Carpy walk and False Memories.

Workout notes 10 mile walk; time from the Detwiller Marina dam past the gooseloop was 1:03:04; I had hoped to break 1:03. Dang.
This leg is just a bit under 5 miles, but it is net uphill (from the Illinois River to the Bluff).

Some photos from this course are here.

Note: as I walked along the water front, I could hear the Asian carp jumping out of the water. The Illinois River has an Asian carp crisis; they have pushed out the native fish and the carp really don’t have a good use (e. g., too bony to be eaten).

Yes, these were imported to solve a problem, but escaped and went on to cause more problems.

Five species of Asian carp now occur in the contiguous United States. These include grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella), common carp (Cyprinus carpio), silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molotrix), bighead carp (H. nobilis) and black carp (Mylopharyngodon piceus). Common carp, brought to the United States from Europe in 1831, were soon propagated and distributed throughout waters of the Upper Mississippi River System (UMRS). Grass carp were imported from eastern Asia in 1963 to control submersed aquatic vegetation in aquaculture ponds and were first documented in the Mississippi River along Illinois in 1971. Silver carp and bighead carp were imported from China in 1973 to improve water quality of aquaculture ponds (initially in Arkansas). These species have invaded our Midwestern rivers, through pond escapement or by deliberate introductions and were first documented in the UMRS as early as 1982. Reproducing populations of these four species are now present in the UMRS. Presently black carp, which are mollusk eaters, only exist in aquaculture ponds of Arkansas and Mississippi.

Update Evidently, I had someone who knows what they are talking about make a comment on this post, and I feel that it deserves to be in the main body:

Just a comment – I could not tell where the text was from, but, depending on your definition of Asian carp, there are either 4 or 6 (not five) species of Asian carp in the USA. If you include common carp (Cyprinus carpio) in the definition, it doesn’t make any sense NOT to include goldfish (Carrassius auratus). In fact, common carp is native to both Europe and Asia, and so is sometimes called European carp, while goldfish are strictly Asian in origion.

However, Common carp and goldfish are often not included in the definition of “Asian carp” in North America. The other four listed above were imported much later, directly from Asia, and constitute the assemblage known in Chinese as (roughly translated) “the four famous domestic fish”. The management plan for bighead, silver, black, and grass carp in the United States makes a point of the definition of “Asian carps” as including only these species. Minor point, I know, but hey…

My note: the link to the text that Duane is referring to is above the quote.

It is an article on the US Geological Survey website written by Todd M. Koel, Kevin S. Irons, and Eric Ratcliff.

False Memories I talked a bit about these in a previous post. Here is one of mine:

I remember when I restarted running (after a period of morbid obesity), I had fond memories of my “glorious period” of running: a two month period from February to March of 1982. During this period, I ran three races: a 32 minute 5 miler on a hilly course, a 1:09:55 10 miler (10.2 miles actually) and a 39:50 10K. I know, pathetic by “real runner” standards, but that was my best.

Soon after I was to attempt to run a 5 minute mile (so I thought) but I ended up getting sick and couldn’t run well at my goal meet.

So, what was my “false memory”? Well, in my memory, I had done 8 x 400 meters in 75 seconds each, or so I had thought. I was so close to that 5 minute mile, right? But my workout log from that era had been misplaced and so this just stayed in my memory. Oh what a glorious track workout!
I was just striding along, looking like Michael Johnson, feeling great, but that blasted illness came along and deprived me of that sub 5 minute mile that I was sure to run, right?

Well, then I found my old logs. I had found out: yes, on that day, I had done 8 x 400, but the first 7 were 81-83 seconds, and my last one was…78 seconds. This is exactly what one would expect of a “runner” of my ability. I had written that it was my goal to eventually do them all in 75 but that was a long ways away. But over time, my unrealized goal became my history, at least in my mind.

Too bad I hadn’t made winning the Boston Marathon as my goal!