Week of September 28, 2004 - October 4, 2004

A Drink With Something In It
October 4, 2004

We've never really understood the point of cocktails. Oh, sure, if all you've got is bathtub gin you need something to mask the taste, but Prohibition ended seven decades ago and high quality booze has never been more available. But people still insist on mixing beverages that have no business being in the same glass. That said, we're not sure if the arrival of a "new breed of serious ingredient-obsessed, purist bartenders, a few of whom actually call themselves bar chefs," is good or bad. If it means an end to such misbegotten concoctions as the choclitini, we're all for it. But if all we get is the same silly drinks with fresher ingredients, what's the point?

Not that we really care, since we don't drink these things anyway. Our own view is that any drink in which the name does not make clear all the ingredients (i.e., "flaming viking" as opposed to something like "gin and tonic") is instantly suspect. There are a few exceptions, like mojitos, and margaritas, though only when paired with the appropriate food or in the appropriate country. And we have no objection to classics like martinis, though we rarely drink them ourself. (By the way the proper proportion of gin to vermouth in a martini is roughly 7-1 for a regular martini, 15-1 for a Montgomery (so named by Ernest Hemingway in honor of the wussy British field marshal, who was scared to go into battle with any lighter odds), and for a truly dry martini you swish some vermouth around the glass, then pour it out and fill with gin. Garnish with olive, if you must.

But there is one part of this trend that would be wholly positive: an end to the cosmopolitan craze. Perhaps the worst of Sex and the City's many sins was making this offensive beverage so popular, but atleast some bartenders are rebelling against it:

"The cosmopolitan is a ridiculous cocktail," [Sasha] Petraske said. "If you offer it, people will never try anything different. I don't carry cranberry juice anymore, so I don't have to make them."

For the Record
October 4, 2004

Scott Johnson alerted us to a few more records that were set at the Toronto Waterfront Marathon. First, 93-year-old Fauja Singh ran 2:30:02 for the half marathon, setting another world record for 90+. Then Michal Kapral ran the full marathon in 2:49:43, which, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, makes him the fastest "Pram-Pusher" in history, as he pushed his 20-month-old daughter through the entire race. We bet Stuart Calderwood could give Mr. Kapral a run for his money...

Race for Rehab
October 4, 2004

The School of Public Health at New York Medical College present the annual Race for Rehab 5K on Sunday, October 24, on the campus of New York Medical College in Valhalla, to benefit the Achilles Track Club. The entry fee is $15 if you register by October 15; $20 on the day of the race. Teams of ten or more will receive a discounted price of $12. For more information and registration, see the web site, call 914-594-3603, or email Glyn Elizabeth Johnson at glyn_johnson@nymc.edu. If anyone wants to organize a CPTC group to get the discount, let us know, and we'll post the info here.

Members' Pages
October 4, 2004

Marty Levine noticed that we've reclassified his blog from "updated daily" to "updated regularly" (the new official designation, no matter now often someone posts) on our list of members' pages (you did know we have such a list, right?). While he expresses some concern that this might be a demotion – albeit an accurate one – it is really just a recognition of the fact that, of all our members, only Roland Soong updates his page daily, and even he misses a day once in a while, usually while in intercontinental transit. ( Toby Tanser comes close, but never touches his site on the weekends. John Scherrer posts several times a week, and Ligaya Mishan has only just begun her blog, and we hope she'll be too busy enjoying her travels to spend too much time on it. Are we missing anyone? Like we need to spend more time reading blogs...

Far East Racing Update
October 4, 2004

After a lapse of several months I jumped back into racing, finishing the Echigo Yuzawa Cosmos Half-Marathon. Echigo being the feudal name for the area, Yuzawa being the town name made famous in Yasunari Kawabata's Nobel Prize winning novel Snow Country (actually the Nobel Committee does not award on the basis of a single novel, but I digress) and finally Cosmos, the flower that blossoms in Autumn. Yuzawa is also known for its hot springs and nothing compares to a nice, long soak after a half-marathon in a big pool of hot water.

The race itself was bit of a return for me. Four years ago, at the tender age of 36, I ran this same race in a time of 1:32. The course has been slightly modified taking out one hill – but not the major climb – and I finished in 1:24:55. A painful race made more so by not stretching afterwards. I know, I feel the pain. And to top it off I ran my last race as a 39 year old and my last race as a non-veteran/masters runner, as I turned 40 hours after finishing the race. Which brings a very tricky question: I registered as a 39 year old, finishing 42/653 and 15th among the 39 year and unders. If I had registered as a 40-year-old, I would have improved considerably in the age standings and possibly won a medal. What would you have done?

— Charles Allard, Jr.

The Best Laid Schemes
October 4, 2004

This was the weekend we were going to tackle our ever-lengthening to-do list. After all, the only things we had planned were a short birthday party on Saturday afternoon and maybe the cross-country race on Sunday (which we then had to skip because of a potential injury that we'd rather not aggravate). And with the playoff races we cared about having already been settled, we foresaw no distractions from our chores, both personal and website-related. As it turned out, several other friends also had birthdays over the weekend, and our weekend went from too much free time to none at all. In the end, we had just enough time to post the results from yesterday's Norwegian races, but couldn't get to the photos from that race, or to any other results (although we have been getting all your emails about them). We'll get to all these over the next few days. Unless our brother was able to get Yankees' tickets for tomorrow night, in which case things may take a little longer.

Don't Bet On It
September 30, 2004

British researches of some sort predict that the winning times for the 100m dash at the 2156 Olympics will be 8.098 seconds for the men and 8.079 for the women. This will be the first race where women are faster than men. Alas, the researchers have no prediciton as to where these games will be held.

Restaurant Review
September 30, 2004

Remember when this site had restaurant reviews? Us neither, even though there's still a link on the front page. But maybe we don't need to bother, since the Times is now reviewing restaurants (in this case Petrosino on the Lower East Side) with an eye towards the needs of the athletic community:

The trofiette with shiitake mushrooms, truffle butter and Parmesan is recommended primarily for diners who have just completed triathlons or a long grub-noshing stint on the latest "Survivor."

We're guessing that means that the dish is big. Or that it's only edible if you're too tired or hungry to care about taste. C'mon, guys. Our volunteer reviewers were always clearer than that! And here we'd almost made it three days without complaining about the lack of good editors at the Times...

Bike Marshals Needed
September 30, 2004

The organizers of the MS Bike Tour are looking for marshals for the event on Sunday, October 17. Click here to sign up.

Tuesday Night Uptown Track Workout Reports – "More What You'd Call 'Guidelines' Than Actual Rules"
September 30, 2004

We don't know if there was lightning on Tuesday evening or not, but there definitely was a workout, and we even got this workout report from Coach Devon!

Yes, Frank, Micah, John A, Glen, Otto and David joined a crazy coach for practice on Tuesday. What dedicated athletes! The workout was changed to 400s due to excessive wind and torrential rain.

She calls that a workout report? Where's the gossip? The innuendo? The quotes taken out of context? The borderline-inappopriate interest in the women's field hockey team? Sigh.

UPDATE: We just got this report from Frank Handelman, which comes a little closer to our regular standards:

Lack of common sense indeed!  Six of us ran 400s under the watchful eye of Coach Martin in beautiful conditions at Baker Field - driving rain and wind, soaked track to be sure, but warm enough to get loose and to even peel off shirts that became water-logged extra poundage.  The kind of workout one can draw on in the last 200 meters of an 800 or mile late in the indoor season.  The Guinness and Smithwick drafts afterwards didn't hurt either.

That Smithwick is good stuff. If we'd known they were going out for drinks (and if we hadn't spent the whole evening drinking Sam Adams drafts, anyway), we just might have braved that weather after all!

A Passage to India
September 29, 2004

Ah for the good old days (say, three months ago), when our members would send us regular updates about their travels so that we didn't have to write so much ourself. Now our globetrotting members just set up their own blogs, like Ligaya Mishan who's started blogwallah to chronicle her travels through India, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, China, Japan and wherever else she and husband Ahrin may end up over the next few months. Bon Voyage, kids! The rest of you, keep checking her site for updates on the trip, or look here for occasional excerpts whenever we have nothing of our own to post.

Tuesday Night Track Workout Report, or "The Jeanne Genie"
September 29, 2004

No running from us. While the official rule remains "We (the team) run unless there is lightning," we (the writer) don't run in hurricanes or their detritus. However, we know that a few people did attempt a workout downtown, and we suspect that some of the uptown runners showed a similar lack of common sense.

Blame Canada
September 29, 2004

Montreal deserved better than this. So did the Expos. But after a long, campaign to screw over nous amis au nord, Major League Baseball has finally decided to end the charade and move the team to Washington, D.C. There are still a few details to be worked out, like who will own the team; who will run the team; where they'll play; how much Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos will have to be paid off to allow a new team in his territory; and the future of the raceketeering suit filed by the former limited partners against the former majority owner. The team will also need a new name, since most of the potential decisionmakers have ruled out calling it the Senators, which is what the last two D.C. teams were called.

Assuming this really is the end of the Expos (we won't believe it until we see the team in D.C. on Opening Day), it will have taken an even 10 years to kill the team. On August 12, 1994, the Expos had the best record in baseball, thanks to players like Pedro Martinez, Larry Walker, Moises Alous and John Wettland. Then came the strike, followed by owner Claude Brochu's dumping of most of his stars. Brochu spent the next five years neglecting to invest another dime in the team, before finally selling it in 1999.

Ufortunatly, new owner Jeffrey Loria proved to be even worse: he pullled the team off of TV and soon made it clear that he would like to see it eliminated for good. Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig tried to oblige him in that in 2001, but was stopped when the courts prevented the contraction of the Minnesota Twins that was to go along with the Expos' demise. (There was no reason to eliminate the Twins except that their owner Carl Polhad realized that the contraction fee was more than the potential sale price of the team.) By that time Selig had already started working out a deal to let Loria buy the Florida Marlins, which had become available when their owner, John Henry, was given the chance to trade up to ownership of the Boston Red Sox.

With the threat of contraction looming, no one was willing to buy the Expos, so Major League Baseball (i.e., the other 28 owners) bought out Loria and took control of the team. This was rather difficult, as Loria took the entire front office staff, along with all the office equipment that wasn't nailed down, with him when he moved to Miami. Not that to the owners, who thought they would only be stuck with the team for one season before eliminating it.

But when the owners and players signed a new deal in the summer of 1992, it included a promise that no teams would be contracted for at least five years, so MLB was stuck with the Expos. With no idea what to do the best idea they came up with was to move 22 of the Expos' home games to San Juan, Puerto Rico in 2003 and 2004 and limit the Expos' payroll to the point that the team couldn't even call up extra minor leaguers this September.

All the while Selig set and missed deadlines for deciding the future of the team before finally awarding the franchise to D.C., although there is no owner lined up yet, and the city may not approve the $440 million necessary to build the new stadium (as always, Selig rejects the idea of an owner paying for something that he can bilk the taxpayers out of instead).

And so, baseball's first international team comes to an end. Of course, it's all the Montreal fans' fault for not supporting their team enough, and not the three different owners who spent a decade doing everything in their power to alienate the fans and destroy the team. But there's still home for Montreal. Given the track record of baseball in D.C., the non-Senators should be looking to move in about 8-10 years. With no other cities able to host them, they just may find themselves back north of the border. Hopefully they'll have an owner by then.

Sprawl
September 29, 2004

A new study by the RAND Corporation has found a link between suburban sprawl and chronic health problems such as high blood pressure, arthritis, headaches and breathing difficulties. They note that "an adult who lives in a more sprawling city such as Atlanta will have a health profile similar to someone four years older –­ but otherwise similar ­– who lives in a more compact city such as Seattle." If those health problems look familiar, it's probably because most of them are also associated with obesity, a connection that didn't escape the notice of the study's co-author, Roland Sturm:

"We know from previous studies that suburban sprawl reduces the time people spend walking and increases the time they spend sitting in cars, and that is associated with higher obesity rates. This probably plays an important role in the health effects we observe."

Co-author Deborah Cohen added "To improve our health the study suggests that we should build cities where people feel comfortable walking and are not so dependent on cars." Which is not really news, but, since we made a big deal yesterady about the importance of verifying the "accepted wisdom" before accepting it, we thought we'd share some additional facts to back up our anti-sprawl arguments. The full study is available in Public Health magazine, so if any of you subscribe to that and could send a copy our way, we'd really appreciate it.

West Side Stadium
September 29, 2004

Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff told a breakfast forum sponsored by Crain's New York Business that, while he believes a majority of New Yorkers support the plan to build a stadium for the Jets on the West Side, he would not put it to a referendum because "We don't do that sort of thing here in New York." Well, that's a strong argument for that; we're convinced now. And you know what we also don't do here? WASTE TAXPAYERS' MONEY ON BOONDOGGLES LIKE THIS!!! (Though plenty of our money goes to smaller boondoggles.)

We suspect Doctoroff's hesitance to ask the people what they think may have something to do with the fact that a bare minimum of New Yorkers (54% for, 41% against) support the stadium if they believe it will generate enough income to pay off the $600 million the city and state will have to pay (although we suspect that real cost would turn out to be higher) while the proposal loses by a whopping 78%-19% if, as likely, the costs would not be recouped.

New Photo Page
September 29, 2004

No, not here, although we may have some more pictures up soon (we're even contemplating dragging our achy bones out of bed at whatever unreasonable dark o'clock hour on Sunday morning to take pictures at Grete's Great Gallop.) Until then, check out these new pages on the NYRR site focusing on top local runners. Of course, many of our runners (including Kate Irivn and Andrea Haver, who can both be seen in the inaugural page for the new section) already show up regularly on NYRR's Fast Women site, but we know that it's impossible to have too many photos.

And speaking of photos, check out this one of Kobie Fuller in an ad that will soon run in magazines like Runner's World. As always, click on the photo to enlarge.

On the Right Track
September 28, 2004

Ever get stuck running in an outside lane on the track and wondered exactly how far you really ran? John Roberts sent us this link to this page which lets you calculate exact distances for each lane. Now we just need somebody to measure the width of the track.

Sheer Genius
September 28, 2004

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation named its annual MacArthur Fellows (better known as "Genius Grant" recipients) yesterday and once again we were snubbed. Then again, so was the only certified genius we know of:

The Kids Call it "Daily"
September 28, 2004

A recent study by the National Annenberg Election Survey shows that people who watch Comedy Central's "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" are "are more likely to know the issue positions and backgrounds of presidential candidates than people who do not watch late-night comedy." Which is amazing considering that, according to Bill O'Reilly, the audience of "The Daily Show'" consists mainly of "stoned slackers," 87% of whom are high while they watch the show.

Okay, so O'Reilly was probably either joking – showing why it's Stewart and not O'Reilly who has a job in comedy – or simply jealous of Stewart's popularity both with fans and politicians ("John Kerry bypassed me and went right over to you. You're only four blocks away. He said, 'O'Reilly, I don't think so. Stewart, I'm going to go talk to you.'"). And sensible people would have ignored him either way. But Comedy Central took it seriously enough to get the Nielsen people to break down the numbers and show that people who watch "The Daily Show" are better educated than those who watch "The O'Reilly Factor." Although, as the Associated Press noted, "Comedy Central had no statistics on how many people watch 'The Daily Show' stoned."(For that matter, Fox has no statistics on whether anyone watches "The O'Reilly Factor" stoned, although we don't see why anyone would.)

We mention all this not because we're in that 87%, or because we're one of those people who wants Jon Stewart to tell us who to vote for, but rather as an overly-long way of leading in to the fact that we just got America (The Book), and it's hilarious.

Banned Book Week
September 28, 2004

This week is Banned Book Week, so let's all get together and ban some books! What? It's against banning books? Well, what fun is that? Why let people read these subversive books that might put ideas into their heads?

Lies, Damned Lies and Carbohydrates
September 28, 2004

Clyde Haberman in the Times writes the following about financial problems at Krispy Kreme, Entenmann's and Interstate Bakeries (maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread): "Accepted wisdom is that all of these companies are suffering because of diet fads that have made carbohydrates the Osama bin Laden of nutrients."

Anyone who bothered to check the story a bit would see that Atkins et al. make a weak culprit, since the number of Americans on low-carb diets peaked at a mere 9% in January, and has dropped to 7% since then. Plus, there's no diet out there that recommends eating donuts or twinkies, so unless all the new converts to low-carb diets were not following any diet before, their consumption of junk food shouldn't change too much.

Interstate Bakeries' bankruptcy stems from all sorts of problems at that company, while Slate debunked the idea that low-carb diets were to blame for Krispy Kreme's problems back in May. Not to be deterred, Krispy Kreme then claimed that "Gasoline prices have gotten so high that people are no longer willing to drive to the doughnut shop," which didn't match the evidence suggesting that higher prices didn't change American's driving habits (see here and here).

So why does Haberman say that the "accepted wisdom" is that low-carb diets cause otherwise healthy companies to suffer? Because plenty of journalists have been repeating that claim all over the place, without ever providing any facts to back it up. The journalists probably got the idea from the CEOs of Krispy Kreme and Interstate Bakeries, who were trying to shift the blame for their problems away from their own mistakes

It's easy to believe that the low-carb diet fad would hurt sales of bread products, but that doesn't make it true. And journalists should spend a few minutes researching the data before making such a claim. (They could start be looking at all the bread companies that haven't been hurt by the low-carb craze.) Instead they usually swallow any line that reflects the "accepted wisdom," and, as Daniel Radosh put it, "lazy punditry becom[es] lazy public opinion."

This might seem like a minor issue that's not worth getting worked up about, but if the media can't get the easy stuff right, how the hell will they get the real dirt on the difficult stories?

Week of September 21, 2004 - September 27, 2004

Cross Country Races
September 27, 2004

We are trying to get full teams for some Cross Country meets, including the following:

October 10th - USATF-NJ 5k XC Championships Holmdel, NJ
MUST HAVE USATF CARD
Mens Race -10:30 am
Womens Race - 11:30 am

October 24th - Mayor's Cup, Franklin Park, Boston
Mens race 8k 12:00pm

November 14th - THE $5,000 GVH CROSS COUNTRY INVITATIONAL,
GENESEE VALLEY PARK , Rochester, NY
10:15am: Championship Women's 6km
11:00am: Championship Men's 8km

Please email Sue Pearsall at spear15102@yahoo.com if you are interested in any of the races listed.

Cars Out of Central Park
September 27, 2004

TOWN HALL RALLY FOR A CAR-FREE CENTRAL PARK LOOP DRIVE
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26 FROM 7:00 TO 8:30 PM

After years of tirelessly collecting signatures (75,000+ at present) for a petition to ban cars from the Central Park loop drive, Transportation Alternatives is getting a hearing on the issue. City officials and the media will be sure to gauge public support for a car-free loop drive based on the turnout. Please plan to show up at 160 Central Park West (at 76th Street) to lend your support for the initiative that is so vital to those who run in Central Park. For more information about the rally — and to r.s.v.p. — click here or call Stacy Creamer at 212-782-8218 (day)/ 212-749-8145 (evening) or email her at screamer@randomhouse.com.

Getting Better With Age
September 27, 2004

Apparently not every age group record can belong to CPTC. At least, not until we get Ed Whitlock on our team. Last year Whitlock became the frirst 70+ runner to break 3:00 when he ran 2:59:10 in Toronto. On Sunday, again in Toronto, he dropped that to 2:54:45, which was good for 24th place. And his splits (1:27:31, 1:27:14) were practically Angell-esque (as in Margaret Angell, whose splits at the Olympic Trials were only 8 seconds apart).

That and a Logo Will Get You on the Subway
September 27, 2004

It's amazing how many staffers there at the New York Times who don't seem to know anything about New York itself. The latest evidence came in Virginia Heffernan's review of the new show Clubhouse: "The Empires [the fictional team in the series] wear white uniforms striped with blue; their logo brings to mind that of an American League team that plays in the Bronx." We're assuming she means the Yankees, (the series is based on Matt McGough's expereinces as a Yankees' bat boy, but you can never be sure with the Times), which means she think these two logos look similar:

New York Yankees	New York Empires

(That guy in front of the Empires' logo is series star Jeremy Sumpter, because we couldn't find a photo of just the logo.)

Well, we suppose if you squint just right, and have never seen any other logo with the letter N and Y in them, you might see a connection. But that would imply having never seen the following logos, which are also based primarily or entirerly on those two letters:

New York Mets	New York Giants	New York Islanders	New York Knights

True, the first three don't look much like the Empires' logo (and even most hockey fans don't pay attention to the Islanders), but the Knights' logo comes closer than the Yankees', which is fitting since the Knights were the fictional team Roy Hobbs'played for in The Natural. But there's more than just sports logos to consider. And, while Heffernan may have moved to New York during the Metrocard age, there outght to be some editor there that remembers these:

Subway Token 1953-1970	Subway Token 1970-1980	Subway Token 1980-1985

The middle ones are availabe as cufflinks or as a wristwatch, for those looking to bribe their favorite webmaster.

Oh, one other line from the review: "Soon there's a girl, too, Jessie (Leah Pipes), who though she has a 718 phone number sounds a little bit Spence or Dalton." While it may seem like all the students at these schools are from the Upper East Side, there actually are snotty rich teenagers all over the city. With absolutely no basis for it (like we actually watch network shows), we're going to assume that Jessie lives in Riverdale.

Marathon Study
September 27, 2004

Another request:

I am a doctoral student at The George Washington University, embarking on my dissertation research.

The intent of this research is to measure non-physical changes that are experienced by individuals completing their first marathon. These changes focus on how the individual approaches new tasks.

To be part of this study you must have signed up for (or started training for) a marathon recently (in the last few weeks) or are planning to sign up for a marathon within the next year. Anticipated completion time is NOT a consideration for eligibility to participate in this study.

As part of the study you will be asked to fill out a questionnaire. This should take less than 30 minutes.

After your marathon date, you will be sent another copy of the questionnaire to complete. This will need to be filled out 2 to 3 weeks after you complete your marathon.

Surveys will be sent to you via email. The first will be sent within a few days of signing up for the study. The second will be sent about two weeks after your marathon date. You will be asked to return the completed surveys via email.

There will be a third optional phase, in addition to the first 2 phases. This will be a short interview that should last less than 30 minutes. You can choose to participate in just the first two stages of this study, or all three. If you choose to participate in the follow-up interviews they can be done either in person or by phone.

To signup please go to www.bke-associates.com and select ‘research’. If you have any questions feel free to contact me at bea@bke-associates.com or call 410-353-4722.

Thanks.

— Bea Carson

What Shall Be Our Sport, Then?
September 24, 2004

As we've stated before, we would define sport generally as "an athletic competition in which there is an objective winner." (In other words, anything with judges, like gymnastics or figure skating, is out.) Bill Simmons proposed a broader definition along these same lines in his "Sports Guy" column on Page 2:

Q: I've come up with a legitimate rule to determine whether or not a given activity is a sport. If a girl who's say, at least a B cup DOESN'T need a sports bra in order to participate, it's NOT a sport. This definitely rules out activities such as bowling, billiards and golf. (The only exception here is for sports that take place in water, as the swimsuit acts as a sports bra.) Note that this can only be applied to eliminate activities as sports -- there are definitely activites out there that require a sports bra but aren't sports -- like say, jump rope. Otherwise, I think it works well. What are your thoughts?
--Elizabeth M., Munter, Ga.

Sports Guy: I like any sports definition that relies on sports bras and cup sizes to succeed. You need a few more guidelines though:

1. If you can smoke and/or drink while you're competing, it's not a real sport.

2. If you don't need to shower after you're finished competing, it's not a real sport.

3. If judges are deciding the winners and losers, it's not a real sport.

4. If competing at a world-class level means you have to give up your childhood, as well as eating three times a day, having a menstrual cycle, having body hair and breasts, and being taller than 5-foot-3, it's probably not a sport.

5. If you're wearing a shirt that has your name written on the front pocket in script writing, it's not a real sport.

6. If one of the announcers for the sport spawns questions from viewers like, "Hey, is that Ant from 'Last Comic Standing'?" and "Wait a second ... is he crying?", then it's probably not a real sport.

So I'm with you, Elizabeth. Some things should be called "sports," other things should be called "competitions." Both sides can operate under the same sports umbrella ... we just need to remember the difference between the two.

Alas, as the Olympics insists upon including events that cleary violate these definitions (gymnastics, air rifle, dressage), this doesn't help us to determine which competitions belong in the summer games. Which matters because golf, rugby, squash, karate and roller sports all are being considered for inclusion in the 2012 games. Since IOC President Jacques Rogge has made it clear that he won't increase the number of events, any new sport (or non-sport) will only be added at the expense of baseball, softball or modern pentathlon, all of which are threatened with elimination.

Of the proposed events, golf seems both the most suspect (it fails most of the tests above), and the least deserving of inclusion. In golf, like in tennis, the top international players compete against each other almost every weekend. The Olympics would be just another tournament on an over-crowded calendar, instead of the ultimate competition it is in most other events. And neither the European nor the PGA tours have shown any excitement over having golf in the Olympics.

Karate would probably require judging. Roller sports encompasses five categories: artistic, downhill, hockey, inline hockey and speed events. Some of these sound fine for the X Games; others, like inline hockey (which we used to play fairly often) and speed events, are cheap summer copies of Winter Olympics sports.

We're fine with squash or rugby (although we've never managed to undestand it), but not if it means getting rid of baseball, softball or modern pentathlon. Although we wouldn't complain about the elimination of rhythmic gymnastics or soccer, the latter only because everyone international competitions like the World Cup or even the European Cup are much more prestigious than the Olympics. And we feel that the Olympics should be restricted to those sports where winning an Olympics medal is the highest honor out there. Yes, this should disqualify baseball, but we still hold out hope that Bud Selig will come to his sense and let major league players participate in the Olympics, which would make it the top event for the sport.

But perhaps we should be thankful that the debate over inclusion is being limited to these five events, since the IOC recognizes 30 "sports" that are not included in the games:

Air sports	Netball
Automobile	Orienteering
Bandy	Pelote Basque
Billiard Sports	Polo
Boules	Powerboating
Bowling	Racquetball
Bridge	Roller Sports
Chess	Rugby
DanceSport	Squash
Golf	Surfing
Karate	Sumo
Korfball	Tug of War
Life Saving	Underwater Sports
Motorcycle Racing	Water Skiing
Mountaineering and Climbing	Wushu

Foget squash. Let's see tug of war return to the Olympics!

Thursday Night Road Workout Report
September 24, 2004

Outside the realm of quantum physics it is impossible for an object to be in two places at the same time. As quantum physics only applies on a subatomic level, and all human beings are much larger than that, it follows that no person can be in two places at one time. This causes no small amount of inconvenience in everyday life, particularly when there are two Central Park workouts meeting at the same time. For most of the past year we have chosen to attend, and therefore to report on, the middle distance workouts, but for the next month or so we plan to spend our Thursday evenings in Central Park.

While this was not our first return to a road workout, we still saw it as a good opportunity to examine the differences a year makes. The most obvious change has been the replacement of the overgrown shrubbery around the Daniel Webster statue with much shorter forms of flora. The next thing we noticed was the number of new faces at the workout. No doubt they were familiar to the regular attendees at these workouts, but from our stanpoint nearly one-quarter of the 48 runners present were strangers. Some faces we did recognize belonged to Sarah Rivlin, who ran with the team last summer before moving to New Jersey, and now moving back; Alan Bautista, who was at his first road workout since returning from the Middle East; and Kurt Matarazzo, who stopped by for his last workout before moving to Key West (we're thinking there ought to be a team trip to visit him, maybe for the annual Hemingway Days festival).

Perhaps the biggest change was in the workout's starting time. Coach Tony started his announcements at 7:00 on the dot. Of course, he still took 21 minutes to get through just a recap of the Philly Distance Run results (basically all those PRs we listed earlier this week, plus some extra thanks to Kevin Arlyck for organizing everything, and some observations from Stuart Calderwood on the helpfulness of having teammate around while you race) and a description of the night's workout. No doubt he would have taken even more time if it were not for the fact that, thanks to the several thousand mosquitoes who also showed up at the statue, we were all literally itching to start the workout.

The workout itself took place mostly on the track around the reservoir which was not as crowded as it normally is. This was probably due in large part to the large number of lights along the track that were not working, but we suspect some runners were simply scared away by the sound of Tony's voice, which was loud enough to be heard at every point along the water. With three loops around the track, we heard it a lot, especially as we spent half the time running alone, chasing the back of our group. Eventually we caught up to them, and got to hear better things, like Nicole asking for someone to physically push her through the last one-mile pickup. She got no takers, but managed to finish the workout in fine strength nonetheless.

The workout's end mirrored its beginning, as most of the runners hung around the exit from the reservoir for a while, and then jogged back to the statue where they hung around some more. It is entirely possible that a few of them are acutally still there.

Diet Camp
September 23, 2004

Here's another well-intentioned program that probably won't help too much – a boarding school to help overweight and obese children lose weight. Which is good for those overweight kids whose parents have $5,500/month to spare (although scholarships are planned for sometime in the future), but most of the kids with severe weight problems don't have that kind of money. The real question is whether the kids actually lose weight and keep it off, and the school is too new for any data on that.

But We Do Post When We've Been Smoking Crack
September 23, 2004

Seeing this post from a member of the Manhattan Track Club reminded us why we don't update this page when we've been drinking.

NY Pioneer Club Race
September 22, 2004

Don't want to run 18 Miles this Sunday? The New York Pioneer Club is offering a Cross Country 5K at Van Cortlandt instead. Registration opens at 10:00 am, and the race starts at 11:00 am. And it's only $5! For more info, call 201.220.3628, or just show up on Sunday.

Carbo-Lies
September 22, 2004

Normally we wouldn't read any more of an article that starts "You may think that a genuine interest in consumer health prompts food companies to market products that claim to reduce the risk of heart disease or cancer or help people lose weight. Think again." After all, just because the Times assumes we're naive doesn't mean that we are. But this is actually a good article on all the misleading labeling in the food industry, particularly the meaninglessness of all those "low-carb" labels. It's scary to see what kinds of products can legally be defined as healthy.

Central Park Tykes Club
September 22, 2004

One of these days we're going to add a separate section for members' kids. Until then, all the baby pictures go here, including this one of Michael Mahedy (son of Nick):

Tuesday Night Uptown Track Workout Report
September 22, 2004

We hesitate to even publish this report, as it will be so scanty on details. But we are required to do so posterity's sake, even though we arrived late and missed anything that might be worth reporting. Yes, we were there for the running part of the workout, but the only thing about that worth reporting is that everyone was a little discombubulated by the presence of a field hockey ball lying immbile in lane one of the track. We suspect our downtown counterparts, experienced as they are in the art of avoiding much larger balls that are usually still in motion, would have laughed at the sight of this.

Otherwise, there were 12 people there, the workout started just after 7:30, the weather was perfect (again), and everyone took off for home when we were done without saying or doing anything worth recounting. Except that it was Ligaya's last workout before she embarks on her grand tour of Asia and the Pacific. Don't worry; she's briging her running shoes with her.

Week of September 14, 2004 - September 20, 2004

Philadelphia Distance Run
September 20, 2004

Two reports on the Philadelphia Distance Run. First, from Kevin Arlyck, who did a great job organizing CPTC's trip to the City of Brotherly Love:

There were at least seven personal records broken yesterday, topped by new member Neil Brenner's incredible PR of over 3 minutes (dating from last month!), and Joe Tumbarello's mind-boggling five-minute annihilation of his previous best!

On the team side, each of our five squads placed among the top five in their respective categories (2 seconds, 2 thirds, and a fifth), including valiant performances by the understaffed men's and women's masters teams.

And more on the PRs from Yves-Marc Courtines:

2 1/2 Minute PR for Jim McQuade – all done in the last 4 miles (3 minute negative split)

5 minute PR for Joe T.

0:30 second PR for YMC

Fastest time for Stuart in 4 years

Likely PRs for Elizabeth Kaicher, Kevin A., Kevan H. and Michael Rymer.

PR for Neil Brenner

Shelly Farmer had her strongest run in years – and beat her expected time by
5 minutes.

Fairly windy, good weather, and had to avoid an overflooded muddy riverbank of the Schuylkill River at mile 8. They literally brought in the heavy guns to clear it out about 1 hour before the run started – and the race still started right on time. Maybe NYRRC & Parks Dept could learn something about crisis management.

Cupcakes for a Cause
September 19, 2004

As any fan of desserts can tell you, the only thing cupcakes lack is some way of helping the world while you eat them. Thankfully, CancerCare for Kids has rectified that by teaming up with some local bakeries to bring you Cupcakes for a Cause. Just stop by any of the participating bakeries this week (September 20-24), mention Cupcakes for a Cause, and a portion of the proceeds from your purchase will go towards providing free professional support services to children and families affected by cancer. Buy 60 cupcakes and you get a free gift. Buy more cupcakes than anyone else and you win a special culinary treat. For more info, contact Stacey Johnson (sister of our own Scott Johnson) at sjohnson@cancercare.org or 212-712-8021.

At Least No One Thinks Harpo Said It
September 19, 2004

Most Sunday mornings we have better things to do than watch the talk shows, like run or sleep or try to figure out which gutter we've woken up in. But this morning we finished our run earlier than usual and had a little time to kill before heading out to 200 Fifth to watch as many football games as possible at the same time, so we flipped on the TV and caught about four minutes of Face the Nation. Just four minutes, because that's how long it took before we heard ex-Ambassador Richard Holbrooke say that listening to Sen. Jon Kyl "reminds me of the old Groucho Marx line, 'Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?'"

Somehow we managed to avoid smashing our television in frustration. Not that we disagreed with Holbrooke (Kyl's comments had no connection to reality), but we can't stand it when people get quotes wrong. And Groucho never said "Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?" Chico said it to Margaret Dumont, while disguised as Groucho in Duck Soup. (Technically speaking, Chicolini said it to Mrs. Teasedale while disguised as Rufus T. Firefly, but character names have never been all that important in the Marx Brothers movies.) But it's not much of a disguise, and anyone but Mrs. Teasedale (and, perhaps, the real life Dumont, who was, by many accounts, none too bright) would have seen right through it.

Or so we thought until this morning. Even worse, it turns out that Holbrooke is not alone in this mistake; a quick Google search turned up an incredible number of articles and websites that attribute the quote to Groucho. Are all these people so dumb that they can't tell the difference between Groucho and Chico, or are they just philistines who have never actually seen Duck Soup? We hope it's the latter, since it's easier to correct ignorance than stupidity. Quite easy in this case, since Duck Soup is finally coming out on DVD this November. Which is also when wel start working on the top photos of the year and the website awards. Not that we're suggesting thta you might want to bribe us with the DVD, or anything.

Who Would Ever Suspect FOX of Overhyping Something?
September 18, 2004

We appreciate the value of a good rivalry, and the Star Wars comparisons were amusing, if predictable (Johny Damon as Chewbacca doesn't take that much imagination). But considering both teams will probably make the playoffs, it's a stretch to call today's Yankees-Red Sox game the biggest event in sports right now. Yes, it's more important than whatever golf tournament is going on, but unless one of these two teams nosedives over the next two weeks and a team from the AL West grabs the wild card, this isn't even the biggest event in baseball right now. As a certified Yankee-Hater®, we wouldn't mind seeing the Sox take the division, the A's hold on in the West, and the Angels take the wild card. Yes, we complained about the Angels in the past, but we love their new owner, Arte Moreno, whose first move after buying the team was to lower ticket and beer prices, and then followed it up by signing good players. If only he'd bought the Mets instead.

On another baseball note, Jeff Brantley said on Baseball Tonight yesterday that suspending Frank Francisco for the rest of the season was too harsh because it costs the Texas Rangers a player when they're right in the middle of the playoff hunt. Too bad. Francisco was suspended because he threw a chair into the stands, breaking a woman's nose, in response to heckling from some Oakland A's' fans. He should be suspended for the rest of this season and all of next season, in addition to any penalties the civil and criminal courts decide to impose. And Brantley – and any other commentator who tries to excuse Francisco's behavior by saying that fans go too far in their heckling of players on the field – should have a chair thrown at his head for being an idiot.

Fools in the Rain
September 18, 2004

Don't we have some sort of team rule about how we don't run when there is lightning? And if that rule is still in effect, what were all those people doing at the race this morning? Or was there only lightning in Brooklyn, ruining our own little run in the rain? We doubt it, but perhaps it was the presence of that lightning that made everyone run so fast, and got CPTC first place in the open division.

Cars Out of Central Park
September 17, 2004

Want to do more than just sign your name to a petition several dozen times? Head over to Transportation Alternatives' Town Hall Rally for a Car-Free Central Park Loop Drive at Landmark on the Park (CPW and 76th Street) on Tuesday, October 26 from 7:00 - 8:30 pm. Space is limited, so you'll need to reserve a spot. Media folks and city officials will be there, along with special guests like Kenneth T, Jackson, editor of the Encylopedia of New York City.

The Greatest Race on Earth
September 17, 2004

Or so the organizers call it. It's actually four races – all marathons – in four cities, over four months. And you don't have to run them all yourself but instead run as part of a four-person team. On the other hand, with over $1 million in prize money, and the chance to run marathons in Nairobi, Singapore, Mumbai and Hong Kong, maybe this actually is the Greatest Race on Earth. Since the Nairobi marathon is on October 24, anyone interested in setting up a team should probably get started now. You can also run all four races on your own, but we'd prefer it if you didn't, since we don't want to get the whole "overracing" debate started up again.

Thursday Night Workout Report
September 17, 2004

A minor wit observed once that "Jewish holidays are never on time; they're always either early or late." They also, in recent years, have seemed to land exclusively on days that cause us to miss workouts. Which woked out this time, since we're still sore from Tuesday's workout.

Masters Cross-Country Championships
September 16, 2004

CPTC is looking to put together a men's masters team for the USA Masters 8K XC Championships on November 7 in Franklin Park in Boston. If you are interested, please contact Devon Martin at dmartin@cravath.com.

Hey, Hey Paula
September 16, 2004

Paula Radcliffe explains what happened during the Olympic marathon.

Fat and Taxes
September 16, 2004

We sometimes question the wisdom of using the tax code to influence people's behavior. Unless it will save us money, in which case we always support it. So we were glad to see that not only is Germany's finance minister proposing a "fat tax" in the form of higher insurance premiums for overweight citizens (and also those who participate in the "risky sports"), but also that over in Britain the Royal College of General Practitioners has suggested making money spent on sports and exercise tax deductible. Quoth Dr. Graham Archard, chair of the college's clinical network:

With about 22 percent of the UK adult population obese, this is an issue of growing concern to the medical community. More needs to be done to ensure sport is available to all. Most people can't afford sports such as tennis at the moment. One idea might be to offer tax relief on exercise — after all, obese people are likely to use more National Health Service resources than fit and healthy people.

Neville Rigby of the International Obesity Task Force thinks it's a good start, but points out that "Tax breaks tend to benefit people who can afford it anyway. Many people can't afford the sports club membership fees for which they would get a tax break." And it's true that people who can afford $800 gym memberships and $8,000 bicycles will get most of the benefit from this (although a year's worth of running shoes ain't cheap either), while the poorest people pay almost no taxes, and therefore get no benefit fom deductions.

But obesity cuts across class lines, and a range of solutions will be needed. While tax deductions may not be the most effective solution – getting people to join a gym is not the same as getting them to exercise – at least the British are taking the issue seriously (see the Report on Obesity by the House of Commons Health Committee). As well they should, since it is estimated that obesity costs them 18 million sick days, £2 billion and 30,000 lives a year.

Compare that to the United States – with costs estimated at $75 billion and 400,000 lives per year – where Congress seems more concerned with protecting the food industry from either litigation or bad press (the proposed "Obesity Prevention Act" would, if it ever got out of committee, offer grant money only on the condition that the funds "shall not be used to disparage any agricultural commodity, food, or beverage") than with promoting healthy diets, and often seems unaware that physical exercise even exists. A few local governments have started to address the obesity epidemic, but this is a problem that needs attention from the federal government.

Tuesday Night Uptown Track Workout Report
September 16, 2004

Apparently, taking 4-6 weeks off from speed work can lead to intervals that are both slower and more painful than usual. That, at least, is the conclusion we draw from both our own experience at the track on Tuesday night and that of John Affleck (see the Famous Quotes page for more on that). Most of the other 10 runners present had been through their own aches and pains last week, with the notable exceptions of Frank Handleman, who was returning from an injury that cost him several months of training; Leon Brown, who took his time off earlier in the summer; and Micah Adriani, who still hasn't run a race this year, and therfore had no season from which to need a break after.

It was a perfect night for a return, too: cool, with a bit of a breeze. Plus, bored runners could watch the field hockey team practice before their own workout started. It's not quite real hockey, but at least there isn't a lockout! And unlike the soccer players at the downtown track, these girls didn't try to hit us with wild shots. Not that they needed to, since Chris Price created his own danger by kicking various stray hockey balls around the track.

Timing being everything, the co-eds left just as we all finished our warm ups, allowing Marvin Cabrera to show up without the fact that he was clad entirely in the same shade of blue as Columbia's athletes create any sort of fashion faux pas. About the 600m and 800m intervals that followed we have no further comment, as it is the custom of these reports to say as little as possible about the workouts themselves. Well, just one comment this time: "Ow."

After the workout ended Ligaya Mishan rushed home to pack for her impending seven-month tour of India and Southeast Asia, which will probably keep her from running any track races for a while, and definitely kept her from hanging out with Armando Oliveira and Jessica Reifer, who stopped by, joined us all for the cooldown, and then continued on with their run. Too bad, because they missed the impromptu after-workout dinner that Coach Devon suggested just before reaching the subway station. Although we wonder about any restaurant/bar that has a sign reading "Proper attire required," but still lets four people in running clothes eat there.

It Ain't So!
Septmber 15, 2004

It was all a joke. Let's Run is back. There goes all our free time...

Runner Needed for Reach the Beach
September 15, 2004

The New York Flyers' are looking for one more person for their Reach the Beach relay team this Friday and Saturday. If you are interested please contact Marjorie Lasky.

Welcome New Members
September 14, 2004

Welcome to our newest members, Neil Brenner and Michael Rennak. Recruitment points go to Stuart Calderwood and Stacy Creamer. This gives Stacy two points for the year, tying her with John Gleason for the lead. Unless she's inelligible. We've can never keep track.

Say It Ain't So WeJo...
September 14, 2004

What Let's Run looks like today:

Now how will we waste time?

Week of September 7, 2004 - September 13, 2004

Say What?
September 13, 2004

If you've used the Babel Fish translation site, you've probably translated some text from English to a foreign language and back again just to laugh at the results. And you may gave wondered how much funnier the result would be if you translated a phrase from English to French and back to English, and then repeated the process with German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. Normally that would take a lot of time, but some folks with nothing better to do have created the Babelizer, which does all the translations for you, and will even throw in Japanese, Chinese and Korean. Even better, it lets you see each result along the way, so you can see how:

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

ends up as this:

Eighty and our parents are seven years, the that one who obtain in this a new continent of the nation, in where freedom is understood here and he asks she who dedicates the one to it that those all such men are manufactured.

or, with the Asian languages included, this:

Is situation 80 he and is 7 years introduces liberations new of the equality the country? Of this place it can introduce to the whole person with the l interior of this continent in l'avant to our parents with consideration SAMNESS, was internal internal part and everything, was complete and this that was explained was used.

For real translations of the Gettysburg Addres into 28 different languages, see the Library of Congress' site.

Meet the Press
September 13, 2004

JT Mann gets a little of the media coverage he deserves from his hometown paper. The article's not online, but we've got a nice scan of it here (we've also got the original of the photo they used).

S.O.S.
September 13, 2004

The Times has discovered the Survival of the Shawangunks. They don't really have anything to say about it, though. We'll just tell you that Scott Willett and Ross Galitsky took first and third, respectively, in the M40-44 age group, and Dave Delano was 4th male 55-59.

West Side Stadium
September 12, 2004

Mayor Mike warned today:

"I don't think anybody should make any mistake about it: if we were to not get this [Jets' West Side] stadium going very soon, we would have to drop out of the competition for the Olympics. We are not going to get the Olympics unless you have the stadium going."

Getting past the atrocious use of grammar in that statment, that's the best news we've heard yet, since New York City has no chance of getting the games. Well, not actually no chance (Ladbrokes thinks we have an 8-1 chance of getting the games, with Paris a 1-2 favorite), but close. If New York City drops its bid for the 2012 games, then we can have a debate on the stadium that focuses on the plan's merits, and not on sentimental appeals to support Olympians. The plans for the stadium certainly look nice, but backers of the stadium have provided no good evidence that makes it worth the $600 million that the taxpayers are being asked to put up (and that number will surely rise if the project ever gets under way). The Jets say they're willing to spend $800 million towards construction of the West Side Stadium. For that money they can build an entire stadium somewhere else, and the city can spend its money on better things.

You Are What You Don't Eat
September 12, 2004

Thanks to a very selective reading of the Times this week (i.e., ignoring any article in which the paper presumes to be in touch with modern culture), we managed to make it all the way to Friday before coming across anything that really annoyed us. And then we got to work on the crossword puzzle, and came to 22-down ("In modern lingo, a vegetarian who occasionally eats meat") and its answer, "flexitarian."

We've been hearing this word for a while, but we still get annoyed every time we come across it. Because a vegetarian is, by defintion, a person who doesn't eat meat. A "vegetarian who occasionally eats meat" is not a "flexitarian," but rather a normal human being who happens to eat less meat that other people. We're generally opposed to vegetarianism (if we aren't meant to eat animals, why are they made out of meat?), but we can at least respect those who chose not to eat meat and then stick to their decision. Self-proclaimed flexitarians, however, are trying to claim vegetarianism (probably to look cool in certain circles) while not actually making any sort of sacrifice in their diet.

Hail to the Victors Valiant Other Guys
September 12, 2004

John Affleck would like us to mention that his beloved Fighting Irish scored three touchdowns in the fourth quarter to beat the Wolverines. From what we hear this is a big deal. We generally base our college football preferences on which team has the better music, which makes this one a toss-up for us. (If you're somehow unfamiliar with them, check out both Michigan's and Notre Dame's fight songs, along with about 560 other fight songs.) Our own alma mater had a rather mediocre fight song (even by D-III standards) to go with a rather mediocre football team.

Good Food for a Great Cause
September 9, 2004

Next Tuesday, September 14, 2004, is Habitat-NYC Day at Whole Foods Markets. On that day, five percent of all purchases made in either the Chelsea or Columbus Circle Whole Foods stores will benefit Habitat-NYC, helping to fulfill their mission to ensure that all New Yorkers have a decent, affordable home. A good reason to do your grocery shopping on Tuesday next week. Both branches are open until 10:00 pm, so you can stop by after your track workout.

Our To-Do List Isn't Quite So Ambitious
September 9, 2004

Marathon Meb chats with Runner's World. The best line: "It was in my planner to be top three in Athens on that day."

See, We're Not the Biggest Geek Out There!
September 9, 2004

Some folks with way too much time on their hands have come up with a complete map of the Simpsons' hometown, Springfield, USA (they don't even try to figure out what state it's in). It's the best non-sports-related time-waster we've come across in a while. Although we're pretty sure the Old Simpson Farm is much further outside of town than it appears on this map.

Swim With the Stars
September 8, 2004

Didn't get enough of the U.S. swimmers at the Olympics? Now you can see them in person Thursday night at Asphalt Green:

The Olympics are over, but the fun has just begun! Asphalt Green is thrilled to invite you to Swim With The Stars, a swim spectacular on Thursday, September 9th. The evening will feature Olympic Gold Medalists Michael Phelps, Ian Crocker, Lenny Krayzelburg and surprise appearances by other stars.

• Hear the swimmers talk about their incredible Athens victories!
• Watch rivals rematch each other in the pool!
• See a relay pairing the Olympic Champions with our very own AGUA swimmers!
• Learn Lenny's backstroke secrets!
• Catch Crocker's world-record butterfly demonstration!
• Watch the strokes that won Phelps an amazing 8 Olympic medals!

Don't miss this unique chance to spend an evening up close with today's greatest swimming stars!

Date: Thursday, September 9th (that's tomorrow night!)
Time: 7-9pm
Tickets: $30, children under 3 are free

Tickets go on sale at Asphalt Green at 6pm on Thursday. Seating will be on a first-come, first-serve basis. Maximum of 4 ticket per person.

For more information about the event, visit www.swimwiththestars.com or call 212.369.8890 x.232. Click here for directions to Asphalt Green.

Who Needs Lance, Anyway?
September 8, 2004

Olympic silver medalist Meb Keflezighi announced that he will run the NYC Marathon, joining other top Americans like Abdi Abdirahman, Dan Browne, Deena Kastor and Bob Kennedy. Not to mention 30,000 other runners.

Tuesday Night Workout Report
September 8, 2004

Or not, as it happens. The coaches suggested that we take a week or two off between track and cross-country seasons and we, of course, always follow their advice. We hoped that – despite 20 months worth of experience – that some other member might volunteer a report in our absence, but it didn't happen. If we were a true blogger we would bore you with the minutae of our own evening, which we spent listening to Alan Furst discuss his new novel, Dark Voyage (not that it wasn't interesting, just that making a recap of a lecture/reading exciting is beyond even our talents). But because we like you (well, most of you), we'll just recommend that you all go read the book yourself. However, this generous mood of ours may not last. So, either somebody steps up to the plate on these workout reports, or we may have to start writing accounts of all the recent evenings we've spent working overtime with no internet access. You have been warned.

Runner Needed
September 7, 2004

I am committed to compete in the International Trade Center Triathlon on September 18, but have managed to injure myself and am under doctor's orders not to run. The race is a 14k mountain bike leg followed by a two-man 4k lake canoe leg and a 5k XC run. I was to do the canoe and run legs. We are looking for a replacement who could run sub-19 for the 5k, and hopefully has some boat skills. At least one practice with the boat would be necessary. The names for the race must be in by Friday the 10th, so if you're interested, please contact me as soon as possible.

— Andrew Douglas
Andrew.douglas2@verizon.net