabbits go!
Run your own race for the 1st 400m.
(Don't worry about your position, it's the same distance from the middle of the road or the side of the road).

400--800m
Now it's time to work!
ATTACK the hill!
Start looking at your competition.

800--1200m
Forget the clock, it's time to compete!
COMPETE, COMPETE, COMPETE!
Start picking off runners one by one!
Every runner counts.

1200--1600m
Find another gear by competing. Remember those 200s & 300s you have been doing on the track?
Go after that runner in front of you!
Don't stop before the finish line---Run "through the line" (i.e., pretend the finish line is 10m farther)

Frequently Asked Question: What should I do if I run the 1st 400m too fast?
Do NOT slow down (slowing down doesn't work in the mile)
You've committed yourself to that pace, stick to it.
Don't panic. You still may run a PR.
Don't fight the pain---Run through it.
Only way to run through the pain is to compete, compete, compete.

THE MOST VALUABLE FOOT ON THE TEAM [9/26/02] This is not the x-ray of our most valuable foot, but that is what it would look like right now. The doctor's orders are, "Drink a lot of milk, because calcium will help the bone heal."
FRED LEBOW CROSS COUNTRY RACE RESULTS [9/25/02] The results are in:

--- open men, 2nd place
--- masters men, 1st place
--- veteran men, did not show
--- open women, 1st place
--- masters women, 2nd place
--- veteran women, 2nd place

We have said almost everything already in the earlier wrap-up. Here, we want to give some praise to the masters women. So far, this year, we have been somewhat inconsistent in fielding enough people at races, with the result that we were just as capable as winning as getting zero points for not having enough finishers. In this race, we have (1) Alayne Adams, the overall winner and therefore a big point scorer; (2) Maria Chale, who has proven to be very durable and able to cover all distances from ultra-marathons down; and (3) Mary V. Rosado who will run all the short distance races (although we remember that she received doctor's orders to run a marathon --- yes, her doctor told her that running a marathon would do her good!). Good job!
USA WOMEN WIN GOLD [9/25/02] At the World Basketball Championship, USA beat Russia 79-74 in the final game. The final game was a lot closer than those 30+ point blow-outs in the preliminary rounds and was not settled until the final minutes. In the classification games, Australia beat South Korea to place third and Brazil beat France to place seventh.

This tournament took place in a number of medium-sized cities in China, and never got near the three largest cities (Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou). In the first round, we didn't even know the names of those cities (note: we spend a large part of our childhood memorizing maps of China and we should know). In the second round, there were some rather drab cities up the population scale plus one city (Suzhou) that is supposed to be one of the most beautiful cities in China. We wish that we were there for that one. The final rounds took place in Nanjing and Zhenjiang, two characterless cities that had some historical significance.

For an analogy, please imagine the following venues for a hypothetical world basketball championship held in the USA:

Round 1 --- Jacksonville, Florida; Albany, New York; Youngstown, Ohio; Baton Rouge, Louisanna
Round 2 --- Lincoln, Nebraska; Bar Harbor, Maine
Final rounds --- Milwaukee, Wisconsin; San Antonio, Texas

But the locale and the live audience are no longer relevant in the age of television. The mass audiences to these games are global in scope.
30th ANNIVERSARY PARTY [9/25/02] November 16th is the date and St. Peter's Church is the place. Details appear on the home page. You should have received an invitation in the mail by now. If not, please let us know and we will send you one. Since the big thirty is a major milestone, we want to see all past and present members there, no matter whether you are active or not.

As is our tradition, we will have awards for the best performers this year. Looking back to the year 1986, the Most Outstanding Athlete award went to an entity known as the men's open team, with these honorable mentions: Tim Archibald, Curtis Fletcher, Nick Frankovich, Peter Gambaccini, John Kenney, Fred Kolthay, Herb Medina, Bob Meighan, Jose Montolio, Eugene O'Keefe, Tom Phillips, Graydon Pihlaja, Eldon Reynoso, Tony Ruiz, Rick Shaver, Jan Stouber, Phil Top, George Wisniewski and Roger Yergeau. Within this group, the first confirmed attendee that we know of is ... Herbie Medina! We now know that the party will be lively ...
WHERE IS THE STRAND? [9/25/02] It is not "The dog ate my travel directions" but ...

"Sorry, Steven, for missing your farewell brunch. I went to 96th Street, but I could not find the diner."
"Yes, me too. I was there too and I couldn't find the place ..."

To validate these excuses, we attempted a Google.com search on these keywords: "New York City" Strand diner 96th Street --- in order to see how obscure the place is. After all, The Strand Diner was advertised to us as the 2001 New York City Diner Of The Year.

Of the top five entries, one was for the writer Ginger Strand who wrote about New York City for the Mississipi Review, and the other four entries referred to The Strand Bookstore downtown. To our astonishment, the sixth entry was ... The Central Park Track Club Journal Page, which announced the time and place for Steven Paddock's farewell brunch. Google.com had indexed this page on September 23rd, saved the information and gave it a high importance weight!

TUESDAY TRACK WORKOUT REPORT [9/24/02} Long live the rugby players! Being duly granted a permit to practice on the field, the rugby players called in the park rangers to eject the permit-less soccer players. Yes, we love the rugby players! The only problem is that they are playing the wrong game --- the correct game is Rugby League, not Rugby Union! Real men play rugby league, and only Frenchmen, Scotsmen and Welshmen play rugby union.   O, Balmain! Tiger, tiger, burning bright!

This is the first day of fall, and it feels like fall. Overnight, the temperature dropped from hot to cool and the skies were cloudless blue. We counted forty-eight people at our workout. We will have thirty-eight runners at the Reach To Beach Relay this weekend, consisting of three full 12-person teams as well as two persons running with another team (Warren Street). The other big race of the weekend will be the Fifth Avenue Mile, which was enough to draw Karel Matousek to fly in from Prague to run. Back on the track today right after last Sunday's race were our two scorers Margaret Schotte and Ali Rosenthal. That race was Margaret's best race for the team in memory, and our Canadian national high school champion showed her true colors --- she ran strong and she ran aggressively!

Running around the track taking photo was Steven Paddock, who wanted to start his own private album collection. This was his last track workout, as he will fly out to England next Monday. Since he had to be in the picture himself, he had to recruit all sorts of amateur wannabes to take photos of him with Sid Howard as well as the A team (Craig Chilton, Adam Manewell, Erik Goetze and Alan Ruben).

We had a surplus of timers today, which is never a good sign because this tends to be the graveyard of injured (and otherwise non-performing) runners. Today's new recruits to the injured list were Margaret Angell and Zeb Nelessen, who had trouble calling out split times in between crying their eyes out about not being able to run. The sun went down in the latter portion of the workout. It does not affect the runners because the track was illuminated by the floodlights in the four corners of the field. The darkness was a bigger problem for the timers who had to stand in the middle of the field and identify the runners in their group in the sea of humanity.

Complaint Department: "In a photo taken at the Fred Lebow Cross Country race, you cropped my wife from the photo. I told my wife that maybe you thought that she was my girlfriend ..." That was very, very true as "DISCRETION" is our middle name. (But Adam Manewell does not concur ...)

Tech Support Department: Fred Trilli: "Thanks for pointing out the photo in which I did not look like I was dying as much as I usually do. I printed that photo out, and then the computer monitor went black. What should I do?" There are any number of reasons and actions, but we know this for sure --- we will not accept any liability here! In case you are interested, this is the photo (WARNING: Printing this photo may damage your computer monitor).

No News Department: Official results for the Fred Lebow Cross Country race are not available yet. Neither are the election results for the board of directors of the New York Road Runners. So don't ask us as if we would know anything more than you do ...

Don't Do It Department:
(1) Based upon his performance at jumping the fence at the dog run at Van Cortlandt Park, we advise our star 400m/800m runner not to try the pole vault event. It can be dangerous to his health!
(2) In spite of her obvious 'affinity' for soccer balls, we advise our favorite red-hair middle-distance runner to stay with football, the All-American sport! It is less dangerous to her health!

Transportation Department: Sid Howard's call for "All on board!" is a welcome sound to tired runners, but we had to pass tonight because we need to get home soon. Like, some time soon. The problem is that Sid has to talk to everyone and their grandmothers before he leaves ...
Meanwhile, Paul Bendich looked as if he seriously needed transportation home, because he looked totally exhausted. Was it the workout? "No, I had to defend the honor of the club against a young punk. I beat him in a 200m sprint after the workout"
OUR WATER GIRL [9/24/02] What is the center of attention in this photo? It is our 'water girl,' personally delivering water to our runners on this very hot day. What other team in the tri-state area can claim this type of personal service?

DOUBLE HEARTBREAK [9/24/02] At the Women's World Basketball Championship, it was South Korea 71, Brazil 70 and then China 81, Brazil 80 so that Brazil will finish no better than 7th place. Elsewhere, it was USA 71, Australia 56 so that the Aussies will have to play for third place.

WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 17 - SEPTEMBER 23, 2002

CASTING CALL [9/23/02] From Mary-Anne Driscoll ( research@strickman-ripps.com; phone 212.966.3211; fax 212.966.4455): "We are a casting company in NYC and we are working on a commercial length film that will be a part of the bid to bring the 2012 Olympic Games to New York City. This project is being done in conjunction with Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Pataki and will be used in the City's presentation to the Olympic Committee in November. Several films are being produced - we are working on one that will represent the opening ceremonies and the 'Olympic Torch Run'. We are looking to cast runners to be filmed running the torch through various locations around the city. Approximately 30 runners will be cast in the short film - we are looking for all ages (above 18 years) and all ethnicities. All of the companies involved in the project are working pro bono. This would extend to the runners as well. We are unable to offer compensation for appearing in the spot. If they are booked, the film would shoot October 4-7 (they would be booked for one or part of one of those days). We will be casting this week. If you think any of your members might be interested, or for more information, please call us at the number below and we can arrange to meet with them."
SOLIDARITY PACT? [9/23/02] History has told us that desperate people will group together and act in concert to fight for their collective survival. But here we are talking about an ignoble cause. Upon information and belief, on the weekend before last, a group of Central Park Track Club people went up to run a ten mile race in South Nyack. Since none of them were happy with their times on the hilly course, they made a pact not to whisper a word to the website. Unfortunately, given that this item has appeared here, that famed orange wall of silence is showing a crack ...
USA WOMEN WINS OVER SPAIN [9/23/02] At the World Basketball Championships, USA beat Spain by a score of 95-55. Next up for Team USA is our home team, The Opals of Australia, led by Lauren Jackson, Jae Kingi and Penny Taylor. At the World Championships, Australia has a lifetime record of 0-7 versus Team USA, so our prospects are bleak. But of course we always root from the heart and not by the numbers. Even if Australia loses, we will get another shot with our sponsoring country, Brazil [Acknowledgement: This website is sponsored since its inception by funds and human resources contributed by IBOPE].
EL TAPÓN: Recently, we received a cultural lesson when we learned that bumper-to-bumper traffic in Puerto Rico is called 'el tapón,' which means something completely different elsewhere (e.g. 'baby bottle' in Mexico-American Spanish, a 'bottle cork' in Mexico, etc). Ah, we digress (by a lot) because we really want to draw attention that once again our photo coverage of the Fred Lebow Cross Country Race drew over 700 visits to our home page. In other words, el tapón esta malo. Given the delay due to the slow hand tabulation of the official results, we may be the only website to find out about this race immediately. Beyond home page visitors, our hits are undoubtedly increased by our intentionally elliptical remarks (such as the caption to the first photo: Mary V. Rosado: "I'm doing my pre-race warm-ups. So far, dozens of people have been killed already and I'm really getting into it ..." How are you going to sleep tonight if you don't click to see the photo?)

Alternately, this traffic may solely be due to the many friends of relatives of Steven Paddock.
WHERE IS NAOMI? [9/22/02] After winning a bunch of Van Cortlandt Park races this summer, Naomi Reynolds was not at our most important cross country scoring race of the year. Where is she? Well, it is high school cross country reason now and on Saturday she won the PSAL Group Run (2.5 miles) in 16:26.37 by a margin of 88 seconds. She ran in the Junior Division, but her time was minutes faster than all the other class winners. Unfortunately for us, her many high school races do not figure in our victory totals since they are not open to all.
THE TRIPLE CROWN [9/22/02] Earlier this week, we suggested that it is possible to run a triple: the New York City Biathlon at 730am in Central Park, the Race to Deliver at 10am in Central Park and the Fred Lebow Cross Country 5K at 1130am in Van Cortlandt Park. Marty Levine did the first and third leg to claim second place. The winner is Jonathan Cane, who excused us for having inspired bad behavior: "I was thinking about doing it before you said anything. But once I saw the post, I knew that I had to do it."
FRED LEBOW CROSS COUNTRY 5K WRAP-UP [9/22/02] This scoring race was held on Sunday in hot, sunny weather. We thought that cross country races are supposed to be damp and cold to be run over mud puddles, but we were quite wrong this time. Well, to get the real cross country atmosphere, you'all have to come back for the Peter McArdle 15K in late November.

This being a cross country race that is scored by hand and not by Champion chips, it means that the official results will not be posted for a few days. We don't know our men's final team positions, but our team was led by Armando Oliveira who said before the race, "I am going to go out as fast as I can and just hold on as best I could." Armando was seventh overall in the race and first for the team. Somewhere further down in the top 20 or thereabouts was a swarm of our runners in a big pack including Craig Chilton, Erik Goetze, Alan Ruben, Kevan Huston, Michael Rymer, Adam Manewell, etc.

The big question was how well Steven Paddock would do in his final scoring race for the team. The question is no longer one of breaking into the 15 minute 5,000m mark, since he just had a hernia operation last week. He did make this promise before the race, "I have been running 16 minutes 5K's and I have never ever run a 17 minute 5K. So if I am going to run bad, it will be an 18:09." His time today: 18:09. In fact, he was running so slow that the NYRR official at the bridge warned him, "If you are pacing someone in this race, I'm going to disqualify you! And I mean it!" This is the classicial case of 'heaping insult upon injury.'

Stuart Calderwood made the special trip up to Van Cortlandt Park in order to ... look after Joey and Sammy Ruben while their dad run. When he got there, he saw that there was likely to be only two of our regular masters scorers --- Alan Ruben and Tom Phillips. So Stuart put down the $3 race entry fee, and the kids became the responsibilty of our photographer Bola Awofeso. As a result, there were fewer photos for the men's race than there might have been otherwise, as Bola even had to spend money at the ice cream truck to pacify the kids. As his reward, Stuart picked up a third-place medal for third M40-44, which he had not expected until he realized that his two teammates are in the 45-49 category.

And now to the best piece of news: our women's open team won their race with a 1-2-5 finish. They were in first place coming into this race, and this should increase their lead to at least 10 points. First overall was Alayne Adams, all the more remarkable for being a masters to win an open race. In second place overall was Margaret Schotte, who ran despite all the scrapes on her elbow and leg after taking a spill because ... she was training for a DUATHLON! In fifth place overall was Ali Rosenthal. Our fourth finisher was Audrey Kingsley (good insurance in case someone forgot to put down the team code). We should also congratulate Maria Chale and Andrea Ostrowski for finishing their first Van Cortlandt Park cross country race. Fun, wasn't it? When will you be back? We note that Margaret Angell did not run due to an injury, otherwise we would have likely swept 1-2-3 in the race.

The good/bad thing about this cross country race is that much of the action takes place in the backhills. The lack of visual action is made up by the increase in suspense. On the first time across the bridge, we saw Margaret Schotte fighting for second place and Alayne Adams further back. Then we moved down the straightaway in front of the finish line and we were all looking towards the far end for the lead runner to appear. All of a sudden, we heard Stuart Calderwood cry out, "Oh, my God, Alayne is going to win this race!" Then we pointed our camera to take this short film clip. The voices in the background belong to Stuart Calderwood and Devon Sargent. After the race, Alayne gave credit for this win to the team equipment manager (aka "The Beast of Burden") who held her singlet when she decided that it would be too hot --- "That extra one ounce made all the difference today!" Or at least that is what our team equipment manager would like to believe ...

WORLD RECORD PROGRESSION [9/21/02] At the Berlin meet, Tim Montgomery shaved 0.01 second off the 100m sprint world record. How much further can these track & field records go? At the extreme end, for the track events at least, there is a physical barrier. For example, by definition, no one is going to be ever able to cover 100 meters in less than 0 seconds. In fact, the boundary is probably quite a bit further up, beginning with the 0.10 quickest reaction time to the gun. Currently, anyone who gets out of the blocks in less than 0.10 seconds gets an automatic false start charged to them. Physiologists and sports specialists may also be able to come up with higher bounds based upon physiology and biomechanics. Of course, these experts have been wrong before, as in the mistaken belief about women's inability to run the longer distances and then along came Ann Trason ... But assuming that we still somewhere far beyond those theoretical bounds, what do we think is the rate at which the world records should progress?

As it turns out, this is a favorite subject in 'lite' academic research. By 'lite', we mean the kinds of articles that would appear in a publication such as Chance for students in statistics. Very typically, someone would collect a time series of the records that were set over time, fit a statistical model and then extrapolate towards the future. To our minds, this is hideously wrong because it ignores certain human realities.

First case in point: we may choose to think that a particular athletic performance as being the convergence of multiple elements --- genetics, nutrition, upbringing, training, equipment, technique, injury, coaching, competition, rest, food, environment, weather and so on. Differences in these conditions (such as a long sleepless night before a race) may cause different levels of performance on a particular day. Then, on one particular occasion, someone gets everything right and gets a truly magnificent performance. Such is the long jump record by Bob Beamon. Whereas all previous world records may have been set incrementally by fractions of an inch, this one perfect attempt may be so much better that it may take many, many years before it can be broken again. Thus, all the previous statistical records will not permit the explanation of this one perfect occasion.

Second case in point: let us remember that sports are about $MONEY$. So we are reading the book Mathematics and Sports about a simple linear regression model to predict the world record in the pole vault based upon data from 1957 on. The assumption that the progression of world records should follow a linear trend over time is a dubious one since it ignores the physical bounds that we discussed at the outset. In any case, the problem with the dataset is that Sergei Bubka set the world pole vault record 17 times between 1984 and 1994, often just by a single centimeter because he was obviously incentivized to set records by meet directors. When he does that, everybody is pleased --- he gets a big paycheck, the meet gets the press headlines and the fans get to watch a world record live. According to this model, the 'predicted' record height is 6.16m in 1990, 6.36m in 1995 and 6.56m in 2000. In truth, the world record of 6.14m was set in 1994 and has never been bettered since by anyone.

If you are really obsessed with numbers, here are the lower bounds on the world bests at various distances given in F. Péronnet and G. Thibault, "Mathematical analysis of running performance and world running records'', Journal of Applied Physiology, v.67, pp. 453-465 (1989).

Men Women
100m 9.37s 10.15s
200m 18.32s 20.25s
400m 39.60s 44.71s
800m 1:30.86 1:42.71
1500m 3:04.27 3:26.95
Mile 3:18.87 3:43.24
3000m 6:24.81 7:11.42
5000m 11:11.61 12:33.36
10000m 23:36.89 26:19.48
Marathon 1:48:25 2:00:33

NYRR ANNUAL MEETING [9/21/02] All NYRR members are invited to the Annual Meeting of New York Road Runners on Monday, September 23, 2002 at 7:30 p.m. The meeting will take place in the P.S. 6 Auditorium (81st Street and Madison Avenue).
CROSS COUNTRY RACE ALERTS [9/21/02] For those of you going to Van Cortlandt Park on Sunday for the team scoring cross country race, please make note of the following.
    Registration will begin at 10:30
   The men's start will begin at 11:30
   The women's start will begin at 12:00

ALERT ON #1 TRAIN [9/20/02] This alert was picked up by Marty Levine. So please make sure that you give yourself a little bit of extra time. It would be a most frustrating experience when you are on a bus that is inching along while you know the race is going to start any minute ...
MASTERS TRACK WORLD RECORDS [9/20/02] Today's RunnersWorld has a story that points to this page of world best times for masters. Here is one gender comparison that is striking --- Erik Oostweegel at 10.84 and Merlene Ottey at 10.99.
USA WOMEN CONTINUE TO ROLL [9/20/02] In the second round games of the World Basketball Championships, they went 87-44 over Cuba, 91-53 over South Korea and 101-68 over France. Next up is Spain. All other favorites are there (Australia, Brazil, France, China, Russia), but only USA is undefeated so far.
THE GREAT SOCCER WARS [9/20/02] No, this is the war that El Salvador and Honduras fought over, as reported in Ryszard Kapuscinski's book. This is the continuing saga at the East Sixth Street track as a runner got hit with a soccer ball last night. Believe it or not, it was the same runner and the same spot as several weeks ago. No concussion and no ambulance this time.

Do you remember this August photo that showed the soccer players moving the big goal over the side behind their little goal as a shield against stray shots hitting people? Well, we now have a different group of soccer players, who are less considerate (because they did not move the big goal) and less skillful (on Tuesday's crowded workout, we witnessed a shot at goal that reached over forty feet in the air and landed behind the stands!). This is the worst possible combination --- lousy players who disregard safety issues. What did they have to say after last night's incident? They chanted the mantra, "S**t happens! S**t happens! S**t happens! S**t happens!" Well, s**t doesn't have to happen if you exercise some commonsense!

Meanwhile, we want you to know that the team has not been passively sitting back and just be someone else's target practice. Our executive board and our past presidents have been contacting city agencies, which have been quite responsive. However, it may be too late to change things for this year as the season is winding down already. But it looks like we will have new arrangements for next year. Meanwhile, just keep an eye for those stray soccer balls when you run on that track.
WINNING SURVIVORS [9/19/02] At the beginning of last week, we told you about our illustrious history at the Survival of the Shawangunks triathlon. To this, we can add two more winners from this year:
Olivier Baillet, 1st overall
Stefani Jackenthal, 1st overall female
Appropriately for runner-types, Olivier was first in the 21 mile run and Stefani was first female in the same run.
THURSDAY ROAD WORKOUT REPORT [9/19/02] Your regular workout reporter was trapped at the office. The specific issue pertains to 126 persons by the name of 'Ahins Acille' who live around the country. There are about ten people in the world who understands this issue (and that count includes those 126 Ahins Acille's), and most of them live around Little Rock (Arkansas). In case anyone of them ever come across this page, it should bring a smile.

At Tuesday's track workout, which was geared towards strength and short recovery, it was pointed out that this one workout will not turn someone into a good cross-country runner. And if you run today's workout at full pace, you will definitely NOT be a good cross-country runner on Sunday because you will have left your best performance up at the reservoir.

The Sunday cross-country race starts at 11:30am in the flats of Van Cortlandt Park. The easiest subway train is the IRT #1, as the race is just a few steps north of the last stop (242nd Street). You can also take the east side trains, but you may have to do some cross-country fence hopping (even Bronx Science alumni could not find their way! but take this hint --- do not even try sprinting across the expressway!).

You are reminded that we are saying farewell to Steven Paddock after the cross-country race at:
Date: September 22nd (after the NYRR Cross-Country race)
Place: The Strand Diner (96th Street & Broadway; 1/2/3 subway stop), the 2001 Diner Of The Year
Even if you cannot run the race, you can still go to The Strand and eat some wholesome food. Incidentally, this does not mean that Steven is heading to the airport right after lunch. He is due to run in the Reach The Beach Relay next weekend, after which he leaves.
MASTER MALE ATHLETE STUDY [ 9/19/02] From Patrick Kuznia: "I am currently searching for male athletes between the ages of 65-80 to participate in a study for the National Institute of Health. This research is aimed towards determining if continued exercise can help reduce intramuscular fat in the elderly. The results of this study will have an impact on understanding more about the benefits of exercise in regards to the aging process.

All participants must be in good health and have worked out for an extended period of at least 20 years. Since the protocol for this experiment necessitates master athletes, I am contacting Central Park Track Club in order to look for subjects that may fit this strict criterion. A variety of tests will be administered at the body composition unit of St. Luke's hospital at 114th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. These tests will provide the subjects with their bone density, whole-body fat, muscle mass, and resting energy expenditure. In addition to receiving thorough results of these tests, participants will receive a travel reimbursement of $150 upon completion.
I look forward to discussing this study and hopefully meeting with some of the eligible runners. I may be contacted via email ( pjk13@columbia.edu ) or phone (212-523-2324)."
COOLLIST HEADCOUNT [9/18/02] The self-administered Coollist mailing list now has 212 members. The list is currently used mostly (but not exclusively) to distribute the distance runners' workouts beforehand. Although the workout attendance is good (average of around fifty people), it is nowhere more than 200. Here are some plausible explanations for the phenomenon:
(1) Some people have multiple subscriptions (e.g. we have two registered email addresses there --- one for home and one for mobile access)
(2) Although the average attendance is around 50 per workout, it does not mean the same 50 people show up every week. The most overused question that we hear at workouts is: "Who are these these people? How come I don't know any of them ...? What has happened to this club!?"
(3) ... and then there are names that are identifiable people who have clearly nothing to do with this club. What do they want? We don't know and it does not matter. This is an open self-administered list. Anyone who wants to opt in can do so, and they can opt out anytime they want to.

P.S. The headcount could have been even higher, but for the fact that certain ISPs (such as AOL.com) and companies (well, let's not name them) will automatically block out all email coming from the Coollist.com domain.
RAIN ON FIRE ISLAND [9/18/02] An email came to us: "In the beginning of August, I was getting off the ferry for Fire Island in a terrible rain storm. I had my laptop with me and no way to protect it. I have been talking to a woman previously on the train about running and triathlons, and when the time came to 'run' from the ferry to our houses, she gave me her waterproof poncho to cover my bag and computer. I've never met her again in Fire Island and I've been trying to find her running in Central Park. All I know is --- she's a Central Park Track Club runner, her name is Lynn, she's blonde (average size), in her 40s and she works for the Rockefeller Foundation. I'm sure she's known in the club, and I wouldn't feel at peace with myself until I thank her again and return her the poncho."

Note: The only item that threw us off in the description is the age but we know that Lynn will be so happy ..

Follow-up: Lynn Blackstone: "I read the website everyday and the 'Rain On Fire Island' item made my day, my week...perhaps my year!"
And if you don't know Lynn's age, here is soemthing in the public records --- she won the Yonkers Marathon in 1976.
TUESDAY TRACK WORKOUT REPORT [9/17/02] Extremely nice day, cloudless, blue skies and dry. Extremely crowded on the track too. There were the high school football players in the middle of the field, with soccer games on each side. And the group of soccer players did not inspire a lot of confidence (note: we witnessed a shot at goal that reached over forty feet in the air and landed behind the stands!) And then the rugby players made their seasonal debut. Around the track, the runners were going round and round, two to three wide in an endless stream.

As far as the Reach The Beach Relay intra-mural competition goes, the Central Park Track Club old guys seemed to have gained the psychological advantage, as the 'young guys' are only threatening with 'We'll have more fun that you!' Today, Tony Ruiz was recounting his experience at last year's Hood To Coast Relay. Before he began his third and last run, he felt as if he could barely even walk. A large cup of black coffee helped. But he said what got him charged up was the sight of the energetic Alayne Adams charging in. Oh, yes, now we know what their secret weapon is ...

Going beyond the triple, there are actually two possible quadruples on Sunday --- the three races and then lunch with Steven Paddock, or the three races and then listen to Sid Howard speak. Alas, the lunch and the speech occur in different states at the same time so there will be no quintuple (without videoconferencing).

On an unrelated subject, on the way to the workout, someone told us that they posted a job opening for an adminstrative assistant and got more than 2,000 resumés over the weekend. Yes, it is a very tough job market out there right now ...
A PHILADELPHIA DISTANCE RACER [9/17/02] Here is an alert in the email: "I don't know if you noticed but in the Philadelphia Half Marathon results, the 10th place finisher from Morocco in 1:07:12 was listed at 99 years old." Yes, Sid Howard had better watch out!

Three things might have happened:

[1] The age and the time are accurate. In the record books, the most astonishing marathon age-group time supposedly goes to Ed Whitlock, who ran a 2:51:22 marathon at age 69 in Columbus, and then also 3:00:24 at age 70 at London (ON) in 2001. Whitlock is, as Craig Chilton reminds us, Canadian. His time of 2:51:22 was so good that it is also the Canadian age-group record for 20 miles (that is, he did not have an official intermediate 20 mile split, but his full marathon time was still faster than the previous 20 mile record!). If the Philadelphia information is correct, then it is a much more significant breakthrough as it equivalent to a sub-2:20 marathon time.

[2] More likely, this is a problem of missing data entry. An elite runner probably entered at the last minute, and not all the personal information was obtained. The typical defaults for missing data are blank (which causes a problem in sorting), or zero (which also causes a problem in sorting), or the largest two-digit number (99).

[3] Of course, it is also possible for the information to be wrong in the other direction! The person can in fact be older than 99 years, but his age was rounded down because the data entry system permits only two digits.   The Philadelphia race result database shows eleven people with age 99 and the next oldest person was 'only' 83 years old. The second hypothesis is therefore the most likely one.

The name of the runner is Mostafa Damaoui, and there is someone with that name whose 2002 Rock And Roll Marathon biography listed him at age 30 with this resumé: "Winner of the 2000 Canadian International Marathon in Toronto in 2:15:17, Damaoui ran 14th at the 1999 IAAF World Championships in Seville, Spain. A powerful runner, he recently finished a strong 3rd at the 2nd Country Music Marathon in Nashville. In 2001 he won the silver medal at the Francophone Games Marathon in Vancouver in July, then silver again at the Mediterranean Championships Marathon in September. He lives in Rabat."

Yes, this was a nice little research project ..
DROPPING LOGOS [9/17/02] A New York Times article talks about the recent trends in which brands names have disappeared from the products along the Gold Coast on Madison Avenue. Chanel products no longer have the CC's, Gucci products no longer have the G's, Louis Vuitton's products no longer have the LV's and so on. The reasons range from "a backlash against conspicuous consumption to a return to individuality in fashion, from the erosion of brand names through cheap knockoffs to, as some suggest, a reaction to last year's terrorist attacks." Is this the end of the brand logos?

Meanwhile, a letter to the editor in the October issue of Fast Company read: "NIKE: ONE SIZE DOES FIT ALL: Oh my goodness! Not again. When will companies actually ask us women what we want? I don't see here anything different in Nike's new stance (August 2002 issue). It still sounds like agreessive marketing at me, not true customer service. I work in an all-woman organization, and those of us who are willing to pay more than $80 for a pair of sport shoes predominantly wear New Balance. Why? I guarantee you that it's not because those shoes coordinate with our outfits or because the retail outlet has fresh-cut flowers. It's because the sneakers come in multiple widths, half-sizes, and neutral colors, and they are sold in stores where the staff members have real skills and actually listen to what we say we need. Yo, Nike: Head's up! What women really want is service, selection, and performance." Is this the end of the brand known as Nike and the logo identified as the swoosh?

But before we wrote Nike off, we opened up the latest East Bay catalog to see what is happening. The new Nike Zook Waffle iD spikes are customizable --- you choose your plate and then, you choose the colors of your shoe lace, embroidery, mesh upper, rand, swoosh and personal ID colors from any of 14 different choices. (Note: That personal ID should be immensely helpful when you need to figure whose shoes you have just taken home by mistake). Did someone say individuality? Meanwhile, we also saw that the Nike road running shoes (such as the Nike Air Pegasus 2002) are now being offered in NARROW and WIDE sizes. Did someone say selection and performance? So Nike would seem to be very much in the running ...

Post-script: Marty Levine tells us to 'get with it':
"(1) I was wearing the customized NIKES in January at the Armory. Caveat emptor: I was given misinformation bt Nike customer service and the spikes wound up being 1.5 sizes too big. This second humongous pair is now floating around somewhere in Arusha with the letters MD Levine stitched into the side.
(2) Bola Awofeso now proudly sports the blue-and-orange spikes with CPTC NYC stitched into the side."
NEW HAVEN 20K PHOTO [9/17/02] This fast-woman.com photo shows our once teammate Erica Merrill with rippling leg muscles, with our current teammate Patrick Cowden behind her.

WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 10-SEPTEMBER 16, 2002

US WOMEN RULE [9/16/02] Mary Spera reminds us of this pieces of sport news from the other side of the globe. Whereas the male NBA Dream Team millionaires bowed out ignominiously at the World Basketball Championship in Indianapolis, the WNBA women are still full of zest and passion. In faraway China, the U.S. women rolled through the first three games of the World Basketball Championship by wide margins (89-55 vs. Russia, 89-39 vs. China (Taipei) and 105-48 vs. Lithuania). In the second round, they will face Cuba, South Korea and France. Their most formidable challenge will probably come from Brazil, which has seven WNBA players.
RAT POISON IN FOOD [9/16/02] The big news item in China right now is about the death of several hundred people (plus numerous others being hospitalized) in the Chinese city of Nanjing after they ate at a restaurant. Rat poison was believed to be the cause, especially since the people began keeling over moments after they ingested the food. Here is the Chinese-language report in which it was confirmed that a powerful rat poison was used.

There exists an urban legend in China that there are restaurants which serve not rat poison, but poppy-based derivatives in their food. Like opium-smokers and heroin-users, the restaurant patrons develop withdrawal symptoms unless they get their regular daily meal of noodles at the restaurant. This is a lurid story, but it is hard to determine whether it is true since poppy-derivatives are usually inhaled or injected and not ingested. As well, it seems a heavy financial investment just to get someone to buy some noodles.
GOOD LOSERS & BAD WINNERS [9/16/02] We were reading our hometown newspaper and found this article about how soccer kids (and, more importantly, their parents) learn to adjust to the experience of a losing season. Now the Central Park Track Club is almost 30 years old. During this time, we have great winning seasons and we have also had some years when ... euphemistically ... things were not as great. To endure, we have to be prepared to accept those losing years with grace and humor.

Or, at least that was the party line that we have always paraded. But we will now confess that we were bad winners once upon a time. A long time ago, before we ever bought a pair of running shoes, we played soccer, from elementary school through college. Some years after college, we entered into a local soccer tournament in Chinatown. We had not played soccer in a couple of years and were terribly out of shape. But since someone else was paying for the trip, our thoughts were more on the meal than the soccer. So we got out there and played against a group of young and fit professional-looking players who had us pinned in our half of the field for almost the entire game. Some time before half time, a diagonal cross-field pass freed our right winger into the open. Their goalie made a terrible mistake by coming out to meet the ball and before anyone knew, we were ahead by a goal. For the second half, we played a totally defensive, time-wasting game We just kept banging the ball out of play. We were not in good condition, but our experience allowed us to play the stall perfectly. We also talked a lot of trash that day. When the final whistle blew, there was no friendly handshake. Instead, there was a big rumble. That was also the last soccer game that we ever played in. The moral of the lesson --- grace! You win as well as lose graciously ...

Meanwhile, Fritz Mueller effectively undermined this moral lesson with , "A good loser is still a loser!" with the implied contrapositive corollary "A bad winner is still a winner!"
MARK TWAIN WAS THERE FIRST [9/16/2002] Speaking of Mark Twain, he wrote in The Mysterious Stranger: "There has never been a just one, never an honorable one -- on the part of the instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful--as usual--will shout for the war. The pulpit will--warily and cautiously--object--at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, 'It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it.' Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers--as earlier--but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation--pulpit and all--will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception." (Chapter 9)

Actually, James Madison got there even before he did in The Federalist Papers: "If it be true that all governments rest on opinion, it is no less true that the strength of opinion in each individual, and its practical influence on his conduct, depend much on the number which he supposes to have entertained the same opinion. The reason of man, like man himself is timid and cautious, when left alone; and acquires firmness and confidence, in proportion to the number with which it is associated."

Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann got there later in The Spiral of Silence, now framed in the language of political science:

The Spiral of Silence is a model of why people are unwilling to publicly express their opinions when they believe they are in the minority. The model is based on three premises:

people have a "quasi-statistical organ," a sixth-sense if you will, which allows them to know the prevailing public opinion, even without access to polls,
people have a fear of isolation and know what behaviors will increase their likelihood of being socially isolated, and
people are reticent to express their minority views, primarily out of fear of being isolated.

The closer a person believes the opinion held is similar to the prevailing public opinion, the more they are willing to openly disclose that opinion in public. Then, if public sentiment changes, the person will recognize that the opinion is less in favor and will be less willing to express that opinion publicly. As the perceived distance between public opinion and a person's personal opinion grows, the more unlikely the person is to express their opinion.

THE TRIPLE [9/14/2002] We may be encouraging bad and risky behavior when we point out that it is theoretically possible to do a triple next Sunday (9/22):

7:30am (rain or shine): New York City Biathlon, Central Park
10:00am: Race to Deliver (4 miles), Central Park
11:30am: Fred Lebow Cross-Country 5K, Van Cortlandt Park

Among other feats, Tesfaye Bekele was famous for having won the Race To Deliver-Cross Country 5K double. We do not know if anyone has ever attempted the triple.
ENGLISH III HONORS [9/14/2002] Here are the teacher's instructions for this course at Desert Mountain High School in Scottsdale, Arizona:

"The person who will not read is no better off than the person who cannot." Mark Twain

DESCRIPTION:

English III H is an honors class in reading, writing, and thinking, using American literature as its glue. This class is designed to prepare you for English IV AP. If you are not planning to take AP next year, you are still expected to fulfill all the requirements and expectations of this course.

I am aware of my reputation, and I have no doubt that some of you have been told to get out of this class immediately. If you choose to follow this advice, I wish you the best. For those who choose to stay, you will be rewarded.

CAVEAT 1:

I promise that I will do everything possible to make this class stimulating and challenging. Those of you who know me also know that I will push you to excel, because I believe you are capable and are entitled to nothing less. Please understand that your GPA is not my first priority. I believe that if you become a more critical reader, a more sophisticated thinker, and a clearer and more insightful writer, then this class will be a good experience regardless of your grade. I hope you agree.

CAVEAT 2:

My role is facilitator as much as teacher. I want to learn as well as to teach. I assume that you will often be far more insightful than I. Please do not be afraid to say 'Prather, you're missing the point' or 'Prather, I disagree with your position.' However, 'Hey idiot, your ignorance is embarrassing to the teaching profession' is probably a bit harsh. Also, this class will often entail you doing things that have traditionally been the teacher's job. I expect you to stand on your own, to think for yourself, and to self-evaluate, all of which you will have ample opportunity to do in this class and all of which are critical to success in English IV AP and, ultimately, in life.

OBJECTIVES:

The student will:

read insightfully, with a critical and analytical focus

engage in intelligent discussion through active listening and participation

identify and describe literary elements and techniques used by our authors

organize, create, and edit effective essays

organize, compose, and critique in-class timed writings

communicate with clarity, style and eloquence in both the spoken and written word

go beyond the obvious

accept constructive criticism in the spirit in which it is intended

be open-minded and respectful of the opinions and ideas of others

cultivate a sense of teamwork and shared responsibility

demonstrate a sense of personal and academic responsibility

be respectful of the opinions and ideas of others

be respectful of yourself, and of the talents and opportunities with which you are blessed

COURSE OUTLINE AND MAJOR READINGS:

1) Persuasion/Early America

      Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

      The Crucible

      Declaration of Independence

      Revolutionary speeches and essays

      Fall DAP Persuasion

2) Learning about Ourselves/Romanticism & Transcendentalism

      Tales by Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville

      Poetry by Whitman, Dickinson, and Longfellow

      Self-Reliance

      Walden

      Civil Disobedience

3) Inhumanity of Man/The Civil War

      Excerpt from The Red Badge of Courage

      Short stories by Ambrose Bierce

      Poetry of the Civil War

      The slave experience (Fredrick Douglass and others)

4) Regional Literature, American Humor and Satire

      Humorous devices

      Regional humor

      Satirical techniques

      The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

5) American Realism / The Jazz Age and the Great Depression

      Poetry and Prose from the Harlem Renaissance

      The Great Gatsby

      The Old Man and the Sea

      Selections from The Grapes of Wrath

      The Wasteland

      Spring DAP Literary analysis

6) America Today/Modern American Literature

      Twelve Angry Men

      Death of a Salesman

      A Raisin in the Sun

      Novel projects (novels TBA)

      Multi-cultural literature

CLASS PROCEDURES:

GRADES

Grades will be based upon total points, including the writing process, exams, quizzes on readings, projects, homework and in-class assignments. There will be very little busy work. Everything in this class has a purpose.

Grading scale: A = 100%-90% B = 89%-80% C = 79%-70% D = 69%-60% F = 59% or less

Grades will not be rounded up.

SUMMER READING

Not completing the summer reading and journal requirements will result in a recommendation that the student be dropped from English III H and placed into a regular-level English III class. However, as space in regular English III may not exist, the student may be required to remain in English III H with a substantial score of 0 from the summer reading.

LATE WORK

No late work will be accepted. Please re-read this sentence as many times as necessary to be sure you are clear. This is departmental policy for honors classes.

All homework is due at the beginning of class. If turned in after the beginning of class, it is considered late, and will receive a grade of 0. This includes work which others are bringing to school in your absence, so be sure to let your messenger know. Also, if you are missing from this class but present at school for any other reason (other classes, extra-curricular activities, etc.) on the day work is due, then the work must be turned in by the beginning of class.

MAKE-UP WORK

If the absence is excused, you have one extra day for each day of your excused absence. However, any long-term assignment (given at least one week before it is due) must be turned in the day you return from your excused absence. Also, please remember that you are NOT allowed a one-period excused absence (see Code of Conduct, p. 14). Make-up work is your responsibility (see Code of Conduct, p. 15).

If the absence is unexcused, work will not be accepted. This is departmental policy for honors classes.

ASSIGNMENT FORMAT

Most assignments will need to be word processed (typed, double-spaced). Computer problems are not an excuse, since Kinkos is open 24 hours. SAVE and back up your work!

EXTRA CREDIT

There will be little extra credit, and only if it is important to what we are learning.

ACADEMIC DISHONESTY

You are expected to think for yourself. Plagiarism is defined as Using another's work and passing it off as your own, without giving proper credit. Cheating whether copying someone else's work or allowing your work to be copied is the most vile form of academic dishonesty. Plagiarism or academic dishonesty have no place in this class, and will be punished to the greatest possible extent (see Code of Conduct, p. 7). Cliffs Notes may be utilized, but they are not a substitute for reading. If you are not willing to do the reading for this class, you should drop it now.

CLASS TIMES/TARDIES

Class begins on time. You are expected to be in your seats and ready to contribute when the bell rings. If you are tardy, you will receive a 0 for any assignment we are doing at the beginning of class or which was due at the beginning of class. Further, five or more tardies will result in a Pride Patrol referral.

OTHER PROCEDURES

Bathroom: Quietly take the bathroom pass and leave the room without disturbing your classmates. You are expected to return quickly. Any student found to be abusing this system will be given a Conduct Referral for ditching.

Pagers/Cell Phones: If they go off in this classroom, I will confiscate for one day (see Code of Conduct, p. 10). If you need it for work, then make sure it doesn't go off. Any student who uses a bathroom or nurse pass to return a page or phone call will be given a Conduct Referral for ditching.

So, where was John Prather (or his equivalent) when we went to high school? We could have learned something with a teacher like that. Back then, on one hand, all our teachers were totalitarian control freaks who walked around with canes in their hands, ready to strike terror and mete out their infinite justice. On the other hand, we were well-known as the 'smarty pants' who knew everything, so they never thought that they needed to teach us anything. Ah, ma jeunesse fout le camp ...

VOTE REMINDER [9/14/2002] If you have not yet voted in the NYRR Board of Directors election, now is the time to do it. The annual meeting is scheduled for September 23rd.
FAT AMERICANS [9/14/2002] Friday's AP/Reuters communication says that life expectancy has reached an all-time high in the US, with one qualification

As Americans make gains in health areas, they are endangering their health by become overweight and by failing to exercise, the report said. This is especially worrying when it comes to children and teen-agers. The report said 61 percent of American adults are overweight and 27 percent obese, and 13 percent of children are overweight. The cause - overeating and a lack of exercise. "In 2000, 39 percent of adults reported that they did not engage in physical activity during leisure time,' the report said. Obesity and a lack of exercise is strongly linked with heart disease, stroke, diabetes and several types of cancer.

This is not exactly news as any number of recent news reports have said the same thing. For example, this wannabe article ends up with this opaquely written paragraph:

The facts are known in that obesity has a significant impact or correlational relationship with general health. The libertarian approach would hold this to be a matter of individual responsibility. But when sufficient many individuals encounter this problem, there are now enormous social costs, and it may take active government intervention to solve a social problem. For each individual, body weight is the result of a combination of genetic, metabolic, behavioral, environmental, cultural, and socioeconomic influences. Obesity result from an imbalance involving excessive calorie consumption and/or inadequate physical activity. Behavioral and environmental factors are large contributors to obesity and provide the greatest opportunity for actions and interventions designed for prevention and treatment.

As we look through the glass darkly, we think this particular writer probably only wants to say, "Sign up for the Central Park Track Club!" except he lacks the courage and/or clarity of mind to say so.

THE ELGAR CELLO CONCERTO [9/13/2002] In Wednesday's New York Times, there was an article about Daniel Barenboim giving a concert in Ramallah (West Bank).

To people who ask why he made the special effort to come to Ramallah, he said his answer was simple.
"I'm not a politician," he said. "I don't have a plan to end the conflict. But I think the lesson we have to learn from the 20th century is that every human being --- small, young as you or older like I --- has to think of his responsibility as a human being and not always depend on the politicians and the governments."
Anyway, he said, he was happy to be able to speak Hebrew in Ramallah without feeling uncomfortable, and to demonstrate that there are different kinds of Israelis. "The worst that could happen today is that they didn't like the way I played," he said.
As for those who might find fault with the visit, he said, "Anyone who criticizes my being here today, I only have pity for him."

Daniel Barenboim is a top name in classical music. For the general public, he is the character in the Oscar-nominated movie of domestic (un)-bliss Hilary and Jackie who is the husband (played by James Frain) of cellist Jacqueline du Pré (played by Emily Watson). As much as the reputation of the dead poetess Sylvia Plath far exceeds that of her surviving husband Ted Hughes, Jacqueline du Pré remains a legend after she died from multiple sclerosis in 1987 and not just because of that movie.

Within the relatively small cello concerto repertoire, two pieces stand out --- the Dvorák and the Elgar (and never mind the Saint Saëns, Walton, Delius, Schumann, Haydn and everything else). In 1968, the Soviet Army invaded Czechoslovak to squash the Prague Spring. To raise money for Czech refugees, Daniel Barenboim and Jacqueline du Pré announced that they would play the Dvorák concerto at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The couple received death threats before the concert and received police protection. At some point during the concert, a loud pop was heard and all hearts stopped. Fortunately, it was only a broken string on Jackie's cello, not so unusual because of her passionate and energetic style. The concert continued and is legendary.

Intellectually, the Dvorák cello concerto is considered relatively light-weight and even facetious compared to the Elgar cello concerto. Here are Elgar.org's musical notes to the first movement of the Elgar:

Elgar begins instead with four insistent chords on the cello that immediately create a sombre mood. They receive a gentle answer from strings, clarinets and horns, and then the cello becomes more agitated, in a series of rising notes that seems to promise some emphatic statement. What we hear is something else: the violas launch into a subdued lament in 9/8 time that was Elgar's original impetus for the work. He started the concerto just months after the end of the First World War, and this great elegiac melody is Elgar's lament for all that the war had cost - millions of lives, and, with them, a way of life. Gently swaying between a half note and a quarter note as it winds its way through shifting keys, the theme manages to express both the numbed serenity of grief and the ache within. This main theme is passed from orchestra to cello and back again, becoming more anguished with each restatement, until it finally returns on the cello in the same subdued manner in which we heard it first. This leads to a more animated second theme in 12/8, which begins as a dialogue between strings and woodwinds. The first theme is heard again, and the movement ends with three plucked notes on the cello. With its two simple themes that forego any substantial development, the movement uses one of music's simplest form - the three-part structure of a song.

Jacqueline du Pré left us with a number of recordings of the Elgar Cello Concerto, of which the most popular ones are:

London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbirolli (also includes Elgar's Sea Pictures with Dame Janet Baker)

London Philharmonic Orchestera conducted by Daniel Barenboim (also includes Pomp & Circumstances Marches #1 & #4; Enigma Variations)

As we write this item, we are playing the Barenboim-du Pré CD. In the rear, the television is on without the sound, although the war drums are obviously being pounded hard on the news channels. Most of us are not politicians and not even musicians. But we know that we are many other things. We are runners and we are also financial analysts, parents, triathletes, actuaries, rollerbladers, stamp collectors, computer programmers, Catholics, lawyers, artists and plenty more. Our different lives are not compartmentalized, because they converge together within us to form a unique being. Each one of us is vastly different from the others. Apart from being runners, we have at least one other thing in common --- in Barenboim's words, our responsibility as human beings. We will each interpret this differently and take different actions, but we hope that abdication and indifference are not among the choices.

PETER ALLEN ART WEBSITE [9/13/2002] John Kenney once said that the most interesting page on this website is the one that links to the different non-running things that Central Park Track Club members do. That page no longer exists as a separate entity, because we found that those links get broken too easily. Instead, any new items will appear in this journal page and, to the extent possible, we will use cut-and-paste instead of links.

Now, we have a permanent link to Peter Allen Art. Peter is a long-time stalwart on our team. Since he lives in New Jersey, we seldom see him at workouts. We remember that the last time we saw him at a workout, he had some business in the city and he was at the Metropolitan Museum before coming to the workout. On his art website, he describes his work as follows:

My sculptures have floating forms which come together in ways similar to the ways forms near the studio I built in the woods do. My twelve foot sculptures of wood, aluminum, stone and steel derive inspiration from trees, streams, boulders, rock walls, dappled light in the woods, views from and of hills, and clouds. To create these sculptures I have made several new innovations to allow my metal and stone works to be less grounded by gravity. Closer to the compositions of painters and musicians, with their ability to show spontaneity and other worldliness, my project has been to develop a new way to hold together constellations of forms.
Mostly I have been taking stainless steel, readily available as bands, angle or square stock, and configuring the forms with joints resembling those found in nature. My physical challenge has been to make shapes from stone, cast aluminum, wood and bronze tie together naturally and permanently. I have used processes, such as wrapping a collar of steel around a piece of wood, stone or aluminum, enabling me to weld the shapes into one piece. I have also begun adding into the forms that I am casting, before I pour the aluminum, stainless steel rods so that I have another way to weld strong stainless to stainless joints. I have never known anyone else to use these two techniques.

STEVEN PADDOCK'S FAREWELL LUNCH [9/13/02]

Date: September 22nd (after the NYRR Cross-Country race)
Place: The Strand Diner (96th Street & Broadway; 1/2/3 subway stop), the 2001 Diner Of The Year
Invited: "Everybody. It would be amazing if people came along even if they aren't racing as I have had such a great time as a CPTC member I would like to see everyone for a leaving celebration/commiseration."

Update on Swindon: "Thanks for the Swindon details for the masses, who still think all English people are from London. One thing you missed is that 'Swindon is the World HQ of the Honda Civic' --- a claim to fame I think?" For employment opportunities there, please consult Honda In The UK.

Update on hernia operation: "... went well, a little sore but nothing the planned week off won't fix, so watch out on the 22nd as I'll be charging (and probably dying) as it will be my last scoring race this year probably."
FIFTH AVENUE MILE [9/12/02] For the middle distance runners, this is between outdoor and indoor track seasons. The focus is therefore on cross-country races and the premier road mile of the year --- the Fifth Avenue Mile on September 28th. This race has multiple sections that begin at 10am and finishes at 2pm. We will have many entries in different divisions, so this will be a long day for the cheering squad (see our 2001 coverage)
THURSDAY NIGHT ROAD WORKOUT REPORT [9/12/02] Lovely cool evening in the early fall, nice and dry. Sixty people were at the start of the workout. It's past Labor Day, the colleges are open again and Kira Morser is back. We need to add Margaret Schotte, but she must have been hiding in the bushes [like we suggested] because we had no idea when she jumped in. Not included in this count was Eve Bois on her bike and with this ominous warning, "I have also been taking swimming lessons!"

Our workout report is usually about anything but the workout. But for once, the workout itself bears some discussion. The instructions were simple: 2 times the 4 mile loop, with the second loop being about 15 second faster per mile. The coach wrote: "This is one of our classic workouts, dates back 20 years. The whole key is to run marathon pace (effort) for the first loop, this will allow you to have some reserve for the 2nd loop which should be run at half marathon pace. This style of workout is great to do in packs, (less energy expense) it teaches you how to lets others break winds and relieves you of the mental strain of having to run a desired pace. Oh, you'll still have to work but it will reduce some mental energy which is key to efficient race tactic."

According to the coach, this was the very first Central Park Track Club workout that he ever ran about twenty years ago. Back then, all of this was new to everyone and the workouts were treated as races. Indeed, the coach died during that workout because he went out too fast. Based upon the observations today, people have not gotten smarter (although the coach might say that they have gotten slower). Paul Bendich said, "We went out at 6:45 minute/mile pace for the first loop, and the we dropped down to 6:10 for the fifth mile!" Michael Rosenthal said, "This was my RACE of the week!"

- What is being cute? Being cute is to pick up the pace as you approach the statue because you know that it will start a chain reaction within your group. [Of course, you slow down as soon as the spontaneous combustion begins].
- What is being bad? Being bad is to want to finish first by sprinting to the statue when you are in fact not even doing the workout due to an ankle problem.
- What is being the WORST? Being the worst is for the COACH to try to outsprint his 'bad' runner just in front of the finish.
Such high crimes shall not go unpublished.

The Wednesday night report about the unity run referred to an unnamed Central Park Track Club member. We ask, how is it that everyone believes that they know the identity of the individual when his/her name was nowhere mentioned? Is it so obvious? And what if it was a deliberate misdirection? Postscript: Ah, we just realized that people may have been influenced by a report on another website where it was nevertheless stipulated as a 'rumor.'
USATF NATIONAL MASTERS CROSS-COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS [9/11/02] John Prather ( jprather@susd.org ): "I have been e-mailing Alan Ruben about the possibility of organizing a CPTC team to compete at the national masters 5-k XC meet in Holmdel, NJ on November 24. I had a great time running with the club this summer, and I love the team concept of cross country, so I would like to be a part of something like this. Alan suggested that I organize it.
My dilemma is that I need to purchase a plane ticket sometime in the next few weeks (a month at the latest), and I don't want to come unless I'm sure we've got a full team which can be competitive in the meet. Moreover, I have been burned many times by people who have made commitments and then flaked out. Alan assures me that if you guys make a commitment, you'll definitely be there.

Since I don't know that many people on the club, I have e-mailed some of the suggested people. This message is also being posted on the website in case I missed anyone.

If I'm not mistaken, we can enter 8 guys and score 5. It's scored on total time. Stuart Calderwood tells me Holmdel runs about like Van Cortlandt, so based upon my summer races there, I suspect I might be able to go 16:30 or better at Holmdel in November. I would fly in late Friday night and depart Sunday evening. The race is about 11 a.m.; more information on www.usatfnj.org. So please let me know if you are interested --- real soon!"
1982 AWARD WINNERS [9/12/02] On November 16th, we will be having our 30th Anniversary Awards Party. Thirty years ago, the likes of Ali Rosenthal, Margaret Angell and Margaret Schotte were not even born yet! We have retrieved the list of award winners from the 10th Anniversary in 1982 (when those three were in kindergarten):

MVP Junior: Harry Morales
MVP Open Women: Laurie Madson
MVP Open Men (track): Tony Ruiz
MVP Open Men (middle distance): John Kenney
MVP Open Men (long distance): Mike Anderson
MVP Subvet Women: Irene Jackson
Most Improved: Christine Mouterde
MVP Master Woman: Hermine Bartee
MVP Master Men (track): Sid Howard
MVP Master Men (middle distance): Stu Tucker
MVP Master Men (long distance): Fritz Mueller
MVP Woman 50+: Bunny Franco
MVP Man 50+: Arnie Green
Outstanding Athlete: Stu Mittleman
Founder's Award: Dave & Lynn Blackstone

Once upon a time, in the same park in the same city in the same galaxy, Harry Morales was a teenager, Tony Ruiz just got out of Iona College, Sid Howard had barely started running and Stu Mittleman was setting world records at the ultra-distances.
MESSAGE FROM FRANK HANDELMAN [9/11/02] "On this anniversary of the worst day in New York City history, I just want to say to my teammates how much the CPTC has meant to me throughout my life in New York, and has continued to mean this past year. Truly an international community, we share a love and common pursuit, and at the same time are supportive and challenging of one another. Having the team has kept me training hard and competing three decades now, yet it is much more. It is part of the daily fabric of my life, and I daresay many of our lives. Let us never take each other, or the club we have built, for granted. "
9/11 NYC RUNNERS UNITY RUN [9/11/02] According to a formally trained police observer, there are about 80 runners who met at Engineer's Gate at 7pm for a run. Of course, police observers are known to have a tendency to understate protests and to overstate friendly rallies. But it is unknown whether this particular assembly was deemed to be friendly or hostile.

In any case, we told you before that there are no criteria for either success or failure on this occasion. This is a difficult day for most people, and this is a way for people to meet up with some friends and do some running. If that's what you want to do, that's fine; if you would rather do something else, that's fine too.

Among those present was Steven Paddock, getting his last run in before a hernia operation tomorrow. It will take him all of three days of rest before he resumes running, all of this being the official order of the surgeon. Thus, he will get to run the cross-country race on the 22nd, after which race we will have brunch somewhere at a west side diner (to be announced later) for his formal farewell. Then he will get ready for the 24 hour Reach To Beach Relay the next weekend, after which he will have to pack up to move back to lovely England, specifically to the great town of Swindon. Everything that we know about Swindon came from Steven, and it boiled down to two pieces of information: (1) "They didn't pay their football players for three months" and (2) "It's like moving to ... Paramus, New Jersey ... you know ... the petroleum-processing industrial town ..." But you can never accuse us of being intellectually lazy, because we have been doing our own very extensive research on Swindon. From a link on our sister site ZonaEuropa.com (Ah, how many of you know that we have this sister whom we hide in the closet?), we found this description, which Steven will no doubt find to be totally hilarious now but deeply disturbing when he gets there:

Swindon is ideally located in north Wiltshire between London and Bristol and linked by major motorway and rail routes. This part of the county is very near to the border of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
Its easy access has turned it into a centre for business, shopping, and increasingly, tourism.
Surrounded by beautiful countryside Swindon is within reach of many tourist attractions, from stately homes to the famous ancient stones at Avebury and Stonehenge.

The Great Western Designer Outlet Village shopping centre in Swindon is now one of the town's biggest attractions. It is based at the former railway works, for which the town is famous. Shoppers travel from as far away as the Midlands and Wales to shop at the centre which has plenty of parking spaces and restaurants to cater for all tastes.

Among the Central Park Track Club people present were Toby Tanser, Joseph & Laura Lee Kozusko, Kelly Quinones, Jay Borok, Dion Mulvihill, Jeff Wilson, Marty Levine, Bola Awofeso, J.R. Mojica, Andrea Ostrowski, ... Andrea told Toby, "I read the Vote For Toby page. I voted for you and I got my brother to vote for you too. I regret that my sister is not a NYRR member." We will also tell you such occasions are treasure troves of information, with the most interesting subjects being the Yankees game tonight, high-maintenance costs, Mary Ellen Howe and, inevitably, Ann Coulter. They were deliciously juicy stories but, unfortunately, we are not able to elaborate any further on these subjects. How is that for a tease? Okay, since you are getting upset, we will leave you with some hints: (1) tonight's Yankee game --- we had no idea about whom they were playing, who was pitching or who would win/lose; (2) the high-maintenance cost (technical note: we did not say the 'high cost of maintenance,' which is a completely different thing) is the single most challenging task faced by our team members; (3) our teammate Mary Ellen has just risen from 'Big Shot' (note: those were John Kenney's words) to 'Very Big Shot' (note: those are our words) in the corporate hierarchy; (4) Ann Coulter --- sorry, our lips are absolutely sealed. And now you are getting even more upset, but that is exactly the definition of a tease.

And then there was this other Central Park Track Club member who upon finishing was mobbed by his teammates who wanted to check his pulse to make sure that he is still alive because they have never ever seen him finish a run ... They did concede somewhat by saying, "If you run enough of those across-the-field sprints to call time-splits, it will eventually add up to five miles, especially since you never give people any extra rest ..."

The preceding report borders on being frivolous in light of the fact that this was the anniversary of the worst day in New York City. We could have shared some of our more serious thoughts with you, but we have decided not to do so some time ago. For us, we know that for the last two weeks we have deliberately avoided watching any television about the September 11th event and the aftermath. Not because we cannot handle pain or thought, but because we did not want to listen to more dumb things coming from politicians and commentators. We take it that most people also have it up to their ears too, so why should we subject you to more torture? By coincidence, Eric Alterman's page today on Slate.com consisted of three sentences: "I don't have anything to say today. A year ago today, I had this to say, and two days later, this. I only wish some of the questions these essays raised had more satisfying answers." But instead of getting answers to those types of questions, we have been getting statements such as "Why do they hate us so much? They hate our freedoms - our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote..." and then "I'm amazed that there's such misunderstanding of what our country is about that people would hate us ... I just can't believe it because I know how good we are." When we come across statements like those, it makes us sad and angry, and worried that everything is going to get worse ...

WELCOME NEW MEMBERS [9/11/02] Here are some new members formally accepted at the Executive Board's meeting on Monday:
Elizabeth Kaicher
John Kerner
Laura Lee Kozusko
Adam Manewell
SAFETY IN THE PARK [9/10/02] Please be aware that there have recently been some incidents in the park involving gangs of youths attacking runners. Please exercise commonsense when running in the park, do not run alone late at night.
TUESDAY TRACK WORKOUT REPORT [9/10/02] This message on this page throughout the day was: "Eh ... do we have to remind you again? ... this workout begins at 630pm!" Who didn't read this as well as the workout email? Jonathan Pillow, for one. Fifty-three other people seemed to have done their reading and made it there on time.

There was not much in the way of weekend race results due to a fluke in the schedule. But the coach mentioned Graeme Reid's maiden victory a week ago. What the coach was unsure was whether that would count in our official tally. Why not? It is an open race, it is marshaled and it is timed. In case you want to know where we stand year-to-date, you can peek at an unlinked page where we keep the running record. P.S. There could/should/might have been one more win (hint: 20:57).

Here is a tip --- when you lost your group, you should not ask the timers for the other groups. We asked these timers why they refused to help, "Are you ignorant or apathetic?" and they replied, "We don't know and we don't care!"

Marty Levine pointed out the following six degrees of separation: Central Park Track Club website => Eric Alterman => Victor Navasky => Anne Navasky => Stuart Calderwood/Stacy Creamer => Central Park Track Club website. The unresolved question is, "So which one is the center of the universe?" Mirror, mirror on the wall, tell us ...

Herbie Medina: "I offered Harry a dollar to buy his bright red shorts, but he refused to sell. Well, I tried ..." Maybe the message is not getting through --- we don't want those shorts ... we just want someone to burn them ... try again, Herbie ...

Open-book examination: "I can do the distance runners' 5x1000 workout or I can do the same workout with the middle distance runners': 5x600m and longer rest. Whose workout do you think I should do?" Is choice really involved here?

Might is right. We observed that the soccer players cleared out the middle of the field so that a high school football team can practice. We suppose that the soccer players did not want to rumble with the football players who wore helmets and pads. By contrast, what can the runners do? Hit the soccer players with their spikes? The preceding is an obvious joke, as if you didn't know. Or maybe not ...

Darkness is in fact not an impediment as the lights were turned on to illuminate the track. Whereas the runners and soccer players have no clout in getting the lights turned on, the high school coach can get the Board of Education to call the Department of Parks to turn the key.
BROADBAND WORLD [9/10/02] In looking over our recent web activity log reports, we saw that we had glossed over a significant change. Whereas AOL.com used to be our most active organization, it has now been displaced by the RCN, Road Runner and Verizon, all of which are broadband service providers (either DSL or cable modem). This is in fact a sign of the times, given that the cost difference between broadband and dial-up services is negligible.

An unreported conversational thread after last Thursday's workout was about the anti-competitive behavior of Verizon, the local telephone company through which all DSL providers must obtain their facilities. Horror stories about missed appointments, unexplained delays, intentional disconnects, customer dissatisfaction, etc. At this point, it would seem that the cable modem services (RCN and Time Warner Cable's Road Runner) are more reliable than DSL services in Manhattan. Over here, we have the RCN cable modem --- it is not as good as advertised due to periodic hiccups, but it is enough to change our lifestyle. P.S. We only had to call tech support once, and it was totally our fault because we forgot that we were using a router and the tech person actually deduced the fact.
POP-UP ADS ARE HERE TO STAY: On Monday, MediaPost.com's David L. Smith (not the Central Park Track Club) wrote an article in praise of pop-up ads.

Safa Rashtchy, Senior Research Analyst Internet Media and Marketing for US bancorp Piper Jaffray, recently issued a report, and he too believes that "pop-ups are here to stay," as stated in his newsletter, Silk Road Weekly.
"For advertising to be effective, it has to be intrusive" Rashtchy wrote. Whether we like it or not, pop-ups are a "lean forward" device. Rashtchy went on to say, "Obviously, there is a fine line beyond which advertising may alienate consumers, and we believe the online advertising industry is still experimenting with different levels of intrusion to find the right balance. Just like any medium, there will be the extreme cases where both the quantity and quality of advertising will be excessive and distasteful. This shouldn't distract us from the fact that mainstream publishers can also use the pop-ups in an effective and appropriate way."
Rashtchy opined three reasons why they are "here to stay":

Pop-ups are highly effective. We know that they get higher click-through rates. Their conversion rates are high also. Yes, some people hate them, but not so much that it affects the traffic on the sites serving them.
Major advertisers like Orbitz, Dell, Providian, Morgan Stanley and Columbia House are among the top ten users. This shows a trend. It won't be long before other major advertisers use pop-ups too.
Sites banning pop-ups are in a minority and have good reason to ban them (e.g., Google and iVillage who do not want to interrupt the user experience). This is not likely to spread to the majors, according to Rashtchy. And he makes a good point. After all, aren't the highly effective rich media takeover ads that have zoomed across sites like Yahoo!, The New York Times and CBS MarketWatch also pop-ups, albeit much more creative than the X-10 camera ads (which we cannot forget, still worked like crazy).

Excuse us? "For advertising to be effective, it has to be intrusive." Where did you get that idea from? Have you misread your advertising textbook? We though that the verb 'to impress' means 'arouse the interest or approval of'? or have you confused it with the meaning of 'to have a marked effect on the mind or emotions of'?

If you recall, we use the free utility PopUpStopper that kills all pop-up ads, sight never ever seen. The beauty is that the ad server still thinks that an ad has been delivered to us. That is technically true, but the pop-up ad never opens up. So the ad server ends up paying for the bandwidth. If enough people use PopUpStopper-like utilities, the game would be over. On the television device, the new TiVo technology will do very much the same thing --- you can time-shift your favorite program and your recording will automatically remove all the commercials. So you can watch that one hour show in 48 minutes, and have 12 minutes of your life back.

9/11 NYC RUNNERS UNITY RUN [9/9/02] On MSNBC.com, Eric Alterman wrote: "I am doing my best to avoid most of the 9/11 nonsense that is being written and spoken these days, and I am writing nothing about it myself. I have lots of reasons for this, but they are my own business." Our sentiments, exactly.

We will just remind you of this Toby Tanser message: "On September 11th, we are thinking it would be great if all the NYC runners meet at the Engineers Gate (90th Street and 5th Avenue, right by the Fred Lebow statue) and run united. not in competition but in friendship. 7 PM." There will be no hype, no politicians giving long speeches and no autograph signing, and there will be no race winners. There will be no criteria for success or failure of the event. There may be two thousand people there, or maybe just two. Simply, if on this particular evening, you wish to run with someone, you can just come. Open to all runners --- team-affiliated or not, at any speed.
MORE SPORTS NEWS [9/10/02] The most important piece of news is this: the final test match between England and India was abandoned due to rain. The series was even at 1-1 before this match. In the first inning, England amassed 515 runs and we thought that India had no chance. Instead, India roared back with 508 runs, with a magnificent 217 by Rahul Dravid. In the second inning, England had cruised to 114-0 and then the rains came overnight to make the pitch unplayable. Now England will move on to play Australia for the Ashes. It goes without say that we give England no chance to beat Australia ...

The final record for the NBA millionaires is that they lost three games in a row as the USA finished in sixth place at the world basketball championships on their home court in Indianapolis. The boredom in the stands was palpable. This is truly the worst nightmare for the NBA, as the USA has become a non-factor in international basketball, because neither American players nor fans cared.
SOS HISTORY [9/10/02] Among all the local triathlons, the Survival of the Shawangunks is the one that is closest to our hearts. Our team has an illustrious history with these winners:

Men
Scott Willett, 1991
Scott Willett, 1998

Women
Anna Coatsworth, 1994
Anna Coatsworth, 1995
Julie Denney, 1997
Julie Denney, 1998
Stefani Jackenthal, 2001

WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 3-SEPTEMBER 9, 2002

ANTIHEROES [9/8/02] So you wonder why we want to thrust all this multi-cultural stuff down your throat? If you read through Ilan Stavans' Antiheroes: Mexico and Its Detective Novel, you will find this quote on page 142 --- in Aesthetic Experience and Literary Hermeneutics, Hans Robert Jauss views the work of art as defined by two vectors: by its reading through time, which can vary according to the reader's experience, familiarity and expectations; and by how a novel's reading can enter into a reader's life (the classic example is Don Quixote, which, while parodying the scope of the chivalric novel, extends those boundaries toward other worlds).

Ilan Stavans was born in Mexico into a Yiddish-language milieu and educated at Columbia University. With this background, his work covers many areas --- writings about Latinos in the USA, essays about politics and culture north and south of the Border, pieces on Jewish literature, autobiographical writings and stories. He has also edited collections of Latin American stories in translation. In the short story collection titled The One-Handed Pianist, Harry Morales translated the story titled Three Nightmares, from which we extract this paragraph:

Well, the first nightmare occurred the following night, after an exciting game of poker. Several friends of mine and I had gathered together at home. We bought whiskey, tequila, and appetizers that the maid improved with cheese, onions, and dip. We drank quite a bit. It was after midnight. Betzi had arrived home from the office and in a bad mood. She seemed to have springs in her face and a grumpy, stony grimace. The alcohol was starting to go to my head. I was dizzy and I had the vague sensation that I was drowning in a fish tank. Packs of cards would go. Come back. Noise. The piercing rattling of two bottles that would shatter. Cigarette smoke. I wanted to vomit and, excusing myself, ran to the bathroom and locked myself in for fifteen minutes. For exactly fifteen minutes I threw up my stomach. The light bulb over the mirror hurt my eyes. I felt chills. Betzi was shouting at me, saying, "Are you all right, Messeguer?" "Yes," I replied, feeling embarrassed. (Now that I think about it, I know that Betzi controlled me like a witch.) Later on she knocked on the door. I opened it; she looked at me and ran into the dining room where my friends were. "Someone go to the drugstore," she said. "I need a bottle of milk of magnesia for Messeguer ..." How embarrassing! Getting drunk s one of the hardest challenges a man can undergo ... and I had failed. How long had it been since I last drank? Long enough to lose my resistance ... to become a child again. To be honest, I would have wanted to vomit my discomfort at Betzi. A shower wouldn't have done my any hard, but I didn't even manage to open the faucet. I wanted for Betzi to come and cure me. I later came out of the bathroom and collapsed on the sofa. My friends disappeared. Had the game ended? In my cotton-filled eardrums the voices sounded like squeaking rats, like rusty locks.

Ah, yes, that sounds like a very familiar story ...

HURRICANE SEASON [9/8/02] Even though the ultra-long-range forecast (for whatever that was worth) at the beginning of the year called for an active hurricane year, we have seen nothing so far. Nevertheless, you might want to know if a workout gets cancelled as a result of a hurricane. The short answer is NO. The following is a reprint of the workout of September 16, 1999.

Hurricane Floyd was in town today. The Mayor got on television and told everybody to go home by noon. Two-thirds of the traders at the NYSE were AWOL. On that day, the following message was posted on our home page during the day:

OKAY, YOU MUST BE WONDERING IF THERE IS A THURSDAY WORKOUT WITH HURRICANE FLOYD COMING IN. THERE IS NO OFFICIAL WORD YET. I WOULD ONLY ASK YOU TO EXERCISE COMMONSENSE. (BUT AS ONE OF THE 12 DISCIPLES IN FAMOUS SAYING # 608, I OBVIOUSLY HAVE A CREDIBILITY PROBLEM ...)

To which Yves-Marc Courtines replied, "The heck with it! Let's do the workout!" But our question has to be, "Will he actually show up? Or is it just trash talking?"

At the designated time coordinate of 7:00pm, there were just three people present. Coach Tony Ruiz was there, solely because he had the responsibility of telling those present to go home. So he had a good excuse, but what excuses did the other two have? What was going through their minds? Well, you'll have to ask them yourself. But whatever else, their names --- Bola Awofeso and Stuart Calderwood --- will go down in club history as the two people who showed up during hurricane Floyd and kept the string of attended workouts going for as long as anyone can remember.

Frankly, we are a little bit disappointed at the low turnout and consider this to be a continual softening (with some notable individual exceptions) of this club in recent times. We remember more atrocious conditions drawing more people in the past, including more than a dozen people showing up on a winter night with one foot of ice on the road (note: it was packed ice, not dusty snow --- people couldn't even stay on their feet standing still, much less run ...).

Postscript: Of course, a card-carrying member of the triathlete union felt compelled to write in: "On a day when hurricane Floyd set the rainfall record (over 6 inches for the day, erasing the sub-2-inch previous record), it is not surprising that the only two attendees are runners-cyclists aspiring to become triathletes. It was a perfect day to work on their swimming ..."

As you read the preceding paragraph, you may wonder where was Yves-Marc Courtines? Stuart Calderwood tells us, "Yes, indeed, Yves-Mark Courtines WAS at the much-ballyhooed Thursday Night swimming workout at the Daniel Webster Statue. After having run several miles to get there, he stood -- shirtless -- for maybe five minutes (until about 7:10) talking to me until just before Tony arrived. He ran off at a good pace, and it must be said that he was very obviously enjoying the rain, which was bouncing off the pavement at that point."

Stuart Calderwood continued on to report: "Bola and I ran a 5-mile loop, sometimes through one of the several six-inch-deep creeks that we found to be crossing the Park Loop. When he exited the loop at 110th Street, I ran up the southbound 'Big Hill' in bizarrely unfamiliar circumstances: a true flood was coming down at me, and each of my feet produced, with each landing, a little two-foot-high geyser that immersed that foot's leg briefly. The rushing water covered the street's whole width, and that, plus the complete darkness, made the ground invisible and therefore no longer a reference-point; I seemed to be running very fast over the "ground" -- -actually the flood-water--which was full of leaves and twigs. There was a very high wind that kept blowing twigs and sometimes even thin branches OFF the trees; several of them hit me. The odd thing--and the reason, no doubt, that despite the ridicule heaped on people who run in weather like this, they continue to do it -- was that the experience was ecstatic: rather than unpleasantness, there was only a good kind of wet and cold, a weird atmosphere of flying leaves and diagonal gusts of rain, a constant roar of trees whipping in wind, and a near-hydroplaning effect which made the running seem shockless, as on a pleasantly soft grass field."

Of course, there was tremendous social pressure not to show up at the workout, as there is no doubt that we will be naming names here. So what do you do if you can't rein yourself in? You sneak out for a run by yourself at a different time in a different place and hope no one sees you. Thus it was that a gaggle of drenched CPTC'ers happened to come across each other near the Harlem Meer --- Frank Schneiger, Stacy Creamer, Carol Tyler, Lynn and Dave Blackstone. Although Frank tried to elicit a promise from all those present not to rat, our all-seeing Global Surveillance System (TM) found out all the same. What will happen now to their reputations as solid citizens (teachers, editors, directors, administrators, lawyers ...)!?

Comment from an observer: "I can't believe so many words can be written about a cancelled workout with only three people showing up ..

ELASTIC WOMAN [9/8/02] From an unnamed person who dug out her running shorts recently for a workout after a four year hiatus: "I have no idea that the elastic waist band loses its strength over time. That is why I am using pins to hold my shorts up ..."
ALMOST SHUT OUT ... [9/7/02] ... but Kim Mannen came to the rescue by doing the Celic Run, thus saving us from a total team shutout this Saturday. Of course, we could have begged our Charles Allard Jr to find a race somewhere, since he is half-a-day away in Japan..
MORE NEWSPAPER STORIES [9/7/02] You are wrong to think that we read the New York Times exclusively. In today's Chinese-language World Journal, the local story was about the Chinese translations of the names on the New York state electoral ballots. Most prominently, the Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor Mary O'Donohue finds her name officially and unofficiously translated into "Mary, O! Gangsta moll." For us to say anything more would incur a penalty for 'piling on.'

The point here is that some government agency had undertaken the translation with the best of intention but not the best of results. They actually did not need to do anything of their own since the names of the candidates have been translated in the local newspapers, whose readers are familiar with those translations.

Okay, we can't resist it ... we'll repeat once more --- 'O, Gangsta moll!'
THE COMPLETE WALKER IV [9/7/02] Yeah, we know, Sid Howard keeps admonishing us to keep the jog alive between sets during the workout, saying that "We are the Central Park Track Club, not the Central Park Walking Club!" Yet, there are days when we set out to run and we end up wishing that we could only walk. So it is with some shock that we read this review in the New York Review of Books (yes, every summer we wonder whatever happened to our brains when NYROB goes on their reduced schedule) of the 845-page book by Colin Fletcher and Chip Rawlings:

Though we like to tell ourselves that we live in complicated times, our daily lives are in fact simpler than humans have ever known. Want warmth? Turn up the thermostat. Want to stay dry? Between the automatic door opener on your garage and the indoor parking spot by the office, you're unlikely to get damp more than twice a year, and when you do you can toss your shirt in the dryer.

For us to experience anything like the life that most human beings have known for most of human history requires making a certain amount of effort, mental as well as physical --- and that effort is the actual subject of The Complete Walker. Walking itself, of course, is the simplest activity on earth, and indeed the authors waste very few of their 845 pages with instructions for putting one foot in front of the other. But since we've lost the knack of our ancestors for staying warm and dry, and probably the stoicism with which they accepted cold and wet, it turns out to be entirely possible to fill a book as long as this one with extremely useful descriptions of gear and techniques for wandering around in the wild world.

Or half as long, anyway. Some of The Complete Walker, truth be told, borders on the insane. A short discourse on the thirty-two variations of Vibram soles for hiking boots (#1450, the Clusaz, a "highly technical self-cleaning style") leads into a seventy-page essay on hiking books, complete with comparisons of various eyelet shapes (a particularly fine pair of bushwhacking boots comes with "flat Ds from toe to instep, then a locking D-ring set in a nylon base, then a loop of flat webbing at the ankle (where hooks tend to catch), topped by two open hooks") and an arcane discussion of various sock fibers (including new "Teflon yarn").

After all this, one of the two authors reveals that he usually hikes in special sandals anyway; the only drawback is that it "gives me thick callus around my heels, which can crack and hurt like mad." Unlike one of his buddies, who "squeezes Superglue into these cracks and pinches them shut," Rawlings instead "recently figured out that a powder sander works like magic" for reducing calluses. However, he cautions against using disc or belt sanders, recommending instead a model with a "flat, rubber-padded, vibrating placket."

Walking has inspired this 845-page tome, but we are not aware that there is anything comparable in terms of obsessive-compulsiveness for runners. Or is there?

Kevan Huston provides an analytical answer to the preceding question:

No, I can't think of a single volume on running which scours the minutiae of our sport to the extent that *The Complete Walker* deconstructs its subject. However, Tim Noakes's Lore of Running: Discover the Science and Spirit of Running (3rd edition, 1991) certainly comes close. Noakes, an accomplished scientist, physician and ultrarunner, examines the physiology, performance and pathologies of competitive running in thorough detail. The 1991 paperback edition runs a hefty 804 pages, including a truly stunning bibliography 86 pages in extent. Noakes covers everything from oxygen transport to energy metabolism; from the 15 rules of training to the effect of age on athletic performance; from the 4 grades of running injuries to nutrition and weight control. It's all here.

But frankly the best part of the book is the examinations of the "early" greats and their training practices. Zatopek, Derek Clayton, Grete Waitz, Ron Hill, the incomparable Bruce Foryce, etc., etc. Noakes claims Jim Peters as the greatest marathoner of all time: he lowered the WR nearly 10 minutes (2:26 to 2:17), just one of countless geeky stats awaiting you if you pick this beauty up.

Then there's the 696-page Textbook of Running Medicine, by O'Connor and Wilder, 2001, an occasionally popular (though not lately thank God) text in this household. It's intended for medical practitioners, so tread carefully. Literally.

Bonus quote from the NYROB review of The Complete Walker IV: "Fletcher was well known, in the earlier editions of this book, for recommending that backpackers drill a series of holes in their toothbrush handles, thus saving a gram or two --- but a gram or two that would have to be lifted thousands of times an hour as the hiker plodded along." Now, are you sure that you want to carry those Nike swooshes on your running shoes for 26.2 miles? Of course not! Reach for the razor blade now!

ISTAF BERLIN MEET [9/7/02] Happy ending as all four contenders won to share the pot of 50 kilos of gold, including our two home favorites Ana Guevara and Felix Sánchez.

Felix Sanchez

Now that Guevara has completed her season of dominance at 400m, we are sure to hear the whispers of "Oh, that's only because Cathy Freeman was not competing." Well, the will to win begins with the will to prepare and continues with the will to compete ... so give it a rest, will ya?

Ana Guevara

Just to show you that we are totally biased solely for Latin Americans (when we are in fact exactly that), we will also show you some screen shots from the women's 1500m. Obviously, the ESPN coverage keyed on American Suzy Favor Hamilton. The race was won convincingly by Turkey's Süreyya Ayhan, who won our hearts for running at her own pace (60 second first lap) and daring everyone else to do the same.

CROSS-COUNTRY WARM-UP RACE [9/7/02] As the big scoring race takes place on September 22nd, we point out that there is a MAC meet one week before that you can use as a warm-up. We remind you that cross country races are also much more stressful than a couple of six-mile loops around the park, as you will find out when you hit the big hills. So this MAC meet is an opportunity to simulate the heart attack episode over the same course.
50at50 RUN REPORT [9/6/02] Remember our teammate Robert Vogel and his 50 mile run on his 50th birth to raise money for The Children's Inn? The race took place on September 3rd, and this is his report:

It was a great (if rain-soaked) day!

Larry Lewis, Willie Williams and I completed the run from Rockland County to Brooklyn on a windy, rain-drenched day. As those of you in New York know, the temperature was in the mid 60's and the rain was torrential. As soon as we got out the car at the start we were soaked through so the rain no longer mattered. Beginning up on Rt. 9W with an uphill climb the weather very quickly became refreshing as we warmed up. Getting the biggest hills out of the way the first few miles, we continued towards the George Washington Bridge --- and what we hoped, in vain, would be a break in the rain and some blue sky. (thanks to Barb and Evan who met us at the Mobil Station with bagels bananas and drinks).

It appeared that the rain was letting up as we approached the George Washington Bridge -- but we were in for a surprise as we got out on the bridge. (We had plenty of room on the pedestrian path since there was no one else out there.) Looking ahead, we could see waves of water splashing up from the passing cars coming over the guard rail and onto the path. It was like being hit on the head with a hammer -- it felt great when it was over and we were off the bridge.

Drenched, we followed a circuitous maze of ramps, tunnels and trails down to the west side recreation path. From here it was straight down the river and around Battery Park looping around to the Brooklyn Bridge. Along the west side we were filmed by ABC news and the story complete with shots of the three of us, soaked but still running-- was shown on the 5:30 news under the headline "Giving Back". Then it was a short tour of the waterfront in Brooklyn and home. It stopped raining just as we arrived at the finish line. A total of 6 hours eighteen minutes.

Thanks to a great team this event has been a huge success. As of this time we have raised over $18,000 for The Children's Inn.

Oh yeah, and I'm also now fifty. You¹ll have to speak louder when you talk to me

THE WASHINGTON TIMES' BIG LIE [9/6/02] There are two major points to be made here.

Point one, the National Education Association had prepared links to over 100 lesson plans and over 60 outside sites in their Remember September 11 site. Within one of the outside links to a lesson plan developed not by the NEA but by Brian Lippincott, affiliated with the Graduate School of Professional Psychology at the John F. Kennedy University in California, the following point is made:

Address the issue of blame factually. Explore who and what may be to blame for this event. Use non-speculative terms. Do not suggest any group is responsible. Be careful to ensure students (e.g., Arab-American students,) do not assume blame in order to make classmates feel better. Blaming is especially difficult in terrorist situations because someone is at fault. However, explain that all Arab-Americans are not guilty by association or racial membership. Help kids resist the tendency to want to 'pin the blame' on someone close by. In this country, we still believe that all people are innocent until solid, reliable evidence from our legal authorities proves otherwise."

Based upon this situation, Ellen Sorokin wrote in the Washington Times:

The National Education Association is suggesting to teachers that they be careful on the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks not to "suggest any group is responsible" for the terrorist hijackings that killed more than 3,000 people.

Suggested lesson plans compiled by the NEA recommend that teachers "address the issue of blame factually," noting: "Blaming is especially difficult in terrorist situations because someone is at fault. In this country, we still believe that all people are innocent until solid, reliable evidence from our legal authorities proves otherwise."

If you compare the original Lippincott paragraph against the Sorokin quotation (note: the failure to use an ellipsis to denote the fact that two sentences have been intentionally excised), the meaning has been completely distorted. As Brendan Nyhan who wrote the linked post-mortem analysis describes it, "It is this kind of unfair, deceptive paraphrasing and omission of context that is frequently used to create a new political myth."

Point two, it is one thing for someone to practice deception to further a political point, it is something else for others to accept the misrepresentation. Again, it is one thing for right-wing talk show wingnuts to want to make hay with this political myth, but it is something else for the mainstream media to acquiesce. Either they are intellectually sloven and fail to do their homework, or else they don't care about intellectual honesty. For us, we know full well that people lie all the time for all sorts of motives and causes and we don't have a full-time job doing exposés. But now and then, we are impressed when someone like Brendan Nyhan comes along and discusses the case with well-documented information. Now (never mind Fox News), where were the Washington Post, CNN, the New York Times and the rest of the bastions of media integrity?

GOOD WRITERS ARE NOT US [9/6/02] A few weeks ago, we ran an item titled "Let's Blow Up The New York Times" with these words: "Let us state at the outset that we have no intention of doing so, because what would we read every day after that? Concerning Ann Coulter's remark: 'My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building ....'" Someone mounted a defense for her in The Wall Street Journal, saying that it was just tongue-in-cheek humor. We then wrote: "Oh, really, so the defense is that this is all one jestful joke, huh? Well, try saying "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the White House," and you will have the Secret Service all over you for making terroristic threats against the President. Or, better yet for test purposes, just try telling some jokes to the airport security screeners next time ..."

Eric Alterman opened his essay in The Nation as follows:

"My only regret with Osama bin Laden is that he did not manage to kill every member of the Wall Street Journal editorial staff."

"In this recurring nightmare of a presidency, we have a national debate about [George W. Bush's stolen presidency].... Otherwise there would be debates only about whether to impeach or assassinate."

"We need to execute people like Ann Coulter in order to physically intimidate conservatives, by making them realize that they can be killed too. Otherwise they will turn out to be outright traitors."

First things first: Mr. Ashcroft, if you're there, I do not mean any of the statements above to be taken literally. I do not mean them at all. None of them. OK? What I do mean is to point out the incredible hypocrisy of those on the right, the center and the "liberal media" who defend the lunatic ravings of Ann Coulter, whether because she is "kidding" or because "the left does the same thing."

Is this not so much better, both in concept development and execution? We guess we will have to forget about being professional writers and go back to work in the salt mines ...

INSIDE JOKE [9/6/02] For the Tuesday workout, the following non-event was reported:

On Toby Tanser's website, which usually beats us in publishing the track workout reports, we read: "Down on the track - The big question is what does a certain Central Park Track Club person hide in his shoe fob? It was something lumpy (Editor's note; "It did not slow him down, I saw him sprint past you on a 200!")." Well, we don't have X-ray vision so we don't know what was hidden. We inquired but the person was not disclosing. So we posed a direct question that was dearest to our hearts, "So ... is this a NYRRC Board of Directors proxy form that you've have in there?" The answer was an emphatic "No" with a hint of annoyance, as the said person swore that he had already mailed his form back with a vote for the same Toby Tanser ...

We had two people say that they nearly died from laughing. Unfortunately, the joke may not be understood by everyone as it pre-supposes a certain familiarity of the entangled relationships among the four principals who were mentioned in the report. What can we say, other than suggest that you keep reading the two websites until you get it? or else you can cheat by asking any of the four principals directly, although they are known to keep stiff upper lips (note: one of them is a Brit sometimes but the other is anti-Commonwealth). But we promise you that once you hold the key, a whole new universe will open for you and nothing will ever be the same ...

SHARP ELBOW [9/6/02] Zeb Nelessen: "In this photo from the Club Championships, don't I look as if I just elbowed someone right in the face?"
THURSDAY ROAD WORKOUT REPORT [9/5/02] Aren't we getting ahead of ourselves here since this is still 10:56pm, 9/4/2002? Yes, but we already have the place marker in place and we need to trumpet the fact that Naomi Reynolds won her seventh Van Cortlandt Park cross-country race in a row. In that same race (Henry Isola Four Miler), Sue Pearsall was second and Emily Pierce Emah was third for a 1-2-3 sweep. This is about as good as it gets. We will also note that we are a highly diversified team --- look at our strong representations in the track meets, cross country races and road races. We are three teams in one and you will find the names of our runners crossing over from one type of event to others (ah, Sue Pearsall? isn't she on the American record 4x800m relay team?). On the men's side, we had two top-ten finishers in Kevan Huston and Armando Oliveira. Most interesting is the 61st place finisher, Marty Levine, who was our fifth and final scorer. The next time anyone says "I didn't put my team name down because I never thought I would score," we will personally cut his/her head off and put it on a stick for pedagogical purposes ... [By the way, we know that someone ran that race hard without a number!]

Now for the workout itself. Fifty-eight people were at the start of the workout. To this, we can add Harry Morales sprinting down the west side to meet his group and then Margaret Schotte standing as stationary as the CN Tower waiting to meet her group at the reservoir entrance.

Over the years, we have observed that there are regular periocities in the upswing in newcomers --- May/June after the schools and universities close and new graduates start their new jobs, post-Labor Day when the schools and universities reopen plus people need to get serious about their marathon training, and January for the New Year resolutions. Tonight being the first Thursday after Labor Day we have a number of new faces. Tonight's workout was not our typical fare, being three steady-state loops around the reservoir. On this mild night, the reservoir was fairly crowded with runners, so it got difficult to see your group when it got dark. It is more clearly defined when we get back on the roads in future workouts.

Among the non-newcomers is Aubin Sullivan, back for her first road workout in about four years. Why the renewed interest in running? "Well, I am doing the SOS triathlon in ten days' time and this will be my first and last preparation." This particular triathlon has great personal significance for at least two of our triathlon couples, since it served as their wedding venue. Apart from the spectacular vista from Sky Top, Ross Galitsky also recommends: "They provide a lot of food in the post-race party, so we didn't have to cater food for the wedding guests."

Sid Howard does confirm: "The Labor Day 5K in which Ramon Bermo ran 15:57 and I ran 18:36 was on a short course. They had to move to a different start, since the regular spot in the park was 'contaminated' (editor's note: well, you know, this is New Jersey ...). There was no way that I could have run under 19 minutes right now without a few more long runs in New Paltz. Afterwards, Ramon said, 'I can't wait to see how surprised those guys will be about my time.'" Even so, the race must have taken a lot out of Ramon because he was not hiding in the bushes tonight.

The next scoring race is the cross country race on 9/22. Since this is just a 5K race, almost anyone can do it with minimal fitness. We remind you that cross country races are also much more stressful than a six-mile loop around the park, as you will find out when you hit the big hills. The coach attempted a little motivational speech: "I really feel as if we are in the right situation to launch a strong move for the latter part of this year ... ummm ... but since my open women are already in first place, I don't where else they can go ..." Ah, but there is plenty that the women can do --- like getting the most number of sub-three-hour marathoners, or the fastest average marathon scoring time in club history, or raise more money for Project A.L.S. and just have a lot more fun!

There was another meeting of the masters' cabal after the workout, as they plotted and planned their strategies for the Reach The Beach Relay. We have two teams entered in that race. Irrespective of their official team names, it is easier for us to refer to them as the 'old guys' and the 'young guys.' Although the race is still weeks away, we make the observation the 'old guys' are currently leading in the categories of organization, morale, confidence and record. And of course, they also lead in average age. Ummm ... there actually isn't any other category left ... [disclosure: the workout reporter is classified in the category of 'old guys' and may therefore be intentionally or sub-consciously prejudiced]. Correction by Jesse Lansner: "We have THREE teams in Reach the Beach. The 'old guys' (CPTC Masters), and two 'young guys' teams (Clockwork Orange and Orange Crush). While Orange Crush got all the incredibly fast people, and us poor guys on Clockwork Orange are just normally fast, we are still very competitive with them in organization, morale and confidence."
¡VAMOS, ARGENTINA! [9/5/02] Argentina beats the USA millionaires 87-80 in the world basketball championships, thus ending the NBA Dream Team's 58 game winning streak. Our Latin American sponsors must be so happy.

But who cares, really? The more important event is the final and deciding cricket test match between England and India. After day one, England amassed 336 for two, thus giving India no chance to win short of a total English collapse.
LOGORRHEA COUNT [9/5/02] We just archived the August journal entries, and we saw that the page was 220k in size. Holy crap!
SAVE THE DATE! NOVEMBER 16! [9/4/02] The Central Park Track Club's 30th Anniversary Party and Awards Dinner will be held Saturday night, November 16th (note new date), at the beautiful Saint Peter's Church at Citicorp Center in midtown Manhattan. Invitations will be sent to all current and many former club members. This gala event will combine our annual awards fete with a celebration of our illustrious and rollicking history. And of course, great food and drink and dancing. Our 20th anniversary was held at Saint Peter's, and all who attended will recall the elegant and festive atmosphere. Come and party with teammates new and old and experience all that is special about the CPTC.

Some famous CPTC people: Margaret Schotte, Margaret Angell, Fritz Mueller, Toby Tanser, Sid Howard, Tony Ruiz, Ali Rosenthal, Alayne Adams, Alan Ruben

Technical note: This is not like the old pseudo-gothic-baroque church that hosts the Limelight. Rather, it is a modern architectural gem: "Dessinée par Hugh Stubbins, la puissante silhouette de l'immeuble qui abrite l'église Saint Peter's offre un lieu de solidarité aux New Yorkais de résidence et de passage. Son revêtement de granit gris accroche l'oil parmi les tours à bureaux du centre-ville. Son intérieur de chêne rouge et de granit a été conçu par Vignelli Associates comme un espace de résurrection où nous renaissons animés d'un esprit nouveau dans un sanctuaire habité par la grâce divine. Sur le parvis de l'immeuble, un calvaire spectaculaire décline dans le bronze les figures traditionnelles de la croix et des clous. À l'intérieur, le regard s'arrête sur une croix néerlandaise du XVIe siècle qui nous rappelle le mystère de la mort et de la résurrection du Christ. L'espace intérieur du sanctuaire peut être modulé selon différentes configurations en fonction des besoins. À l'entrée, des fonts baptismaux en granite symbolisent notre admission par le baptême dans la communauté de Dieu. Le bonheur de la musique dans cet espace se reflète dans le grand orgue, construit par l'Allemand Johannes Klais. Au rez-de-chaussée, la chapelle du Bon Berger, offerte par Erol Beker et dessinée par le grand sculpteur américain Louise Nevelson, déploie sa riche et sereine harmonie de blanc, d'or et de chêne blond. Nous offrons à la communauté l'occasion de se retrouver non seulement pour le culte et la prière, mais aussi pour des concerts, des conférences et des spectacles donnés dans le sanctuaire. D'autres activités se déroulent dans un théâtre de poche de 200 places, un salon de musique, un studio de jazz et la Living Room, qui est notre lieu d'accueil et de service à la communauté." It goes without say that we are using the French edition as required by the rules of the Union of Effete Cultural Snobs.
WORKSHOP TO LEARN DISCIPLINE DETERMINATION & DEDICATION [9/4/02]

PRESENTING: Toshiko D'Elia, Sid Howard, Gail Kislevitz
WHERE: Serenity Center, Warren, NJ ( www.serenitycenter.net )
TRAVEL DIRECTIONS: See map
DATE: Sunday, September 22nd, 2002
TIME: 1-3 pm (Plan to arrive early as historically these workshops are well attended )

            EXPLORE YOUR POTENTIAL

                   ACCESS THE INNATE WISDOM OF YOUR LIFE

                           UNFOLD THE KEY TO MASTER THAT WHICH YOU DREAM OF

                                     BE INSPIRED TO REACH FOR YOUR GOLD

In this workshop, Juliette Levy-Pomann brings 3 remarkable people together to share with us their dreams, their challenges the highs & lows of their lives and how they create the strategy that moves them in the direction of setting and accomplishing goals. The key to learning --- "Stick-to-it-iveness" --- otherwise referred to as : DISCIPLINE DETERMINATION DEDICATION.

Biographical notes prepared by Juliette Levy-Pomann: The concept of a " brief bio", of either Toshi, Sid or Gail is truly a challenge. What follows is so very shallow considering the depth of inspiration, love and kindness that moves each of these individuals towards accomplishing their goals and inspiring others whose lives they touch. It is indeed an honor to present this workshop to you.

Toshiko D'Elia

Born in Kyoto, Japan, 1930, Toshi unraveled an entwined complicated yet courageous expedition to land on American soil intact with her young daughter. Determination and discipline encapsulating her soul, Toshi, managed to climb from what most of us would consider an impossible place to survive to a world class runner. Toshiko D'Elia is not only internationally acclaimed but in 1981 became the subject of a 2 hour documentary featured on primetime TV in her homeland of Japan . Beginning her athletic career at 43, Toshi has managed to set world records and continues even at the present time which brings her to the age of 71. At the age of 50 Toshi was the first woman in the world to break a 3 hour Marathon . Most 30-40 year old runners struggle to stay under 3 hours in a marathon .

Anyone who is honored to be in Toshi's presence, experiences a lingering sense of awe, because she functions directly from the heart providing her fellow man with motivation & inspiration in the absence of judgment.

Sidney Howard

Born February 6^th 1939 , Sid was married with children at 18,leaving his high school track life behind. Six children later, a self made business owner of a hopping delivery service in both NJ and NY City, at 40 years old, Sid awakened the athlete within and began running again. His interest was simply proving to his children that anything in life is possible, a concept he reinforced at age 59 when he got his college degree. But that's incorrect because Sid's entire life force is to find all the joy and happiness in life and with gratitude for each day to spread that cheer with all he comes into contact with. Steadfast with determination, when his son mentioned a mile race for "old guys like you", Sid, at 40 years old, trained for his first race since high school, and won the race. Three months later he tackled the NY City marathon and ran it in 3:02 .

Since the moment Sid re-discovered that he had potential he barely tapped into, he has realized this potential repeatedly, breaking and setting world records, moving into the category of an "Elite" Athlete. At the present time, Sid continues to compete, manage the family-owned business he gave birth to, and devote his life to family and people in all walks of life, sharing his love.

Gail Kislevitz

I first met Gail when she agreed to present at my daughters 4^th grade class, as a local New Jersey author. Little did I know that she would open doors to enlightenment, confirm that dreams can be realized and give relentlessly of herself as kindness is Gail's first nature.

Gail is a freelance writer & author with a concentration in the field of sports, health and fitness. A true motivator and natural speaker, Gails inspiration is experienced first hand in both her books

"First Marathons: Personal Encounters With the 26.2 Monster" and "It's never Too Late". Recognized as an expert in her field, Gail has interviewed high-profile athletes such as Bill Rogers, John Kelley, Grete Waitz, Frank Shorter, Katherine Switzer, Jack LaLanne, Joe Gold Toshiko D'Elia, Sidney Howard & others.

Gail has run over 12 marathons, and has used her talent for sports to raise money for many organizations some of which are AIDS (Cycling The Pallotta Teamworks Boston to New York Ride), & Breast Cancer,( Avon 3-Day 60 mile walk),.

You are welcome to bring your copy of either or both books as they will be offering book signing.

ANOTHER NATIONAL ANTHEM [9/4/02] To show that we are not completely dominated by the British/Canadian axis or the Marxist-Stalinist-Leninist-Maoist dogma, we move to Tanzania, a member of the Commonwealth and the home of our teammate Maria Chale. The most famous New York City Marathon quote of all time comes from the Tanzanian Juma Ikaanga: "The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare." The NYRRC store even carries a t-shirt with that inscription. Next to Rod Dixon kissing the ground after a come-from-behind victory, or Orlando Pizzolato reduced to walking in the heat, or German Silva turning the wrong way into Central Park, the most memorable image is Juma Ikaanga doing jumping jacks after he won the race, even as the other later runners were collapsing around him.

Snowy Kilimanjaro

The national anthem of Tanzania is Mungu ibariki Africa (God Bless Africa) (wav). The words are straightforward, with none of the bloodlust or vulgarity found elsewhere. The message is also universalist --- God bless Africa in the opening verse first, before coming to the country of Tanzania in the second verse. Can you imagine how the politicians here would react to a proposal for replacing God Bless America with God Bless North America (=USA + Canada + Mexico)!?

Mungu ibariki Africa
Wabariki Viongozi wake
Hekima Umoja na
Amani Hizi ni ngao zetu
Afrika na watu wake.

CHORUS

Ibariki Afrika
Ibariki Afrika
Tubariki watoto wa Afrika.

Mungu ibariki Tanzania
Dumisha uhuru na Umoja
Wake kwa Waume na Watoto
Mungu Ibariki Tanzania na watu wake.

CHORUS

Ibariki Tanzania
Ibariki Tanzania
Tubariki watoto wa Tanzania

God Bless Africa.
Bless its leaders.
Let Wisdom Unity and
Peace be the shield of
Africa and its people.

CHORUS

Bless Africa,
Bless Africa,
Bless the children of Africa.

God Bless Tanzania.
Grant eternal Freedom and Unity
To its sons and daughters.
God Bless Tanzania and its People.

CHORUS

Bless Tanzania,
Bless Tanzania,
Bless the children of Tanzania

ANCIENT HISTORY [9/4/02] A throwback to Graeme Reid's win on Sunday from the CPTC Newsletter of early 1997: "12/27/96 Cat Cay, Bahamas --- 46-year-old Mike Blake won the Cat Cay 19th Olympic Games Marathon. Having ran this 1.6 mile race before, he knew the course well. But not having raced or run much in the past year, he was praying for divine intervention. Halfway through the race and wondering where all the oxygen went and what a bear was doing in the Bahamas and on his back, Lady Luck appeared and directed the lead golf cart along with the two 18-year-old leaders off-course. Mike claimed that he tried to signal but no one heard. Mike went on to win the race. Protests from the irate mothers went to the deaf ears of the blind judges. The eventual 3rd place finisher claimed that he could beat Mike Blake any time. His mother claimed the same. But Mike claimed the bragging rights and is wondering how he is going to pull it off next year."
9/11 NYC RUNNERS UNITY RUN [9/3/02] From Toby Tanser: "Next week, on September 11th, we were thinking it would be great if all the NYC runners met at the Engineers Gate (90th Street and 5th Avenue, right by the Fred Lebow statue) and ran united. not in competition but in friendship. 7 PM - There is the big NIKE race on the weekend, 14th, but I thought just for the runners who want to reflect over a few shared miles. An open invitation to everyone."
TUESDAY TRACK WORKOUT REPORT [9/3/02] Nice warm evening, with sixty-four people at the workout. We were joined by the middle-distance group for this workout. This is what is meant when we say that things are getting out of hand as there was just a continuous stream of people going around and around. It was getting hard to start a group because there were no apparent gaps in the stream. Furthermore, the flood lights were not turned on after it became dark, so the final mile was problematic for the timers.

On Toby Tanser's website, which usually beats us in publishing the track workout reports, we read: "Down on the track - The big question is what does a certain CPTC person hide in his shoe fob? It was something lumpy (Editor's note; "It did not slow him down, I saw him sprint past you on a 200!")." Well, we don't have X-ray vision so we don't know what was hidden. We inquired but the person was not disclosing. So we posed a direct question that was dearest to our hearts, "So ... is this a NYRRC Board of Directors proxy form that you've have in there?" The answer was an emphatic "No" with a hint of annoyance, as the said person swore that he had already mailed his form back with a vote for the same Toby Tanser ...

The best message of the day came from Laura Lee Kozusko, the former Laura Lee Carter: "I know that I have my official wedding certificate and all that, but it doesn't really count until our website publishes my race result under my new name!" And we'll throw in a correctly titled photo too!

Laura Lee Kozusko

When the circumstances of Graeme Reid's win in the Manhattan 13.6 miler was briefly disclosed (for details, see next item), there was the sound and fury of James Siegel kicking up a tantrum. Meanwhile, Victor Osayi said, "Oh, yes, Graeme! At the Saturday 10K, Graeme took a short cut on the course and that was how he finished in front of me!" But the sermon that was preached to those present today was this, "You do what you have to do to win!"
MANHATTAN RUN [9/3/02] Here is the first-person account from Graeme Reid:

One race you had no chance of tracking down was the Manhattan Run 14 miler. It started at 220th and Broadway at 7am on Sunday 1st September. There were about 250 runners and the course was basically from 220th Street down the West Side to Battery Park City - although it actually finished at Ground Zero, which made the run about 13.6miles. It was described as a Fun Run, but when is any race on Manhattan a fun run?
But having run a blistering slow pace in the 10k on the Saturday, I was determined to treat this race as part of a 20 mile training run. I started at a very easy pace and was enjoying the sights and sounds of early morning Harlem, but still found I was in fourth place, a position which I was totally unaccustomed to. After about 6 miles the leading pack started to come back to me and I thought it might be nice to finish in the top three so increased my pace a little. The course turned onto the jogging path in Riverside Park around 72nd street, but the leading three runners obviously got a bit lost as it turned out I was now in the lead. However I did not know it at this stage and thought the leaders had moved ahead so I picked up the pace to bring them back into sight.
Around about 50th Street I realised that I was leading - now that was a completely new experience for me. I began to have thoughts of glory - winning a race on Manhattan - not for me The 'James Siegel' Run to Obscurity in the outback of New Jersey, but found that leading has it drawbacks - the water stations were not prepared (obviously not expecting such a top quality field) and the marshals seemed a bit startled that the lead runners were approaching.

Anyway I managed to hold on in a championship record time of 1:27:19, several minutes ahead of the field, but as the photographer was not ready at the finish line I had to re-enact my blistering finish for posterity - I'm sure that doesn't happen at the Olympics. No doubt as it was described as a fun run, I might not get my name on the roster of Central Park Track Club winners, but for me it will probably be the only race I ever win and I will gladly pay my $1 to coach Ruiz.

Historical note: Last month, Graeme Reid ran the Manhattan Half Marathon in a relatively slow time of 1:28:48 under extreme hot and humid conditions. Afterwards, he told our photographer: "The only reason that I kept running was to please you." P.S. For the record, Graeme's win does qualify as our 24th individual road win of the year.

MORE BOOK REVIEWS [9/3/92]: We would characterize ourselves as being not particularly good at either writing or doing research, but we would say that we are pretty good at picking other people apart while enjoying it. This all began when, once upon a time, some sadistic person made us read Geoffrey Hartman's Literature and Midrash in graduate school, and even if we are not Jewish, textual exegesis is still our game.

Recently, we came a bit late in the Ann Coulter post-mortem analysis because others have already done very thorough investigations (see, for example, the archives in DailyHowler.com or Dr. Limerick's website). Now, we would never ever say "Oh, we know that we could have done better" because that kind of attitude is a big "NO NO" around here, as we really don't respect people who say, "Oh, the times from that race were terribly slow. I would have won it easily if only I bothered to show up. But I was out drinking the night before and slept in late and I am meeting someone for brunch right now and we are going to the movies later. What? Why are you telling me that I will never understand how Wang Junxia was able to run the times that she did? I gotta go now ..."

Perhaps not all is lost yet, because along comes Sean Hannity and his book Let Freedom Ring. The preliminary assessment is that this book is also full of howlers (see Spinsanity), although Hannity does not go around telling terrorists to blow up the New York Times. But we don't think that we are going to invest time and money on a textual analysis, because we can leave that to our fair-minded conservative teammate who uses Lexis/Nexis all the time. Personally, we are much more interested in another aspect of Hannity's book as reported in MWO.

Hannity so far this week has said the following: He was a poli-sci major with a 3.5 at NYU (prove it!), he went to the seminary because he thought about being a priest and "everybody" wants him to run for everything from President to Dog Catcher because his non-book is on the NY TIMES best seller list at #3.

HELLO WORLD CAN I GET OFF? It does not take a poli-sci major to figure this out. Someone has just pre-ordered a sh*t load of the books, ah, someone like a REPUBLICAN.

To test the "best seller" theory, I PERSONALLY went to Borders, Barnes and Noble and Walmart (the most appropriate store) and requested the book. NO ONE HAS HEARD OF IT. I asked the customer service desk at Walmart if they have heard of the NY TIMES best selling author Sean Hannity and the girl said "Do you mean "Sean Puff Daddy Combs?" I said yeah, that who he is ...

What should we care? If you get on Google.com and search for "Soong + Granovetter", you will find many results that are related to topics such as tipping point, bandwagon effect, innovation adoption, diffusion, social contagion, pluralistic ignorance, spiral of silence, public opinions, etc. The theme of the Granovetter-Soong work can be reduced to this --- people can be influenced to buy something (i.e. products, services, ideas, fashion, etc) if they know that other people are buying it. In this context, buying large number of copies of a book/record to make sure that it catapults into the charts creates the buzz that this book/record is HOT and therefore a MUST! It is perfectly legal to play the rules of the game this way but it reeks of moral turpitude. So the more interesting research task is to obtain some data (e.g. Bookscan) and examine the purchasing patterns. Can we get a grant from someone ... ?

COMMENT ON LABOR DAY RACE RESULTS [9/2/02]
(1) At the Great Bonac 10K Foot Race, we saw the latest episode of the neverending feud between our John Kenney and someone named Kevin Barry. This time, Kevin was third and John was fourth. Kevin is better known to us as the brother of our Brian Barry. In the corresponding Great Bonac 5K Foot Race, we have Harriet Oster who belongs to one of our many golden eras, now at 60 years old.
(2) At the Labor Day 5K Run in South Plainfield, Ramon Bermo was third in 15:57 while Sid Howard ran 18:36. We note that there was a course change, so that this may be a short course on which Steven Paddock could have gone under 15:00 (note: we live sixty blocks away from him, but we are sure that we can hear him cursing when he reads this sentence).
(3) We know that you don't want to be ignored, but the results from the Henry Isola Cross-Country Race will take a few days before the NYRRC posts them.
(4) A late result was that our 16-year-old Naomi Reynolds won the Henry Isola Cross Country Four Miler, just after winning the last six Van Cortlandt summer series cross country races in a row.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT [9/3/02]: We have many new members joining us this year, so it will be wise to review the forthcoming training schedule. This refers solely to the the distance runners' group coached by Tony Ruiz. The sprinters (coached by Brian Denman) and the middle-distance runners (coached by Devon Sargent) operate on their own schedules.

In last Tuesday's workout report, we mentioned that it was got dark at the end. As summer fades, it will get darker earlier. Within a couple of weeks, the Tuesday workout will be moved forward to 6:30pm, and then to 6:00pm. Please listen to the announcements and check the email and the website. Regardless of how loudly and frequently we announce these changes, someone will show up late and get their names pubilshed here, but it doesn't have to be you if you pay attention. Running in the dark on the East River Park track is not as bad as it seems, because the track will be well-lit. Ten years ago, when the lights did not come on, we each brought a flashlight and we laid the flashlights around the track! We knew that George Herbert Walker Bush had said, "We can find meaning and reward by serving some purpose higher than ourselves-a shining purpose, the illumination of a thousand points of light" but this could not have been what he meant.

At the end of October, when Daylight Savings Time reverts back, we will quit East River Park. Instead, we will spend the month of November running Tuesday (and also Thursday) in Central Park at 7:00pm. In December, we will move into the indoor track at The Armory (168th Street and Fort Washington Avenue). This is a world-class indoor 200m track that was used this year for the national indoor championships. Those who want to use the Armory track will have to pay a user fee. The indoor track season continues until early April, when Daylight Savings Time kicks in and we move back to East River Park. This is our annual migratory cycle.

Oh, we remind you that the Thursday workouts will always be at the Daniel Webster statue, always at 7:00 pm, now and forever.

You will be reminded of these changes again and again, with details filled in as we get them.