Oh Well; study day Fall 2008

I had planned to get up at 4 am (as usual) so I could go swimming but my wife kept me awake with her constant coughing.

So I’ll do something over lunch hour (2000 yards maybe?) or perhaps run a few miles (4-5) on the home treadmill and swim tomorrow morning instead. Since I was feeling a bit rundown over the past couple of days, a couple of easy days might recharge the old batteries, I think.

Update: very slow 5 mile “run” on the ‘mill; it did energize me a bit.

I was going to work at home (it is study day) but I have decided to update my virus protection on the home computer; that ALWAYS takes hours. It isn’t as if I could get much done at home anyway because my wife is home, coughing away.

Oh well, she’ll feel better in a few days, I think.

We got sleet/snow last night; conditions outside were just plain rotten.

Football Did you know that more teams are in bowl games than are not? That’s right: there are 68 bowl teams and 51 non bowl teams. Hmmm, it appears that the “everyone gets a prize” mentality has now percolated to college football, except for the fact that coaches with losing records still get fired.

But yeah, getting to a bowl game basically means, for most teams, scheduling enough out of conference patsies to reach 7-5 or 6-6. So for Big 12, Big 10 and SEC teams (who play 4 out of conference games), 4 cupcakes plus 2 or 3 conference wins means a bowl. It is a bit tougher for the PAC 10 teams who only play 3 non-conference games; they actually have to win 3-4 conference games to become bowl eligible.

I should point out that not all teams schedule out of conference pastry: Florida played Florida State (always) and Miami (usually good) and former BCS bowl game participant Hawaii. USC played Ohio State and (traditionally good) Notre Dame.

Science, Social Policy and Hypocrisy

3-quarks daily points to an interesting article about hypocrisy. Sometimes, claiming that “the messenger is a hypocrite” (often a correct charge). might blind us to the truth of the message.
This is neither a liberal nor a conservative phenomenon.

Don’t get me wrong; I think that it is still a good idea to practice what you preach.

Politics: 538.com has an interesting analysis of Obama’s win in the western states. Note: this has nothing to do with African American turnout or Republicans staying home.

Theist-Atheist Ad wars

An atheist group is paying to have these signs put up on buses:

Note: us non-believers have had to put up with “god signs” for years and years.

But, of course, some fundies think that they should respond with this sign:

To which, an atheist responds:

Now if all of this “back and forth” makes you roll your eyes, just count the number of pro-church or pro-deity signs you see on a day to day basis, especially if you commute to work (for example, I walk to work).

Penguins: Two Different Kinds

First, on a completely unrelated note, here is how to have cruel fun with a clueless person who wants to cause trouble.

18:07] kimp1337: i was just wondering, how do i hack?
[18:07] evoatheist: …
[18:07] evoatheist: get an axe and hack your neck off
[18:07] kimp1337: are you being sarcastic?
[18:08] evoatheist: of course not
[18:08] kimp1337: no i mean, how do i hack? really?
[18:08] kimp1337: i use linux
[18:08] evoatheist: oh i see, ok then
[18:09] evoatheist: you want to make sure that you don’t get v&.
[18:09] evoatheist: so you need to type this command before you begin
anything: mv /sbin/ /dev/null/sbin
[18:10] kimp1337: hang on let me type

Note: this person just deleted his directory! But it is worse than that: “dev/null/sbin” wipes the memory clean. It is always the best when you can get them to do it to themselves.

Now, about Penguins

The aquatic type of penguin: this one is a very smart penguin!

done

Then there is the “running” penguin: a runner who shows up at races and, well, celebrates in their slowness. Their motto: “The miracle isn’t that I finished. It is that I had the courage to start.”

Starting a race is a “miracle”?

Nevertheless, I did some number crunching on the latest 2008 Jingle Bell Run (Peoria) and compared these statistics to the 1996 race.

I posted this comparison on the Illinois Valley Striders Message Boards:

Just because I am a numbers geek and am on lunch hour, I’ll compare the stats from my first Jingle Bell run (1996) to now (2008):

Numbers:

1996: 474 recorded finishers
2008: 614 recorded finishers

Median time:

1996: 25:40
2008: 28:29

Time break downs:

Sub 16 minutes:

1996: 1
2008: 0

16:00-16:59
1996: 5 (1 percent)
2008: 4 (0.65 percent)

17:00-17:59

1996: 10 (2.1 percent)
2008: 7 (1.1 percent)

18:00-18:59

1996: 18 (3.8 percent)
2006: 11 (1.8 percent)

19:00-19:59

1996: 21 (4.4 percent)
2008: 10 (1.6 percent)

20:00-20:59

1996: 21 (4.4 percent)
2008: 18 (2.9 percent)

21:00-21:59

1996: 28 (5.9 percent)
2008: 22 (3.6 percent)

22:00-22:59

1996: 29 (6.11 percent)
2008: 26 (4.2 percent)

23:00-23:59

1996: 43 (9.1 percent)
2008: 20 (3.25 percent)

24:00-24:59

1996: 31 (6.5 percent)
2008: 34 (5.5 percent)

Hmmm, the next time I teach statistics I see a class project or two embedded in the IVS data base! Smiley

FWIIW: my time in 1996 was in the 21:53, and this year it was 24:22 (my watch).

But my “place within the field” hardly changed at all; in 1996 it was 99/474 = .2088, and this time it was 133/614 = .2166.

Oh yes, of my 2:30 (approximately) slow down over these 12 years, according to the age graded calculators, 2:00 of that can be attributed to age (or about 80 percent of my slow down) and the remaining 20 percent of it can be attributed to the fact that I am still in the infancy of my attempt to reintroduce running into my routine. Right now I am at 3 runs per week and hope to build it to 4, then 5, then 6 over the coming several months.
—————-

What is my point? My point is that the nature of this race has changed. If it were merely a bit of the race growing by adding slow “walk runners” (pure walkers aren’t included in the stats) the median time would have fallen, but you’d still have similar raw numbers running the faster times. Instead, now-a-days, there are far fewer sub 8 minute per mile runners, period. The emphasis on “participation” rather than “athletic achievement” (at least at this race) has spread throughout the whole field; it isn’t confined to the back of the pack.

Don’t get me wrong; public running is a mixture of exercise and entertainment; this is not an issue that is worth losing sleep over. But I like to think about causes and effects and I wonder if the cause is, at least in part, the existence of these “beginners training programs” (e. g., Building Steam in our area). If someone needs an organized training program in order to build up to finishing a four mile run, then they will probably not be motivated enough to train enough to run reasonably well.

Without these programs, maybe, just maybe, we’d have a bit more “self selection” at our races and those who show up would come from the more motivated crowd? I don’t know; I haven’t done any research to back up my conjecture.

Speaking of Running

Here is a clearing house of sorts of ultra run data. Real Endurance.com
Unfortunately, they don’t have two of my best ultra performances listed:

Cornbelt 24 hour, 2004

1 Paul Schmidt 45 M Davenport IA 124.62 8:33:06 10:49:58 18:23:52
2 Jan Ryerse 58 M St. Louis MO 112.65 8:14:34 10:55:20 20:12:50
3 Ronald Grimes 57 M New Castle IN 110.37 9:01:12 11:33:53 20:48:41
4 Kent Towler 42 M Rock Island IL 106.98 8:33:57 10:57:52 22:46:15
5 Jeff Neumann 41 M Wildwood MO 104.06 8:39:20 11:32:39 22:41:44
6 Allan Holtz 54 M Oakdale MN 102.36 9:37:19 12:52:05 22:57:52
7 Ollie Nanyes 44 M Peoria IL 101.03 11:13:38 14:07:55 23:40:10

(there were 49 finishers…and yes, I walked 100 percent of it)

Wandelweekend, 2004

88 miles in 24 hours; “judged” but soft knee allowed.