Army-Navy 2008

(photos from yahoo)

Right now the Midshipmen are in command, leading the game 27-0 with 2:19 to go in the game. The score reflects how dominant Navy has been today.

Ooops; make that 34-0 with about 30 seconds to play; Navy just ran an interception back for a touchdown.

Clearly, Navy has a stronger, faster team than Army does (this year, anyway). I can also say that I am impressed with the coaching job the Navy coach as done.

Navy had come in with a 7-4 record, with wins over probable bowl teams Rutgers (23-21), Wake Forest (24-17) and Air Force (33-27) and losses to 12-1 Ball State (35-23), Pittsburgh (42-21) and Notre Dame (27-21); the only embarrassing loss was to Duke (41-31).

The game was festive as usual; note that Army wore camouflage helmets and pants.

Navy wore blue pants (instead of the usual gold) and the pants has the Marine Corps red and gold stripe down the side.

Of course, The Decider is at the game but he is still the Commander in Chief as Barack Obama will soon be. So, I really don’t mind; were I at the game I would have given him (President Bush) polite applause.

One thing that I remember: West Point always did a better job with the march-on than we (Navy) did.

Jingle Bell Run, Peoria, 2008

The Jingle Bell race has changed character with time. When I first did it (1996) it was a smaller event that started downtown. People were into the spirit a bit (a few Santa hats) but, well, I’ll let the numbers tell the story:

year	number	Median Time	remarks
1996	474	25:40	downtown course
1997	441	25:53	downtown
1998	491	25:25	river trail
1999	506	25:20
2000	501	26:40	riverplex start
2001	528	27:16
2002	675	29:10
2003	551	26:26
2004	675	31:08	chute back-up
2005	554	28:31	snow on the course
2006	canceled	informal
2007	516	29:58	slick, icy
2008	614	28:29	few snow patches

I’ll fill in the table when we get the results for 2008. But you can see the trend: more people and a slower field (and more costumes, etc.)

General Remarks about the Event itself; my race report follows

As far as the race organization: the packet pick-up and the post race stuff is very well organized; the volunteers in this area do an excellent job. The problems, as I see them, have to do with the start of the race.

We lined up a few minutes ahead of time and there was the usual “ok, let’s have an announcement or two”. Then, they had to sing the National Anthem. Ok, that isn’t that bad, but the singer that they got had to sing the slowest rendition of the National Anthem that I’ve ever heard. Keep in mind that this is December in Illinois and many people are dressed down so as to run; there was some serious shivering going on.

Then, when she finally stopped singing, sans warning, people just took off. Hence it was a bit of a zoo as

1. Not everyone started running at the same time; there was no gun.
2. Some parents thought it would be a great idea to have about a dozen of their little darlings lined up near the front; it was hard to even see them and to run around them.
3. One of the costumed guys was running with a spear…WITH A SHARP POINT. Great idea for a crowded run where one could easily slip on a patch of ice, huh?
4. There was a group of cheerleaders running about a half-dozen abreast attempting to sing and run at the same time. Then “whoopsie”, one of the snowflakes got an untied shoe lace. So the entire wall STOPS AT ONCE, completely oblivious to the fact that there are hundreds of people right behind them. Oh well, it is just a matter of time until these snowflakes end up in my business calculus class. Groan.

THAT was about the first 500 meters of the race!

But, after that, the rest of the race was pretty well done. You go up this small incline and then about 1200 meters into it get a long, sweet gradual decline. About 2000 meters or so (1.25 miles) you turn off the city streets and go onto the river trail.

The river trail is a paved bikepath; you do part of the gooseloop and run though a marina parking lot. Today there were about a half-dozen patches of snow/ice which made me chop my stride just a bit, but that cost me, at most, a few seconds (5-10?) total.

By the time the runners get to the bike path, the runners are stretched out enough so you can run without being crowded.

You did get a “split” time at 1 and 2 miles, and the Peoria Police Department did their usual good job with traffic control.

The Illinois Valley Striders ran the finish line section and had two chutes available in order to prevent finish chute back-up; the finish line appeared to operate very smoothly. But that isn’t a surprise as the IVS folks know what they are doing.

My Race

Short version: 24:22 via 7:49/7:39/8:53 (1.1) Pace: 7:51
Place: 133 out of 614.

This was roughly on the level as last week’s 4 mile race; remember the latter one was downhill on a totally dry course. This one was a level loop course on pavement that had a few small snow/ice patches in the last mile.

Note: I used the calculator at McMillan Running to determine my pace and equivalent times for other race distances. They also give you suggested paces to run your various workouts.

Longer Race Report

I used my membership privileges to go into the Riverplex, warm up with 2 miles on the 200 meter indoor track, and then put on my outdoor gear to run the race which started in the Riverplex parking lot. To get in the spirit of things, I wore my Santa hat to go with my white beard; I also wore a red long sleeved shirt.

Once again, I probably lined up just a bit too far back, given the nature of this race. Nevertheless, after the disorganized start I wove my around the packs of little kids, the 12 minute a mile joggers and singing (and stopping) cheerleaders to get into a steady rhythm about 600 meters into it or so. I stayed reasonably steady and just focused; mile 1 came at 7:49. I saw the long decline in front of me and so I just tried to stay steady and relaxed and to enjoy the slight tailwind.

I turned and we started around the gooseloop part where mile 2 was: the second mile was 7:39, which was reasonable given the decline and tailwind. Then we faced the slight wind in our face and those half-dozen snow/ice patches; these weren’t long (20 meters or so?) but I did have to adjust my stride a bit. I knew that I had only about 1200 meters to go when we exited the marina parking lot (with the boats all parked and winterized) and I did get passed a couple of times, though I did some passing as well.

I just didn’t have it in me to go hard and more or less kept it at a steady but “non-puke” effort. That extra gear that comes with mileage plus speedwork just isn’t there, yet.

So I just tried to maintain and when it became clear that I wasn’t going to break 24 I just shut it down. My finish time was 24:22 or 8:53 for the last 1.1; that was a bit slower than I had hoped for.

Update I came up to this tallish guy and decided to not try to pass him; he sped up a bit to keep me at bay. I later found out that this was John Ruff, who is my sports podiatrist!!!

Afterward I walked a mile on the indoor track in the Riverplex to cool down.
I am not that sore; it was a tough effort but I really didn’t push it today.

I still have a lot of base building to do before thinking about doing some speedwork. Oh well, good things always take time to develop.

Jingle Bell Morning: Beat Army!

Well, I can say that it is snowing this Saturday morning (nothing serious) so it must be time for the annual Jingle Bell run. I’ll do it even though this race is usually among the worst organized races in Peoria; it is a way to run with friends and to raise money.

So in a few minutes I’ll go to the gym, sign up, do a longish warm up (2-3 miles) and then “just run” the race without worrying about time.

Besides it is spandex season around here:

Football Last night my spousal unit drug me to one of those “films that educated people are supposed to like”; it was an animated French film about an Iranian girl/young woman. I saw it as oversimplified leftist BS but I managed to stay awake through it all. But I got back in time to watch the end of the Ball State-Buffalo game.

It turns out that the Bulls won 42-24 in a game in which the Cardinals self destructed. Ball State was up 17-14 when Buffalo scooped up a fumble in their own red zone and ran it in (92 yards!) to make it 21-17. Ball State got the ball back. But then a botched shotgun snap got kicked around and Buffalo ran it in (74 yards) to make it 28-17 going into the 4′th quarter.

Then Ball State started to take risks that didn’t pan out. The got pinned deep after going for it on 4th down and fumbling it near midfield. Buffalo failed to move the ball and punted pinning Ball State on their own 20. A 4th down ploy (short) didn’t work, and Buffalo used the short field to drive it in making it 35-17.

Ball State cut it to 35-24 via a long drive but Buffalo recovered the onside kick and used the short field to take it in for the touchdown that iced the game.

In all, Ball State outgained Buffalo 503 yards to 301 but couldn’t overcome the 4 fumbles, two defensive touchdowns and all of the short fields that they gave the Bulls.

It was that kind of day for Ball State.

(photos from yahoo)

Mathematics fun: I’ll probably check this out after the semester ends. I want to refresh my programming skills and a good way to do that might be to write my own cipher program; I have an idea on how to do it.

Social-Political. I know that some people don’t like cursing. But 6 months of jail time appropriate for using ONE curse word one time?

Creationism in the Military Science Avenger talks about this Daily Kos article. I don’t think that it was this bad when I was in the military, but perhaps things have changed?

Check out these slides that a military commander used during his Commander’s Call:

I sure hope that such ignorance isn’t considered a virtue in today’s military.