  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||
|
Week of December 28, 2004 - January 3, 2005 Handicap Races Stuart's ruling:
Corrections From today's Times:
We're not sure what the Times means by "new media," but we've noticed most newspapers, magazines, TV news programs, and radio shows hardly ever bother with corrections, and when they do, the corrections are usually "late and small." Many bloggers, on the other hand, update their original posts to include any corrections. And while the Times may bemoan " the blogosphere's tendency toward crackpot theorizing and political smack down," those flaws are equally prevalent – and much more harmful – in the mainstream media. Photos It feels like every time we finish a set of photos we find another one we'd forgotten about. But we've been through them all now, and while we still have three sets left to go through, we do have the following pictures posted now:
Some of these photos come from our own members, but a whole lot of them are from Joe Golden, who does the Westchester Track Club's website. We also got one set from Lester Wright, Jr., who organizes track meets in New Jersey. We'll be stuck at work late tonight, but hopefully we'll get the rest of the photos done Tuesday night, with other year-end stuff to follow. Cars Out of the Park From Transportation Alternatives:
Starting the Year Off Right We're still hard at work on all the photos, etc., but we promised to break our silence for important annoucements, and we think a New Year's Day victory qualifies. It's actually more like two victories, but from only one race: Kevin Arlyck ran the fastest time at Harry's Handicap yesterday morning, but thanks to a 10 minute handicap, Jim Aneshansley was the first man to finish the race. Pending confirmation from the Keeper of the Lists (aka Stuart Calderwood), we're listing Jim as our first winner of the year on the road race winners list, with special mention to Kevin. Meanwhile, over in Jersey, Ramon Bermo, Sid Howard and Jan Farnung-Krause all won their age groups at the CJRRC Hangover 5K Run. It's the End of the Year As We Know It There's something in human nature that makes us try to impose order upon a chaotic world. On the good side this leads people to catalogue libraries and organize their closets. On the bad side it inspires utopian visions where no trace of individuality is allowed. And on the amusing and utterly pointless side it drives us to squeeze things in to arbitrary calendar boundaries. We're not immune to this last trait. We had hoped to have the site reflect the complete history of CPTC in 2004 by midnight tomorrow. Then we looked at what was left to do and realized there was little chance of us finishing it all, so we went out for drinks instead. Today we looked at it again and decided there was no way to finish it all, so we went out for drinks instead, again. Tomorrow we won't even waste time looking at it all. So this website will start 2005 without some pictures from 2004. And we'll start 2005 with an early-morning road race. After that we'll address our one New Year's Resolution: finish the 2004 postings. We think we'll be able to handle this one, but to deal with it fairly we won't be able to spend any time on journal entries. We'll still post important annoucements and race results, but you'll be deprived of our usual ranting and raving until sometime next week. We're sure you'll all survive somehow. Happy New Year, everybody! Or, to quote from the best New Year's Eve scene in movie history:
Monday Night Armory Workout Report Those of you who still bother to read the workout reports may have noticed that they've been rather dull and devoid of gossip lately. (And if you think reading them is tough, just imagine what writing them is like.) We have two theories as to why this sorry state of affairs currently exists. Either everyone is being very careful about what they say and do around us, or nobody is saying or doing anything worth reporting. Since the former seems unlikely (why would everyone start being careful now?), a simple process of elimination shows that it must be the latter explanation. So the real question is: Why isn't anybody saying or doing anything worth reporting? Why, to pick an example from yesterday, did everyone describe their New Year's Eve plans as "probably nothing," "haven't decided yet," "I'm sure something will come up," or "eh"? We think it's because most of them are married, or otherwise involved in a long-term, healthy, fulfilling relationship. And as writers from Shakespeare to William S. Gilbert knew, when you've married everyone off there's nothing left to interest the audience, so it's time to end the play. Unless it's a tragedy, but that only works for unhappily-married couples. The CPTC couples all seem quite happy, which is good for them, but, as Tolstoy made clear, is not the stuff of which novels, or even journal entries, are made. But when all else fails, we can always try to overwhelm you with trivial facts. Like the fact that the workout started at 7:17 (so tantalizingly close to on time!). This, even though Evan Zeisel observed that most of the group was still busy stretching at 7:03 when the official schedule says we should have started our strides at 6:55. "Doesn't everything here run like clockwork?" he asked, making it obvious that he doesn't read these reports very often. There were 22 people at the workouts "It's very important that you get these numbers right," said Coach Devon, noting that we usually just guess at the attendence. So this time we counted, and that number includes two coaches (the other being Coach Tony), one timer (Frank Morton, who is able to go for short runs, but has not healed from surgery enough to do a hard workout), and two guests (Gladstone Jones, who was 2nd M40-44 at the Fifth Avenue Mile in 4:33, and also ran on our Masters 4x400 team at the Penn Relays, and Twana, a sprinter who is also Sid Howard's granddaughter). We hoped to stay around for the late workout, but we had one last family dinner to attend before the last relatives returned to the Midwest. So we can't provide a headcount for that workout (although it was probably about the same as the earlyone), or tell what time it started (later than scheduled, since they were supposed to be doing their warmup when we left). All we can report is that Tony got to give Erika Yamazaki the special mention she was supposed to get at the awards party. 2004 Highlights Some Highlights of the 2004 Outdoor Season for the Middle Distance Group: RECORDS LIFETIME PR: Leon Brown Glen Carnes Andrea Haver Alexandra Horowitz Bruce Hyde Kate Irvin Jesse Lansner Ligaya Mishan SEASON PR Joe Bolster Amerigo Rossi Evan Bass Zeisel Clinton Bell Catherine Stone-Borkowksi Steve Burgess Jeremy Busch Marvin Cabrera Stuart Calderwood Kamal Dahib David Edwards Neil Fitzgerald Kobie Fuller Paul Groce Andrea Haver Filip Jagodzinski JT Mann Nnamdi Okike Chris Price Julio Rodriguez Ken Shatzer USATF Masters Outdoor National Championship GOLD MEDAL SILVER MEDAL EMPIRE STATE GAMES SILVER MEDAL USA Club Nationals 4 x 800m relay 200m 400m 800m US Olympic Trials USATF North/Central American & Caribbean WMA Championship GOLD MEDAL PENN RELAYS Olympic Development Races Masters 4 x 400m Masters 100m SOME Highlights of the 2004 Indoor Season for the Middle Distance Group: RECORDS 2 AMERICAN Records for the 65-69 age group LIFETIME PR: John Affleck Alexandra Horowitz Jesse Lansner Chris Potter Jessica Reifer Sue Pearsall SEASON PR John Affleck Amerigo Rossi Evan Bass Zeisel Clinton Bell Catherine Stone-Borkowksi Marvin Cabrera Stuart Calderwood Glen Carnes Marie Davis Mary Diver Michael Dougherty John Gleason Andrea Haver Frank Handelman Tom Hartshorne Otto Hoering Kate Irvin Ardian Krasniqi JT Mann Armando Oliveira Isaya Okwiya Tom Phillips Chris Price Chris Potter Erin Raggio Chris Solarz USATF Masters Indoor National Championship GOLD MEDAL SILVER MEDAL BRONZE MEDAL Placed in the top 3 at Masters Nationals, but couldn't take a medal b/c
non-US citizen 3rd Place USA Indoor National (Open) Elite Masters 1000m Invite Looking forward to 2005! Great job, everyone! Week of December 21, 2004 - December 27, 2004 Top 10 Lists Page 2 has a list of their 10 best lists of the year. All we have is our top photos, though not yet. We're still accepting nominations, so pick a picture and tell us about it. Ligaya We are relieved to report that Ligaya Mishan and her husband, Ahrin, survived the recent tsunamis in India unscathed. Monday Workouts Remember, the Armory is closed on Tuesday this week, so all workouts will take place on Monday, December 27, at their regular times. Thursday Night Road Workout Report It was raining but very warm. Coach Tony was absent, taking a test, so John Roberts led the workout. Ten people were there. No announcements were made. The workout began about 7:09. Alan Ruben waited for the last runners to finish. No gossip was overheard... But we really did enjoy ourselves. Thursday Night Armory Workout Report When the indoor track season starts in earnest next month, and all the other runners wonder why they keep losing to people in orange singlets, they should look no further than last Thursday's workout. Becasue two days before Christmas (also known as Festivus), on a mostly empty Armory track, we still had 18 people at our workout. Actually, we had only 17 as we prepared to start the workout at 7:19. But just after Sid Howard led the group in a moment of silence in honor of Alan Ruben's father, Coach Devon finally showed up, and delayed the start until 7:23. That was too late for Charles and Henrietta Miers, who had already started their own workout, and too early for J.T. Mann (making his first appearance post-injury), who was still warming up (though he did join the group for the second half of the workout). But everyone else was okay with it, and ran about as hard as we've seen this season. Which made it hard for anyone to speak long enough to say anything gossip worthy, although we did learn that the Coach was leaving most of her Christmas shopping for the last minute. We'd mock her for it, but we've gone shopping on December 24th in the past and we figure she already suffered enough on Friday. Church of the Simple Mind We're not sure how we'd feel if our Sunday paper arrived with a copy of the New Testament in it. Actually, given the sheer volume of paper that arrives on our doorstep every weekend, we may very well have already received a copy of the bible, mixed in with the sections we never read (Styles, Automobiles, Money & Business), the advertising circulars, the infinite number of AOL installation disks, and the occassional sweater for a vodka bottle, a.k.a. the "Absolut Cozy" (and who the hell tries to keep their vodka warm?). But we've never noticed any scripture in there, so we can only guess how subscribers to the Colorado Springs Gazette felt last week when their Sunday papers came with a copy of the New Testament, courtesy of the International Bible Society. Well, we don't have to guess how some people reacted, since they made their feelings known: the paper received 195 positive responses, 69 negative ones and 5 subscriptions cancellations (out of 91,000). Among the people who were upset is Mary Simon, adminstrator of Temple Shalom, who said:
Does this woman never get junk mail, telephone solicitations or spam? Does her newspaper arrive without the editorial pages that might try to convince her of the merit of a particular position? More worrying was this view from Aly Colón, who teaches ethics at the Poynter Institute, a Florida journalism school/think tank:
The Poynter Institute may want to have a word with Mr. Colón about these comments. Becuase there is nothing in this isue about the separation of church and state. This is about mixing church and media, and if Mr. Colón has a problem with that, he should be also be railing against the Christian Science Monitor and the Jewish Forward, to say nothing of more overtly religious groups like the Christian Broadcasting Network. The First Amendment guarantees both freedom of religion and freedom of the press, and there's nothing wrong with people exercising those two freedoms in tandem. Likewise the Times should discipline the writer and editor responsible for this sentence:
Again, there's nothing wrong with a newspaper endorsing a particular religion since newspapers do not speak for the governement. The only free speech issue here would have been if the Gazette had been barred from distributing the bibles. Nobody thinks that a newspaper endorses Absolut vodka or AOL or any other product distributed with the paper. A bible accompanied by a full-page ad listing the groups that paid for its distribution shouldn't cause any greater confusion. But if the Gazette did want to endorse Christianity, the First Amendment would protect its right to do so. It's depressing enough that many journalists have so little understanding of religion that they think people like Jerry Falwell are worth interviewing. But it's even worse to find out that some of them don't understand journalism. Yule Log We watched the Yule Log on Channel 11 for the first time last year, just to see what it was. Then we skipped it this year because we don't like Christmas music, and are not currently taking any of the illegal drugs that might make staring at the image of a log burning in a fireplace for four hours interesting. But apparently there's a lot to think about while watching it, from how the footage could be improved to the deeper sociological meaning of the whole thing. At least, that's what Alessandra Stanley tried to convince us in today's Times. Of course, she also picked HBO's bland, boring, pointess series Entourage as the best show of the year, so Next Week's Workouts The Armory will be closed next Tuesday and Thursday, so the workouts have been rescheduled. The sprinters and middle distance runners will meet on Monday and Wednesday at 6:30 pm. The distance group will meet on Monday at 8:00 pm. 'Twas the Night Before the Night Before Christmas We promised last year that we would never again post a parody of A Visit From Saint Nicholas on this page, and we're sticking to that. But if you need your fix, check out James Thurber's 1927 version of the poem "In the Ernest Hemingway Manner" (originally published in The New Yorker), or Dan Shanoff's version recapping the year in sports. Happy Festivus A reader complained about our disparagement of Festivus earlier this week. We meant no insult to the holiday itself. Our beef was with an august publication like the Times not only deigning to report on the event, but also trying to analyze the deeper meaning of a frivilous, made-up celebration. You might think that's a little hypocritical of us, but we've never claimed that this site has any standards, so we can report on any dumb topic we want to. The same is true of Let's Run, where Festivus rates a short discussion. Tuesday Night Armory Workout Report If you've been to one of Coach Tony's workouts – or read any of the reports of them here – you know that the official starting times for those workouts are just suggestions, and that Tony can drag his announcements out for the better part of an hour while barely even stopping for breath. You might suspect, then, that Coach Devon's workouts would start on time, as she never makes any announcements before the workout. And you'd be wrong. Oh, the workouts generally start close to when the schedule says they should, but they've rarely started on time. That's changing, though. First, because Coach Devon moved the official starting time of the workout from 7:00 to 7:15 – ostensibly so that we'll have time for drills, as if any of do 15 minutes of drills. And second, because, as we reported last week, she's starting to "crack the whip" on punctuality. (What did your dirty little mind think we were talking about when we quoted that?) So last night's workout gut underway at 7:20, which isn't exactly on time, but is good enough for government work, and more than sufficient for the standard New York City lifestyle where few of our can manage to be less than 15 minutes late for anything. Since we're reporting the starting time for the workout, you might think we'd have done a count of how many people were there. And again, you'd be wrong. We try; we really do. But with two coaches leading three groups last night, we never had a chance. We're going to guess there were 18 people in the middle distance workouts, and about four more in Tony's Masters Sprint group. And none of them did or said anything work reporting, so we'll skip on to the post-workout dinner at Coogan's. Fear not, those of you who were on the team 20 years ago: We're not going to repeat any of the stories Tony was telling us about the team in those days. We'll just repeat Brad Weiss' story about a recent workout:
Cowards The D.C. City Council backed down yesterday, and agreed to a stadium financing plan that is only a marginal improvement over their original "we'll pay for everything" plan. Under the new plan, the city and Major League Baseball will split the cost of insurance against cost overruns, and the city will no longer be liable for damages if the new stadium is not open for the 2008 season (although in that case, the Expos/Nationals will not have to pay any rent while stuck in RFK Stadium). And Mayor Anthony Williams has agreed to pursue private financing for the new stadium, although there is no requirement that he actually find anything, or any minimum level he has promised to seek. So there's still a chance that the D.C. taxpayers won't get royally screwed by this stadium, but their fate is in the hands of Mayor Williams, who negotiated the awful deal in the first place. In better stadium-related news, the Giants have proposed a plan where they would pay the entire cost of building a new stadium in the Meadowlands. Although somehow that plan might still cost the state money, but probably a more tolerable amount. And opposition to the proposed West Side Stadium keeps growing. Yesterday it was finances. Today it's traffic and pollution. Old Memories From the November 28, 2000 workout report:
Also, while Lauren Esposito may be new to the team, she's not new to the website. See these pictures of her from the 2002 Mini-Marathon and Manhattan Half-Marathon. This history courtesy of the Webmaster Emeritus. Obesity Our favorite Let's Run post of the day:
Amazingly, an intelligent discussion followed. With the usual moronic posts mixed in, of course. Point Break Slate suggests a new puncuation mark: the sarcasm point, which looks like an upside-down exclamation point ( ¡ ), and indicates to the clueless reader that the previous sentence was meant sarcastically. We already have a mark that we use to connote sarcasm. It's called the period. Week of December 14, 2004 - December 20, 2004 Alan Ruben We are saddened to report that Alan Ruben's father passed away on Thursday, December 16th. Condolences can be sent to Alan at:
Urban Athletics Special Offer Urban Athletics invites all members of CPTC to stop by the store for a special exclusive 15% discount all this week (Dec. 20 - 24). Also, Urban Athletics offers for the holidays: great looking holiday gift certificates; free gift wrapping; and a gift registry, in case your family and friends need gift ideas. They will also ship of deliver anywhere. This offer is good at both the uptown and downtown locations. Just remember to say that you are a member of CPTC to get your discount.
'Tis the Season Two weeks ago we posted a silly little piece about Chrismukkah. Like many of the things we post here, this was a joke. You all figured this out because you're smart. But the Times, always desperate to spot – or even create – the next big trend, takes Chrismukkah seriously. In "Twice the Annoyance, but a Tradition Emerges," Virginia Heffernan tells us about this "cumbersome coinage and new made-for-merchandising gimmick that tends to bring people of all traditions together in a spirit of seasonal annoyance." Which is an impressive feat for a holiday that few people have heard of and even fewer care about. Strangely, Heffernan recognizes that The O.C. "refuses to take itself too seriously and spins out a series of jokes that flaunt its self-awareness," but she can't stop herself from taking both the show and the concept of Chrismukkah far too seriously. What's next for the Times, a treatise on the history of Festivus? Sadly, yes. At least this one is less pretentious:
We're going with "irresistibly silly." People have been having secular, all-inclusive December gatherings for years without referring to Festivus, and there has been sadly little evidence than any significant number of people are fed up with the commercialism of the season. In fact, the complaints from Bill O'Reilly, Jerry Falwell, Dan Feder, William Donahue, et al., about how Christmas "is under siege by the growing forces of secularism" are decades too late. Just as the religious holiday of Christmas started by taking over an existing pagan holiday, the new secular, commercial holiday of Christmas long ago co-opted the religious holiday. We've reached the point where an article on kids using PowerPoint to create their wish lists doesn't long for the mythical time when Christmas wasn't all about gifts, but rather for a long-lost time when kids had to express their commercial desires in handwritten lists. (As readers of Let's Run know, the only proper use of PowerPoint is to break up with your girlfriend.) Just look at what O'Reilly and company see as the targets in this supposed siege: Christmas trees, in-store decorations, Santa Claus, and A Christmas Carol. Even if the incidents O'Reilly complains about weren't either made up or taken completely out of context, it's hard to see how complaints about the secular traditions associated with Christmas can be taken as an anti-religious movement. For all O'Reilly and Falwell's insinuations that they are defending Christmas as a celebration of the birth of Jesus, they are really, as Adam Grosswirth noted in a letter to Salon.com, "defending the trappings of Christmas more than anything else." Oh, they may care about the religious aspect, but it's not their main concern. What O'Reilly is worried about is the idea that some people would dare to celebrate Christmas differently than he thinks is proper. Or, even worse, they might not celebrate Christmas at all. And it's up to him to stop "those people" – secular progressives, liberals, and, of course, Jews – from their dangerous acts of nonconformity. If we let Mayor Bloomberg refer to the tree outside City Hall as a holiday tree rather than a Christmas tree, or let the folks at Macy's put up signs saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas," people might get the idea that it's okay to celebrate a holiday other than Christmas. It's no coincidence that the same people who feel Christmas is being threatened are praising Christmas With the Kranks, a movie that reminds us that the true spirit of Christmas is not religion, family or love, but rather an unquestioning conformity to the decorating standards set by your community. (This same idea was meant as horror on an X-Files episode only five years ago.) As a secular, liberal, progressive Jew we're greatly amused by this flap (except for the rabidly anti-Semitic parts of it). We don't see Christmas day itself as being any different from Easter, Tet, Idul-Fitr or any other holiday for which Alternate Side of the Street Parking Regulations are suspended. We choose not to celebrate any of those holidays ourself, but it doesn't bother us at all that other people do. We are offended by all the seasonal decorations, but that's purely on grounds of taste. A crèche on public property makes us worry that the government trying to establish a state religion. A Christmas tree, giant menorah, or plastic sleigh pulled by equally plastic reindeer only makes us think that the government is run by really tacky people. (To the extent that their jurisprudence in this area has any consistency, the Supreme Court generally agrees with us on this distinction, although they've never actually used the word tacky.) Any of these things on private property makes us think that our neighbors are demented. And if schoolkids are going to put on a concert, they might as well torture Christmas music – which, as Maureen Dowd pointed out "can turn you into a fruitcake" – than ruin our enjoyment of actual classics. [While we're on the subject of Christmas music, why does anyone think the world needs a new version of Do They Know It's Christmas? It's been 20 years since the song was released. If the Muslims and animists to whom the song so condescendingly referred don't know it's Christmas by now, you might as well give up. And the line "tonight thank God it's them instead of you" may be the coldest, most selfish sentiment ever expressed in a holiday song. How did the man who wrote I Don't Like Mondays also turn out this dreck? As if the lyrics weren't bad enough, there's also the tune that gets stuck in your head for days at a time, and the fact that this song inspired American rock stars to record We Are the World. Why can't anyone ever raise money for charity with a good song? But if you really want to hear Chris Martin, Thom Yorke and Joss Stone replace Boy George, George Michael and Sting, go to www.BandAid20.com and download the song. At least the money goes to charity.] As for O'Reilly and the rest of the right wing nuts, we're just waiting for the nervous breakdowns they're sure to suffer when they hear about all the people celebrating Chrismukkah and Festivus. In fact, we'd like to invite Bill O'Reilly over for Festivus dinner this Thursday. His presence would make the Airing of Grievances so much fun. Going to the Dogs We're stuck at work late today, which means we're spending a lot of time reading the Times and complaining about it. Like this article on people who have "Bark Mitzvahs" for their dogs. First of all, it's a little sacrilegious (and we say that as a very non-observant Jew). Secondly, these are pets, not children, and people should stop confusing the two. And third, this is the kind of silly story we'd expect to see in a paper like the Daily News. No, wait – it's the kind of silly story we did see in the Daily News, back in July. Bark Mitzvahs are even dumber than "Faux Mitzvahs," which are parties for non-Jewish 13-year-olds who have a lot of Jewish friends. But at least the kids having Faux Mitzvahs get to choose it themselves (and get a head start on all the other goyim who are signing up on JDate). The poor dogs are forced into this without any say in the matter. Somebody needs to call the ASPCA about this. The Perfect Mile ESPN Page 2 has picked The Perfect Mile, Neil Bascomb's account of the quest to break the 4:00/mile, as the best sports book of 2004. They Might As Well Just Print Their Spam at This Point The Times gets thousands of intelligent letters every day, but for some reason they insist upon printing a few of the idiotic ones, too. Today's second dumbest letter is from Jim Davis of Sunnyvale, CA, who claims that the fact that he experienced no discrimination when he was in the army 60 years ago proves that – despite military rules banning gay troops – there is no anti-gay discrimination in the military today. Today's dumbest letter is more on point for this site, as it concerns drugs in sports:
Just in case anyone reading this page is a total moron like Mr. Huck, a few quick reminders. First, there is money in track and field, albeit not as much as in baseball, basketball and football – although, at this point, more than there is in hockey. The whole reason people like Collins take steroids is to win prize money, endorsements and higher appearance fees. The reason recreational runners – and recreational baseball players – don't take steroids is because nobody thinks winning a $5 trophy is worth the shame of cheating or the health risks that come from steroid use. Second, fans pay to see baseball, not home runs. Some fans prefer games with a lot of home runs. Some prefer games with fewer home runs. But fans turned out in large numbers before all the players started bulking up – legally and illegally – and hitting excessive numbers of home runs, and baseball was very profitable then. There is no hard evidence to suggest that baseball will take any significant hit if home run levels decline. And because owners generally overpay for home run hitters, it's possible that baseball would be more profitable with fewer players hitting 40+ home runs each year. And finally, while money talks in baseball, so do many other factors, including players' health, a sense of fairness, baseball's public image, the existence of laws against steroids, and the threat of government action. Let's hope those factors can "talk" loud enough to get a real anti-doping program enacted. Also, Letterman has the Top Ten Signs Your Kid is on Steroids. Good Sportsmanship With 1:12 left in the game, Indianapolis Colts QB Peyton Manning had the ball on the 4-yard line and a chance to tie the record for most touchdown passes in a season. But, with the game already won (the Colts led the Ravens, 20-10), he took a knee twice and let the clock run out. This would hardly be worth reporting except that (1) fans in Indianapolis booed when they were deprived of a chance to see Manning tie Dan Marino's record, and (2) we had to explain to one of our viewing companions why running up the score would be seen as bad form. Marathon Photos Thought we had enough photos from the marathon? Never! Here's a few more, from Kellie Quinones, at mile 22. Rather than add a new page, we've just added them in to the middle of the first set of Manhattan photos. Author! Author! One of the advantages of finishing races as fast as Neil Brenner does (2:44 NYC Marathon, 1:16 Philadelphia Distance Run), is that it leaves more time for writing books, like New State Spaces: Urban Governance And The Rescaling Of Statehood. For more of Neil's writings, see his official page at the NYU Sociology Department, which has the copies of most of his articles, but fails to mention anything about running. [Thanks to Stacy Creamer for the link.] Masters Indoor Nationals 2007 It's a little early to be planning, but Frank Morton pointed us towards this report that the 2007 National Masters Indoor Championships will be held right here in NYC, at the Armory. For those interested in earlier races, the 2005 competition will be held in Boise, Idaho, on March 11-13, and Boston will play host to the 2006 championships. Thursday Night Armory Workout Report We're still toying with the idea of resurrecting the website awards, and if we do the leading candidate for Most Dedicated Runner would have to be John Affleck. Sure, Micah Adriani once turned down a job that would have conflicted with the track workouts, and almost everyone on the team arranges their social lives around their running. But John is the first person we know of to skip his own office holiday party in order to be at a workout. He was joined by about 20 other runners, none of whom were skipping out on parties, and Coach Devon, who talked about "cracking the whip" and asked Leon Brown if he was "feeling feisty." Now, we know that she wants more gossip in these reports, but we didn't expect her to generate it herself. But we're glad that she gave us something to write about other than Chris Price's complaint about how we besmirched his reputation by saying that he couldn't stand after Tuesday's workout. Actually, we said he "could barely even stand," which is an entirely subjective distinction that we're sure no court would ever find libelous. Also, we have no money, so even if won a suit against us it wouldn't help him. But to avoid any further strife, the only thing we'll say about him today is that he either has good taste in television shows or his TV is stuck on Comedy Central so he has no options other than watching South Park, Drawn Together and The Daily Show. And that was all for this week. And it sounds like a lot of people will be missing next week as they embark on holiday traveling (several runners), go off to Portland to star in a play (Leon only), or inspire bad references to even worse advertisements: "Hey, Fire Chief John, you've just finished the workout. What are you going to do now?" Best Time In her first race for the team, Lauren Esposito grabbed the number 5 spot on the Best 10K Times list. PRs Last Sunday's Joe K 10K was a good one for our runners, with several of them setting PRs, including Sam Frank, Neil Brenner, James McQuade, and Otto Hoering. Congrats, guys. We Give It a Year Us Weekly reports that Anna Kournikova and Enrique Iglesias got married in Mexico recently. Tuesday Night Armory Workout Report It's homecoming week at the Armory, with Jim Aneshansley, Dan Hamner and Frank Handelman all showing up and inspiring Sid Howard to dream about a 60+ sprint relay (once Frank turns 60, natch). Plus, Sonja Edelman came all the way from Germany just to run at the track again. Okay, also to see friends, shop (thanks to the weak dollar), tour New York City, etc. And there were a bunch of other people there. Let's say 20 more. It's hard to count them all when they never stay still, and the fact that we usually split into three or four different groups means that we're rarely all in one place at the same time. And the starting time for the workout was 7:25. Maybe. We remember Coach Devon complainign "It's 7:19 and you guys are just starting your drills?" Actually, the workout may not have started until 7:30. It doesn't really matter. By the end of the workout few of the runners had the energy left to read a watch. Chris Price could barely even stand! Well, no pain, no gain, as they always say. Blogwallah We're sure all of you have been reading blogwallah, Ligaya Mishan's blog about her foreign adventures (so far limited to India). But if you haven't, you're missing her news that "the wedgie, once a source of humiliation, is now a fashion statement." You're also missing writing that is far better than the drivel you'll find here. And some good photos. Capitol Sense Two months ago we wrote that "we won't believe [the Expos are really moving from Montreal] until we see the team in D.C. on Opening Day." It's a little less likely that we'll see that, now that the D.C. City Council has voted to require the team to come up with 50% of the funding for their new stadium. In response, Major League Baseball, which owns the team (which was to be called the Washington Nationals), shut down all their business and promotional operations. One of the conditions that MLB insisted upon before awarding the team to a new city was that the city provide a new stadium at taxpayer expense. And because many people in city governments are idiots, D.C. mayor Anthony Williams agreed to pay $15 million to refurbish RFK Stadium for the next few years and another $435 million – which nearly everyone thought would rise to at least $600 million – to build a new stadium. And this deal stood until City Council Chair Linda Cropp pushed through an amendment on Tuesday. It's an unfortunate fact that stadiums do little to improve a city's economy, or even to attract development in the area around the stadium. MLB Commissioner Bud Selig and his cronies surely know this by now, but they also know that they can gouge the public becuase people – and politicians – rarely behave rationally when it comes to sports. The fact that D.C. can ill-afford to blow $600 million on a stadium when they have far more pressing needs (like funding schools, hospitals, etc.) would only have bothered Selig and company if they actually had conciences. The fact that the city's plan to raise the money relied on some desparate assumptions about potential new tax revenues probably bothered gave them some pause, but the other options – Las Vegas, NV, Portland, OR, and Norfolk, VA (a.k.a. the White sububs of D.C.) – seemed even less capable of supporting a team than D.C. did. So now what? Jim Caple has a good suggestion: Let the new owner pay.
But everything about this deal has been designed for MLB to get as much money as possible. The owners spent $120 million to buy the Expos, and have lost perhaps $80 million more due to their abyssmal management of the team. They want to get as much money as possible out of the new owner, which is why they're waiting until a stadium deal is in place before they sell the team. It's alway possible that the owners will be willing to suspend some of their greed and chip in for the stadium, but we're doubtful that they will ever "do the right thing" with the Expos (except maybe put them out of their misery in two years, which might net the owners even more money than a sale would). Which means they have three options:
None of these are really viable options, but MLB will probably have to pick one of them. We'd feel bad for the people who have to make the choiced, but Selig and the owners have no one to blame for the mess but themselves. Bill Veeck once said "Baseball must be a great game, because the owners haven't been able to kill it." Despite their best effors, they can't even kill the Expos. If only they'd stop trying. In other baseball news, The Onion mocks baseball's steroids policy. And the Mets signed Pedro Martinez, who will either bring the team back to glory (once they pick up a first baseman, a second baseman and an outfielder or two), or be the next Mo Vaughn. We're hoping it's the former. Marion Jones Sues Marion Jones is suing Victor Conte for defamation in response to Conte's claims that she took steroids. This is one of those areas of law we know almost nothing about, but it seems to us that even if Marion can prove that Conte is lying she may have a tough time proving that, after all the allegations and circumstantial incriminations of the last year, her reputation was all that impressive before Conte made his charges on 20/20. We've Asked the Same Question Many Times Today's Let's Run topic: What is your biggest dislike about running? Our favorite answer:
Photo Credits We fogot to include proper credit for the awards photos yesterday, so we'd like to thank Stuart Alexander, Andrea Haver, Kate Irvin and Michael Rosenthal for their photos. Mmmmm... Beer Who says the Times is moronic? Oh yeah, we did. But that was before today's article in the Science Times that explains how the geology of a region affects its water which leads to all sorts of variations in the tastes of different beers. See, science is fun! Bad Santas A bunch of people dressed like Santa Claus got into a brawl after a charity race in Wales last week. No word on who won the race, though. Week of December 7, 2004 - December 13, 2004 Photos! Photos from the Awards Dinner are now up. And because you all didn't wear race numbers to help us identify everyone, we have a few blanks spots among the 187 photos and we'd appreciate any help you can provide us with missing names. For the Birds We haven't been following the case of the hawks who were evicted from their nest on the 14th floor of 927 Fifth Avenue too closely, but we're not surprised to learn that our resident member of the New York City Audobon Society, Kellie Quinones, would be involved in the effort to get the hawks back home. See Yahoo for a photo of her at last week's candlelight vigil. Good Thing He Wasn't at a Gym With a 20-Minute Limit on the Treadmills Ever get bored with the lack of unchanging scenery on some of the more boring marathon courses? You could always try running the distance on a treadmill instead. That's what Michael Wardian did on Saturday in Arlington, VA. He set a new treadmill-based record in the process, finishing in 2:23:58. Race Winner Congratulations to Michael Trunkes, who won the Santa's Toy Trot 4K today. That's the 30th win of the year for the team. Steroids Slate has a good article on steroids: "Cheating Athletes - Who dopes, why they dope, and who it hurts." Photos We've collected all the photos from the awards dinner, and edited most of them. We were hoping to post them this weekend but there was a party, and then another party, and – well, the details get a little fuzzy after that. So, party photos soon, followed by a few photos we've got sitting around, and then you can all start voting for the top photos of the year. Remember, there are no rules in this contest (feel free to nominate photos of yourself), no limit to the number of photos we may select, and bribes are acceptable. Running Movie on Saturday My name is Glenn Anderson. I work for The Armory Foundation doing their media-operations (including the ARMORYTRON and a recent commercial spot for New Balance featuring 5 Olympic gold medallists). I recently directed a short film set in the Armory--a contemporary adaptation of Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. This film should have a decent life on the festival circuit. THIS SATURDAY at 12 NOON we will be doing a staged race during the CHSAA relays taking place at the Armory... I'm looking to fill-up the field for this staged race (we will be running 10 laps 'as if' it were a mile... there will be 6 small digital cameras filming the race including some of NYC's best young cinematographers... I'm looking for 4 to 6 additional MALE runners that can hang on to 4:55 to 5:10 mile pace... (the lead character drops out of the race 50 meters from the finish line while in the lead, after that it will a dash to the finish line to see who wins!) IF YOU ARE INTERESTED in joining the race please call me (917) 379 -0656 at some point on Friday!!! And I will make arrangements to get you into The Armory. I will need you from 11AM to 1215PM (1 hour 15 minutes). MANY THANKS,
Scrooge One of the things we love about Slate is that they not only publish articles like What I Like About Scrooge - In praise of misers, but they also hire the sort of writers who don't come across as pretentious when they write things like "Though Dickens might not have recognized it, the primary moral of A Christmas Carol is that there should be no limit on IRA contributions." Check out the full book of A Christmas Carol, or just read the below, which was our entry for the International Imitation Hemingway Contest several years ago:
We Promise Not to Post Things Like This for All Eight Nights Sixteen months ago, FOX unleashed a new phenomenon called The O.C. that filled the void that had been residing in all our hearts since the cancellation of Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, Dawson's Creek or whatever other teen dramas you used to watch. Suddenly grown adults were gathering around their water coolers at work (do they still do that?) to discuss the latest antics of Seth and Summer and that 25-year-old who plays a high school student, and the anorexic chick who can't act, and that guy with the bushy eyebrows. And the show did so well going up against the train wreck that was John Wells' first year at the helm of The West Wing that FOX moved in to Thursdays. And everyone forgot about The O.C. (except for Low Culture, who keeps making fun of it) and watched Survivor instead. Except for CPTCers, who are too busy running on Thursdays to care what's on TV. But after the show jumps the shark for good (later this season, when Marissa kisses a girl), it will have established its place in popular culture by giving us the new holiday of Chrismukkah. Which, as you probably guessed, is a combination of Christmas and Hanukkah. Okay, so maybe the idea of a holiday merger was already spreading on the web before then, but it didn't really take off until it made it to network TV. Certainly, nobody was going to sell Chrismukkah cards based just on an internet joke. And the folks at Virgin Mobile wouldn't be doing an ad campaign for Chrismahanukwanzakah (definitely worth checking out) without the TV show. So, ten years from now, when the Christmas season has expanded from its current length of two months to take over the entire period from Labor Day to Valentine's Day, with the new combined holiday taking up a solid three weeks in the middle, you'll know who to blame. Other holiday tidbits:
That's How the Bolsheviks Used to Get Unanimous Victories, Too From the Associated Press:
New Members Our last list of new members was incomplete. It should have been Lauren Esposito, Sean Fortune, Edward Kratt and Morgan Neuwirth. Our list of recruitment points was complete, however, so there's no change on the scoreboard. Tuesday Night Armory Workout Report After all that partying last Saturday, it looks like everyone decided to get serious about running again, and we had over 30 runners at each session (they never stand still long enough for us to get a full count). The early group continued its factionalization, with the milers and the 800m runners splitting into separate groups and a third group of masters sprinters making their first appearance. Actually the runners have been at the track for the last few weeks, but this was the first time they had Coach Tony there to give them their own workout. The rest of us, as always, relied on Coach Devon. Alas, neither coach could help the runner who tripped getting off the track after finishing an interval (name withheld because we have some sense of decency left). We happened to miss Tony's announcements, and we never report on the running itself, so it's on to the gossip. Which we don't have any of. That's sad because after the workout a small group headed down to The Dead Poet for a drink but did nothing gossip-worthy. It seems that, despite the comment on Let's Run that CPTC is good for "just having fun and social running," too many of our members only see each other during workouts, and rarely got to do anything "fun" or "social" outside the Awards Dinner. So, determined to ensure that it doesn't take another year before we can all hang out again, Andrea Haver and Kate Irvin are setting up some post-workout pub trips, the first of which was last night. They're looking for suggestions for future locations that meet the following criteria:
Know any good places? Send your suggestions to ahaver@nyrrc.org or webmaster@centralparktc.org (we're not really involved in organizing this, but we always like to know about good bars). A Stain on Baseball George Will has a good essay on steroids in major league baseball today. An excerpt:
And, amazingly, some of the posters on Let's Run actually added intelligent commentary:
Yes, we just complimented both George Will and the people who post on Let's Run. You have no idea how hard that was for us. Happy Hannukah Light a menorah. Eat latkes. Spin a dreidel. But instead of singing those Adam Sandler songs, check out Yo La Tengo, playing all eight nights at Maxwell's. We haven't heard them live in a while, but we imagine they still put on a show worth going to Jersey for. Or at least those parts of Jersey accessible by PATH train. And while we're on the subject of silly December holidays, anybody out there having a Festivus party? Arnie Green Arnie Green, a former CPTC member, and a fabulous master runner, died on Sunday while participating in a swim meet in Massachusetts, minutes after setting a New England Masters record for men 70-74. More info is available at Swim Info. Steroids and Apostrophes You could read this Page 2 article by Tim Keown for his insights on the steroid scandal, which are quite good. But we liked it even more for this section at the end:
Chass Clown Yesterday, Murray Chass wrote in the Times that the baseball players union would have agreed to a tougher steroid testing program if only the government would have let the cheaters keep their confidentiality. Actually, what he said was that the U.S. Attorney's office in San Francisco "has been engaged in activity that has impeded the union's willingness to take an unprecedented step and agree to a new, improved steroids program." The activity he referred to was the seizing of urine samples the players gave last year which determined that between 5% and 7% of the players tested positive for steroids even when they knew when the tests would take place. The feds want the samples to know if any of the players who testified before the grand jury may have been committing perjury. And the grand jury is investigating because distributing steroids is not only abetting cheating in sports, and endangering the health of the people who take the steroids, but is also illegal. But Chass isn't too concerned with that. For him it's all about keeping the identity of cheaters secret:
The players don't want their results subject to scrutiny? What's the point of having the tests unless the identity of cheaters is made public? Suggesting that the test results should be kept confidential is almost as ridiculous as saying that the union (or the owners, for that matter) would have embraced stricter testing if only the government and the press had left them alone. And yet, today we read an article titled Baseball and Players Union Said to Outline Tougher Drug Policy, which makes it pretty clear that both owners and players are acting now because of the bad press they've been getting and the threat of government intervention from people like Sen. John McCain (which Chass dismisses as "grandstanding"). We'll wait until a new program is actually agreed upon before passing judgment, but the current proposal seems to include random testing, out-of-season testing and harsher penalties, all of which are necessary components of any real anti-drug program. Brian Lehrer had an interesting chat with Jim Bouton and Frank DeFord this morning on this subject (steroids, not Chass' stupidity). Click here to listen. Cereal Killer Remember about three weeks ago when we mentioned the stupid story in the Times about college kids eating cereal? Brian Lehrer (who usually has better things to report on) did a follow-up on it on WNYC this morning and Daniel Radosh noticed that not only did the Times invent a trend out of nowhere, but that the original article's research was shoddy even by the standard of trend stories. |
|||
 |
 |
||
