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Week of October 26, 2004 - November 1, 2004 Marathon Events Two ways to enjoy the marathon this Sunday: WALL OF ORANGE POST-MARATHON PARTY Marathon Assistance Craig Plummer will be at mile 24 of the marathon course this Sunday, and has offered to help out CPTC runners by handing them specific drinks/energy bars/etc. or taking anything they don't want to wear or carry any more. You can email him at Prefitinc@comcast.net for more info. That Explains How John Major Got to Be Prime Minister From Ananova:
Suffering Jets From the ridiculous amount of money the city would have to pay, to the increased traffic, the poorly-planned development that would accompany it, and the way the project's backers have tried to avoid letting the taxpayers have any influence over how their money is spent, we haven't wanted for reasons to oppose the proposed West Side Stadium for the Jets. But just in case, the Times has provided a withering critique of the structure from an architectural viewpoint in which Nicolai Ouroussoff calls the proposed development "depressing," "mind-numbing," "banal," and "so crassly commercial it makes the head spin" and warns that "it will extinguish any hope of injecting some humanity into the area." But it's not all bad; Ouroussoff concedes that "I've seen uglier stadium designs" and adds that "stripped of its excesses, the stadium itself is not all bad." We're not quite so appalled by the proposed design (although we have no desire to see it in Manhattan), but we're glad to see that the Times is finally employing an architecture critic who actually looks at things with a critical eye. It's a welcome change from the reign of Herbert Muschamp, who never saw a building he didn't like. Isn't the Fact That He Had to Eat at Taco Bell Punishment Enough? We hate to leave our readers hanging, so we followed up on the saga of Glenn Gattis, (the high school student arrested for calling his teacher a bitch), and found that his court appearance has been pushed back to December. We came across this story of another student who was arrested in New Hanover County, North Carolina. From WECT TV:
Runners Needed for Niketown Front Window Display
In celebration of marathon week, the Nike Runner's Lab will be at Niketown from November 3rd – November 6th. All of Nike's top researchers, developers, and designers will be in town to help enhance an interactive running experience for consumers at Niketown and the expo. There will be a treadmill in the front window of Niketown all day Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I need people to be running on the treadmill at all times. The best way to do this will be in one hour shifts, unless you want to run longer than that (you know who you are). The tough times to fill for me will be during the afternoons on weekdays, but I'd really appreciate it if some of you could take an hour for lunch to come run in the window. Please let me know if you are interested, and what day(s) and hour(s) you can run. If you can run for more than hour or on multiple days, that would be great! We will have runners during the following hours, many of which are still available:
This should be fun, as you'll get lots of looks while cranking away on the mill in the front window facing 57th Street. If you are know others who would be interested, please send me a note with availability. Thanks, your timely response is much appreciated.
Two Boots! We're almost at the end of our downtown track workouts, which means that it's time for dinner at Two Boots (37 Avenue A, between 2nd and 3rd Streets) after the workout this Tuesday. There are plenty of good carbo-loading options there, and Coach Tony will be dispensing marathon advice to all those who want. Those of you who aren't planning to attend the workout but would still like to join us all for dinner should probably get to the restaurant at about 8:00 pm. The Lost Weekend Close readers of this page may have noticed that it hasn't been updated in several days. Sorry about that. Somehow our roommate managed to pay the ISP bill twice and still get our service cut off between Wednesday night and sometime Friday. We don't know what time it was restored on Friday, since we spent most of the weekend in a haze of bars and Halloween parties, the details of which are best omitted here. All of which has left us too tired to post much here tonight, but look for more stuff tomorrow. There's a "Why A Duck?" Joke Lurking in Here Somewhere, But We Can't Find It Just one note about the Halloween parties: While everyone at the first party easily figured out that we were dressed as Groucho Marx, people at the second party kept asking us "Are you supposed to be Eugene Levy?" Damn Philistines. But speaking of first and second parties:
Photos We promised you photos, so here are some from the Mayor's Cup Race and the Franklin Park 5K in Franklin Park, Boston, last weekend. You'll notice that these are on the Westchester Track Club's site, and not our own. That's because they took the photos, and shared them with us as part of our Global Surveillance System Affiliate program. We'll add them to this site soon, but we thought you'd like to check them out now. Also coming soon: photos from Master's Nationals and more photos from Club Champs, again courtesy of the Westchester Track Club. Singles Night We've heard about baseball teams doing this, but the Washington Wizards are the first basketball team we know of to host a singles night, this one on November 10. According to ESPN's "Daily Quickie," the event will include "guy-gal alternate seating, speed-dating and more." The downside is that you'll have to date a Wizards' fan. Pre-Marathon Party We will be having a Pre-Marathon Party at
the Urban Athletics Uptown store on Madison Avenue at 92nd St, next Wednesday, November 3, from 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm.
Week of October 19, 2004 - October 25, 2004 Early Show The members of Central Park Track Club have been invited to jazz up the CBS Early Show with our orange jackets and shirts in the week leading up to the ING New York City Marathon by joining Dave Price outside on the Plaza for two of his weather segments on Tuesday, November 2. We need to arrive at 7:30 AM at 59th Street & Fifth Avenue to appear live with him at 8:00 and 8:30. If you can make it, please email Stacy Creamer at screamer@randomhouse.com. She needs to give a head count to the CBS contact person on Monday. Hope you can make it—and plan to wear orange! Hey, Hey Paula! The Times reports that Paula Radcliffe will run the NYC Marathon next Sunday. Look for an official announcement tomorrow. Get a Baby Jogger and Shut Up From today's Metropolitan Diary:
Just Do It Not only did Nike run the cool "Fenway Park" ad within two minutes of the end of game 7, but they even had the sense to set up a special webpage for it. It's almost like they have some kind of marketing department full of people who are good at their jobs. Are Runners Athletes? So asks Justin Breen in Northwest Indiana Post-Tribune. His moronic reason for why some runners might not be athletes: because they're slow. His email and phone number are at the bottom of the column, for those who want to complain. We'll just call him an idiot again, and leave it at that. It Never Hurts to Get Ready Early From today's Runner's World Online front page:
We kid becuase we love! Please don't delete us from the "More NY Running" section of your links page. Get a Life! Think training is hurting your social life? Be grateful you're not Gordo Byrn, who left his house only twice for non-training purposes during the six months he trained for Ironman Canada. Photos No, not any of our own. Just a bunch of CPTC people at the Kurt Steiner 5K, courtesy of the NYRR site. Thanks to Stuart Calderwood for reminding us about these. And, since he won't engage in the blatant self-promotion so common among the rest of this site's staff, we'll point out that he can be seen in two photos at the bottom of this Men's Racing page of Chicago Marathon pictures. No Updates We're going out of town for the weekend, so you're on your own for the next few days (not that we normally update this page much over the weekend any more). While we're gone you can check out the Times magazine article "Our National Eating Disorder," which has a few interesting insights on how Americans view food., but also claims that a Times article two years ago "almost singlehandedly ushered in today's carbophobia." Um, no. Although that article was bad. And Yankee fans may want to read this article on how rooting for a losing team builds character. Also, anyone who hasn't been reading John Scherrer's blog on And check back here next week for good stuff, including some old photos that we'd overlooked. Last But Not Least Yves-Marc Courtines pointed out that the below picture (which we've shamelessly copied from the NYRR site) shows "a bunch of orange runners running past Mile 1 literally in LAST PLACE," and asks, "So why are they all smiling?" We have no idea, but we'll be happy to print any guesses you send in.
Newest Member We are thrilled to introduce to all of you, our bundle of joy, our daughter, Charlotte Rose Siegel Aquilina. Born - October 18, 2004 She blessed us with an early and healthy arrival at 11:29 pm Annie & Charlotte are doing fine and getting acquainted at home.
Road Win Sometimes good news travels slowly, like the results of the Radnor Red Run 5K. But now we can report that the Amazing Andreas took first (Haver) and third (Costella) in a race that involved hurdling hay bales, fences, and logs, and slogging through water pits. According to Andrea H. it is "quite possibly the best Sunday morning option in rural Pennsylvania." (There are other options in rural Pennsylvania?) And taking second at that race was our old friend Jessica Reifer. In other late-breaking results, four CPTC runners won their age groups at Sunday's Kurt Steiner 5K in Van Cortlandt Park. YES! Game 5, 11th inning, tied 4-4:
Game 6, before the game:
Game 7, 5th inning, Red Sox lead 8-1:
And now we get another week of this stress! Also, there's a pretty dynamic series going on between the Astros and the Cardinals. If you can bear it, you might want to check out game seven in St. Louis on Thursday night. Upcoming Races There's more to life than just racing in Central Park. Here are two upcoming races in some of New York City's other parks: NEW YORK FRONT RUNNERS’ CROSS-COUNTRY 5K IN VAN CORTLANDT The New York Front Runners are sponsoring a cross-country 5K in Van Cortlandt Park this coming Sunday afternoon at 2:00. All runners are welcome. PROSPECT PARK TRACK CLUB 5M TURKEY TROT The Prospect Park Track Club will be sponsoring its annual Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot on November 25th at 9:00 AM. The race souvenir: a cool backpack for the first 1000 entrants! Trophies and homemade pies will go to the top 3 male and female finishers overall. Medals to all registered finishers. Sorry, no age prizes. Download a printable entry form from PPTC’s website: or register online at Active.com. Club Council News Thanks to this page, we get all the glamour (such as it is) and the groupies (one of whom may have abandonded us because of yesterday's pro-Red Sox post), but it's important to remember that it's other people who are doing the real work of the club. Like Stacy Creamer, our liaison to NYRR and the Club Council, who sent these updates from the latest meeting:
Who's Your Papi???? WE BELIEVE. Road Win It's unlikely that we'll top last year's record win total of 65. but at least we won't set a record for least wins in a year, thanks to Amerigo Rossi's win at the Heart of the City Elite 1-Miler. That's 26 so far this year, which is the same number we had back in 1999. So we're tied for weakest year right now, but there are plenty of races left this year, and we're confident that our members will pick up a few more wins. Get On the Bus CPTC will have a private bus to the start of the New York City Marathon.
No Way to Pick a President Apparently feeling that there aren't enough serious issues at stake in the current presidential campaign, Bally Total Fitness conducted a poll on the following burning issues: Which candidate is in better shape? The respondents chose George Bush as fitter than John Kerry by a vote of 54-46. In a four-way contest among the presidential and vice-presidential candidates, it's Bush 40%, John Edwards 31%, John Kerry 27%, and Dick Cheney 2%. (The press release calls this a majority for Bush, but it's just a plurality.) We'll assume that those 2% were either joking or are simply out of touch with reality. Based on what we know of their exercise regimens and BMIs (see "Running for Office," below), we think Kerry probably has the edge here, but both men exercise regularly. The poll also asked "Who is the fittest president of all time?" and 35% said John F. Kennedy, while 13% picked Bill Clinton. This is ridiculous. Kennedy had a bad back and Clinton was often overweight. We'd pick Teddy Roosevelt for this, although we can't rule out any of the 18th and 19th Century presidents for whom exercise was simply a part of daily life. And if we're looking for the president who was fittest in his prime, rather than just while in office, we have no idea. Roosevelt was pretty fit at all ages, but Gerald Ford was a football star at Michigan, and career military men like George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Ulysses Grant and Dwight Eisenhower would all have been pretty in good shape in their younger days (and most were still doing well in old age). Even William Henry Harrison – who caught pneumonia while giving his innaugural address and died after serving less than a month as chief executive – must have been quite fit during his decades of fighting the American Indians and the British. Meanwhile, in a less-relevant poll in Men's Journal (article not online), 51.3% of respondents think Bush would win in a physical fight with Kerry, and 62.6% say Edwards would KO Cheney. Of course, this doesn't reflect just fitness, and the 37.4% who picked Cheney probably suspect that the VP would cheat. We'd like to give Kerry the edge here, too, based on his experience playing hockey and on the fact that Kerry's sports (windsurfing, kitesurfing, snowboarding, soccer) build more of the strength and quick reflexes needed in hand-to-hand combat than Bush's (running, mountain biking, brush clearing) do. But without knowing a few ground rules here we'll leave this one as a toss-up. In an even-less-relevent poll, Esquire asked asked a few political questions in their annual Women You Love Survey (online here if you want to pay for it, but it's probably cheaper to just buy the magazine:
Remember, this is all just for entertainment. Only the Bally's poll is based on random sampling; the other two were conducted on the magazines' websites. You should not base your vote in November on who you think is in better shape, who 500 random people think is in better shape, who we think is in better shape, who people-who-have-nothing-better-to-do-with-their-time-than-fill-out-internet-polls (a group that includes us) think is in better shape, or who those same people think is married to a more attractive woman. (Especially because Esquire readers show some questionable taste in the rest of the survey – calling the Hilton Seriously, if you would let any of this influence your vote, just stay home. There's always the chance that the moron vote will split evenly (with stronger-than-average support for Ralph Nader), but there are real issues at stake here and real differences between the candidates, and the next four years shouldn't be determined by people who can't even spare four minutes to think about who they want in the Oval Office. Watch Your Language! We can't get in to NASCAR, which is odd, since we're more than happy to spend a Saturday afternoon watching people run multiple laps around a small oval. But put the people in stock cars, and we start surfing through our 30-odd sports networks in search of something more exciting, like Ultimate Frisbee (yes, it is there, on the College Sports Network). (Assuming there are no good baseball, football, soccer, basketball, beach volleyball, surfing or lumberjack competitions on.) But, just like they do with reality TV, Americans continue to embrace NASCAR without any consideration of our feelings on the matter. We don't ignore the competition (it's not a sport, for reasons set forth in "What Shall Be Our Sport, Then?") completely, though, and we know that the top drivers are in a fierce fight to the finish with five races to go. And unlike last year, when Matt Kenseth locked up the championship early thanks to always settling for seventh or eighth place instead of trying to win any of the races (earning NASCAR the kind of ridicule usually reserved for the BCS; to their credit they quickly unveiled a new ranking system) this year the trophy will go to the man who drives the fastest, wins the most, and uses the least offensive language. Yes, NASCAR – a group started by bootleggers – is now trying to be so wholesome that they not only fined Dale Earnhardt, Jr. $25,000 for using a profanity in a recent post-race TV interview (when asked what it meant to win his fifth race at the Talladega, AL, track, Earnhardt responded "It don't mean shit right now. Daddy's won here ten times."), but they also docked him 25 points, costing him his position at the top of the standings. So Junior now trails Kurt Busch by 24 points instead of leading him by one. We have no problem with the fine (which only works out to about half-a-percent of Earnhardt's winnings so far this year) for this or for any other sport. But even in competitions we don't care about we think the winner should be determined according to what the players do on the field, not for mildly-inappropriate language. But as inane as NASCAR's behavior is, it pales in comparison to what's happening in Wilmington, NC, where a 17-year-old boy may go to jail for 30 days after uttering the same word Earnhardt did. Back in August, Glenn Gattis was late for yet another class. According to the Star-News:
We discussed the concept of "fighting words" here last year, but here's a quick refresher: In Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942), Justice Murphy wrote for the court:
That seems to be the theory behind this citation, although we're struggling to envision any situation where the language in question would "provoke violent retaliation," especially since such violent retaliation would presumably come from the teacher. In fact, as the paper further reports, "Jeannette Nichols, the vice-chairwoman of the school board, said she considered profanity a major problem in schools. Students hear it so many places, they lose the sense of how offensive it can be, she said." But if these words are that common, how can they be so offensive as to merit a criminal charge? Gattis' language was of a sort that we like to pretend 17-year-olds don't normally use, but the words he chose can be heard in PG-13 movies and on basic cable. And far from seeking to incite a reaction, Gattis – like a baseball player who complains about a call but never says anything personal about the umpire – was blowing off steam in a non-confrontational way. We have no objection to the school enforcing their own discipline, and Gattis has already served a three-day suspension for disruptng the learning environment, disrespecting school personnel and using obscenity. And that's where this should end. Accessory to a Crime Race directors get a lot of undeserved criticism, so we'd like to say at the start that we appreciate the work that most of them do. Then there are the race directors who deserve all the criticism and more. Like the official in Virgina Beach who disqualified 26 high school runners for wearing jewlery that included yellow LiveStrong bracelets. Officially he was enforcing the school district's ban on wearing jewlery in meets, but didn't he realize that disqualifying teenagers at the end of a race because they were supporting charity might be a bad PR move? He certainly knows that now, and wisely reinstated the results for the ten runners who were wearing the rubber bracelets. And a girl who wore a scrunchy around her wrist after it fell out of her hair midrace was later reinstated, too, but the other 15 runners remained disqualified. The ban on jewelry seems to be based on a worry that bracelets or necklaces could injure other runners, which makes sense. But exceptions are made for wristwatches as well as for religious and medical jewelry. Suggesting that a rubberband or a scrunchy poses any more risk than those items is how petty bureaucrats earn their reputation for being petty (and for being bureaucrats). UPDATE: Pete McEntegart jokes on Sports Illustrated's site that "some Republicans are now calling for Senator Kerry to be disqualified for wearing his Livestrong bracelet during the debate." We'd like to claim that we're above such cheap shots, but really we just didn't think of the joke in time. Say What? We mocked Bill O'Reilly a bit here recently for calling fans of the Daily Show "stoned slackers." Then we were going to cut him some slack after he went on the show itself and apologized, joking that he was high when he made the accusation. At least, we thought he was joking until we read the sexual harassment complaint filed against him by a producer on The O'Reilly Factor (see The Smoking Gun, although the allegations in there are so skeezy that we feel dirty just linking to it). And really, the only explanation for O'Reilly's behavior is that he was high as a kite most of the time. Which is probably the excuse he'll give when the inevitable tapes of his phone calls are released. Relay Race We used to feel that no good could ever come from going near Yankee Stadium. Then we got this email about a race there, proving that any place is redeemable:
The O.T. With our regular poker game having taken an unscheduled hiatus for the last few months (probably because the rest of the group got tired of losing to us every other week) we had to come up with an alternative method of supplementing our meager income, especially as we keep spending a large percentage of our money on these short vacations. The easiest solution we could find was to sign up for any overtime we can, so we'll be spending the rest of this week hanging out at the office past midnight, and without any internet access. So things may be slow, depending on how much energy we have for posting things after we get home. Running for Office
Sometimes, watching The Daily Show, it's hard to remember that it is a fake news program, and not a renegade group of journalists exposing how the media really works. Especially when we hear a critique as accurate as the one above, pointing out exactly the same thing we wrote about last week. But even among the usual nonsense of journalists sticking to the script they wrote a year ago, there are some examples that stand out for their shamelessness. And one of those showed up in this month's Runner's World (see, this has some connection to running), in a comparison of George W. Bush and John Kerry as athletes:
There's nothing in the facts provided here to prove that Bush's constant running is due to his "commitment, determination, and clarity of vision" rather than as a way to avoid working, or that Kerry's interest in multiple sports reflects "vitality, open-mindedness, versatility" and not a hyper-competitive nature and a compulsive need to establish himself as the best in everything. There's even less to back up the theory that this interest in multiple sports makes him "indecisive" because he's only "dabbling" in them (the evidence we've seen suggests he takes them all somewhat seriously). And we wonder why Runner's World would suggest that Bush is "intransigent and single-minded" because he didn't quit running after getting injured. After all, if everyone quit after one injury, Runner's World would have no readers left. And while it's possible that Bush ran before he was fully healed from surgery, the data in here doesn't make it clear either way. The comments on how an $8,000 bike "doesn't exactly fit his populist pitch" are so ludicrous (being a populist has nothing do with how much money the candidate has) except to note that Bush spent close to $5,000 on his own bicycle. The point is, if we look just at the facts supplied by Runner's World, independent of any other knowledge about the candidates, we can draw dozens of different conclusions about their personalities. And even if we look at all the information available about Bush and Kerry as athletes, the best we can do is come up with an analysis of how they approach sports, which often says little about how they approach any other aspect of their lives. (We don't have time to go into it here, but see Malcolm Gladwell's recent article in the New Yorker (not online yet, but it will probably be on his website soon) and the Times' reivew of The Cult of Personality (we haven't had time to read the book itself) about the limitations of personality tests – which is essentially what this article is – in predicting anything useful.) These attributes only show that Bush is "committed and determined" or "intransigent and single-minded" because the "conventional wisdom" is that he fits one of those two descriptions (which one usually depends on one's political views). And the same with Kerry as "open-minded and versatile" or "indecisive and a faux-populist." This is Oh, and golf, which both men play (a fact that would surely disappoint H.L. Menken, who once said that "If I had my way, no man guilty of golf would be eligible to any office of trust under the United States") is not an athletic pursuit. Does the Word "Duh" Mean Anything to you?
Week of October 5, 2004 - October 11, 2004 Photos Pictures from Grete's Great Gallop are now up. Also pictures from the Chicago Marathon. Dealing with these photos took all the free time we had after getting back from the Windy City, but we'll be back to our usual level of journal entries in a day or two. Playoffs We would like to remind you that all workout descriptions are written by the coaches, and that any comments in those descriptions supporting a baseball team from the Bronx in no way reflect the opinions of the rest of the website staff. Also, please remember that the Houston Astros should not be mistaken for a real playoff-level team, and should save us all a lot of time by just conceding to the St. Louis Cardinals now. Delays You may have noticed that things have been slow here lately. We've had a few techinal difficulties, and were also busy going to Yankee games (let's just say that we were happier about one result than we were about the other, and leave it at that for now). We're trying to deal with the backlog here, but we can't finish it all tonight, and then we're off to Chicago for the weekend. Johnny Kelley Johnny Kelley, who won the Boston Marathon twice, finished second seven times, completed the race 49 more times, and inspired the name "Heartbreak Hill" died yesterday at 97. See the Boston Marathon site for the official announcement, his results for all 61 times he entered the race, and a photo gallery. Cross Country Results After almost two months, we have another race winner: John Roberts at the Harry Murphy XC 5K. Also Micah Adriani made her belated debut, and it was worth the wait as she placed third. On the age-group side, Alston Brown was 1st M55-59, and John Affleck was 2nd M40-44. Also, Frank Moton tells us that Phil Vasquez was 2nd M50-54, with a time of roughly 22 minutes, although NYRR doesn't reflect this yet. Choosing a Coach Toby Tanser has advice on choosing a coach in the latest issue of MetroSports. Of course, Coach Tony and Coach Devon already have all the qualities he recommends and none of the faults he warns about. Welcome New Members It's new member time, so everyone give a big welcome to Terry Corcoran, Sam Frank, Joseph Garland, Sarah Rivlin, Robert Siegel and Jonathan Toto. It was a full team effort here, with 14 members picking up recruitment points:.Christian Vandaele, who only joined CPTC eight months ago; expatriate couples Alayne Adams and Tim Evans (France) and Joseph and Laura Lee Kozusko (Texas); Coach Tony, who is finally making a push in the coaches' competition; and Ramon Bermo, Jonathan Cane, Glen Carnes, Jesse Lansner, Brian Maiolo and Robert Neal. We're never sure who qualifies for the final prize and who doesn't, but the current leader is Sid Howard, with six, followed by Stacy Creamer, John Gleason, Jesse Lansner and Tom Phillips, with two each. Women's Triathlon
Tips When the folks at MetroSports asked Jon Cane for some women-specific training advice, he told them "Train like the guys but wear a different bathing suit." When that wasn't enough to fill out a full-page aritcle he added a few more useful details on bikes, clothing and races for women. |
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