10 June 2009 (am)

My “fun” articles for the day:

Athletics Rest day, though I’ll walk with my group. I’ll have more to say about this later. But for now I’ll share a cool “running/racing/training pace” calculator and the following article about racewalking:

There’s a running gag in my family that goes like this: We’ll be driving through some neighborhood and come upon one of those women (it’s always a woman) power-walking down the sidewalk. You know the type: wildly exaggerated stride, arms pumping furiously, sometimes with a small weight in each hand.

“Dork walker!” one of my kids will cry out.

Sometimes it’s me who does that.

Okay, it’s usually me.

I think I might have to stop now. For I have met some walkers, and they make a pretty good argument about why I might be joining them in the not-too-distant future.

Not the dork, er, power walkers. No, these are racewalkers, and they believe that once word gets out to the nation’s more than 70 million baby boomers, their sport could become the Next Big Thing.

“I want racewalking to become for baby boomers in their 50s, 60s and 70s what jogging was for them in their 20s,” says Brent Bohlen, author of the new book “BoomerWalk: Why Baby Boomers Should Replace Running and Jogging With Racewalking.”

It’s hard to dispute Bohlen’s main point: Racewalking is low-impact. As we age, the sport is much easier on our backs, feet, ankles and knees than running. [...]

Well, I sometimes attempt to racewalk (and I’ll say more later) but no, racewalking will never be popular. The reason: it is far too technical to learn, and most people don’t want to work that hard to learn a fitness activity.

Evidence: witness the fitness swimmers in a pool; only a few swim properly; most do some sort of “not even close” breaststroke or just thrash around in the water. Or, check out softball: how many recreational fast pitch teams do you see? 40-50 years ago, it was mostly fast pitch, but fast pitch takes a long time to learn.

NBA The Magic shot a phenomenal percentage from the field and still needed two free throws with 0.5 seconds left to win 108-104; note that Kobe Bryant (normally a 90 percent free throw shooter in the playoffs) only went 5 of 10 from the line.

So the Lakers played hard and I see them winning the next game and closing it out in either 5 or 6 games.

Politics The conservatives are just making stuff up about President Obama. Here is a sample from Salon’s latest list:

Myth: Obama can’t function without a teleprompter, even uses it for answers at press conferences.

Who’s spreading it: Rush Limbaugh; TeleprompterPresident.com

What they believe: “Barack Obama’s use of teleprompters is becoming legendary. He doesn’t go anywhere without them and rarely, if ever, speaks without their assistance.” This has been a theme of Rush Limbaugh’s since early in the campaign last year. Sean Hannity has joked, rather ickily, on Fox News about whether Obama sleeps with the teleprompter between him and Michelle. Right-wing bloggers argue Obama is totally incompetent without the prompter and can’t speak off the cuff. The theory is widespread enough that a Web site has been devoted to it: TeleprompterPresident.com, which not only studiously collects Obama’s bloopers but also retails other preposterous Obama conspiracies. (Note the nice Photoshop job in this “picture” of Air Force One flying over New York City’s skyline.)

What is real: Presidents have been using teleprompters for more than 50 years, and notecards for even longer. It’s true that Obama uses the prompter, specifically, more than most of his predecessors. He uses them for casual announcements and the lead-ins to press briefings, and on the campaign trail last year, he even set his teleprompter up in the ring of a rodeo. Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen recently started reading from Obama’s script, after an aide mixed up the two leaders’ speeches.

But charges that he is “incapable of forming his remarks and speeches without reading them verbatim,” or that he avoided one-on-one contact with U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown because the teleprompter would have made it awkward, are insane. Obama has written two books, given hundreds of unscripted speeches and interviews on the campaign trail, and even now goes on in great detail, and great length, during question-and-answer sessions with voters, lawmakers and reporters.

“Whether he’s using notecards or a different method of reading his notes, I don’t think anybody cares,” a White House aide told Salon, after asking incredulously why this article was even being written. In fact, listening to Obama speak without notes, it’s tempting to think his advisors want him to use the teleprompter in part because it keeps him from getting too involved in what he’s talking about, rather than because he can’t speak without it. At his first prime time presidential press conference, his answers dragged on so long he had time for only a handful of questions. But the aide wouldn’t concede that his boss is — left to his own devices — a little wordy.

I emphasized this because if I try to lecture without notes, I often get too involved with a nuance and end up getting undisciplined. Believe me, I know enough calculus to teach it without notes.

Back to the Salon article: there is much more there, including the “Obama is a fascist”, “Obama is a socialist”, claims, etc.

Why the Republicans are being crazy: Obama’s approval ratings are still good. Evidently people know that the previous messes took a while to build up to and we’ll have to spend time digging ourselves out.

Of course, one Republican teased me about Obama talking more about Jesus than Bush did.

I can’t say that this is my favorite aspect of him. But I really don’t mind someone using a religious figure as a good example and that is what President Obama appears to be doing (“in the best that your religious tradition has to offer, you are told to feed the hungry, cure the sick, etc.”). On the other hand, President Bush said that he had conversations with his deity and that he was told to invade this country, etc.

That is a huge difference.

Security It is probably not a good idea to enlist the help of children to “spot terrorists”.

Global warming has affected the acidity levels of the oceans thereby endangering valuable sea based resources.

Religion and Science: read a back and forth over the interplay between a naturalistic philosophy and science. Yes, atheist scientists often debate this topic among themselves.

Religion, Atheism, Morals: Religion doesn’t solve the “what is moral” problem.

Evidence: for one example, read the Bible. It is full of horrific divinely sanctioned actions; stuff that is clearly immoral. So how do we KNOW that this stuff is immoral; after all it was the deity telling people to murder, kill innocents, take virgins, etc.

Some Republican “thought” and other topics

more about "Shelby says Obama “destroying best he…", posted with vodpod

See: in their minds, we currently have the “best health care system” ever. I wonder what measure he uses; certainly the richest among us can probably claim that. But in our country, too many people go bankrupt over treatable health problems.

According to the August issue of the American Journal of Medicine, the cost of obtaining medical care resulted in sixty-two percent of bankruptcies in 2007 – an increase of 49.7 percent from 2001. Most interestingly, patients who filed bankruptcy as the result of health care costs had health insurance.

In addition, the information that bankruptcy has caused two-thirds of bankruptcies was gathered prior to the current economic decline. The data reveals that just over sixty percent of people who declared bankruptcy had private health insurance, that most were college educated and homeowners.

Medical bills for the people without health insurance coverage averaged $26,971, and for those with insurance, medical costs leading to bankruptcy averaged $17,749 due to high deductibles and out of pocket expenses associated with co-payments and procedures not covered by insurance.

You also have the case where, under the free market system, people with pre-existing conditions often can’t get any coverage at all.

But this is the world in which the Republican political leadership lives.

Here is yet another glimpse at the Republican world:

more about "Beck, Sanford allege Obama taking ove…", posted with vodpod

Gee, that sounds bad! But wait…it was the South Carolina legislature that overrode the Governor and the South Carolina Supreme Court that ruled against him:

Last week, the South Carolina Supreme Court ordered Governor Mark Sanford to apply for some $700 million in federal stimulus money. Despite his objections, Sanford has complied with the court order, but his right-wing allies in the state are now absurdly claiming that this is somehow a violation of the principles of federalism:

Oran Smith, president of South Carolina-based Palmetto Family Council, says Thursday’s ruling violates the notion of federalism.

“And it’s particularly a problem in this case because it’s related to money,” he notes. “So the question is: Can the federal government just simply buy off a state? Or use the power of the purse to manipulate a state into doing what the federal government thinks it should?

“…[T]hat’s a very dangerous precedent,” adds Smith, “and I think it’s really the reason why we fought a certain war in 1776 or so to fight against this type of thing.”

Smith obviously has no idea what he is talking about. Last month, the South Carolina legislature passed a budget that required Sanford to apply for the stimulus funds but Sanford didn’t want to and so he sued rather than accept the law. And last week the state Supreme Court ruled against him

More from the Republicans: President Obama is a “False Prophet”.

Now just why are we supposed to take them seriously?

More on other stuff

Perhaps this is one reason that our incoming college students don’t take ethics seriously: their parents don’t take them seriously.

If you wonder why I complain about some of the snowflakes from time to time: this is the level of maturity that we sometimes have to deal with:

Environment: I am NOT for this kind of recycling:

OAKLAND, Calif. — Cheese graters, handbags, fencing and recliners are just some of the thousands of consumer products that have been manufactured with radioactive metals, according to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) records. [...]

In some cases the products are made up primarily of the tainted materials, and in other cases it’s a small component that contaminated the products. Goods that have been found tainted with radioactive materials include:

* A China-made kitchen grater, found in a Flint, Mich., scrap plant, that was laced with the isotope Cobalt-60, giving off the equivalent of a chest X-ray over 36 hours of use.

* A 430,000-pound shipment of metal, tainted with Cobalt-60, that came from Brazil in 1998 and was used to make brackets for 1,000 La-Z-Boy recliners, giving off a chest X-ray’s worth of radiation every 1,000 hours.

* About 900 women’s handbags made in India and found in the Netherlands that had metal rings laced with Cobalt-60 on each bag’s shoulder strap.

* 500 sets of buttons made for Otis elevators in France and Sweden, using radioactive metal from India.

* Shipments of chain link fencing from India in 1991, and another shipment of tainted fencing from India a decade later.

Hat tip to William Higgins, a Naval Academy classmate and yes, a big time …..Republican.
Interestingly enough he and I agree that nuclear power has a place in the energy mix, as does President Obama.

9 June 2009 AM

Workout notes Yoga, 1 mile of walking working on technique. Yes, 1 mile; just under 13 minutes.
Then I cut the grass with our new electric mower; one has to get it done when it isn’t raining. Yes, I wore a light windbreaker. No kidding.

I am still tired and a bit cranky.

My posts for today:

Terrorist threats I’ve read about people being concerned at some of the satellite imagery that is available; somehow they feel that this “aids the terrorists.” Schneier says to calm down and to not live in fear.

Speaking of keeping things in perspective: finally, local schools aren’t going to have 8′th grade graduation ceremonies.

Good. I think that people are getting carried away.

Religion and Society
This person is upset with atheists.
That is fine as it goes; no one is entitled to be liked. But read this:

What, for example, is the source of the bedrock American belief in human equality? It has no basis in science or materialism. Some people are brilliant, powerful and assertive, while others can’t even tie their shoelaces. If “reason” alone is the standard, the notion of equality appears to be nonsense.

See where this is going? But what does the Bible say about equality? Well, there are rules to govern slavery (one example) and even Jesus intimated that helping a non-Judean was “throwing meat from the master’s table to the dogs” (Mark 7:24–30)

So, no, equality didn’t come from a holy text; it came from, yes, human REASON.

And why should we act with charity toward the poorest and weakest among us? “Reason” — untempered by compassion — suggests that autistic children and Alzheimer’s sufferers are drags on society. In ancient Rome, disabled babies were left on hilltops to die. Why lavish care and resources on them?

Yes, compassion for others can be found in holy texts, but there are also horrific examples of no compassion. Again, figuring out which texts to follow and which to ignore is, yes, an exercise in human reason.

However, even if, say, the Bible were a fountain of mercy and compassion (and it is far from that), it doesn’t make its supernatural claims true.

This author’s argument seems to be “it is true because it would be better if it were true”.
Now this person is harmless. The following person might not be:

Hat tip to Right Wing Watch.
(note the slam on paganism). Stuff like this might make Gingrich popular in certain regions of the country, but not much else. What the Republicans don’t seem to get is that people, on the whole, are fine with religion in the private sphere. But they, on the whole, don’t hunger for a theocracy. I hope that he keeps this up.

Bumper Sticker:

(hat tip to Friendly Atheist)

Yes, when people call me a “godless animal” I say “exactly”!

Jesus Cartoons If you are into them, check ‘em out. The second one is a “what if Jesus was a snowflake” variety.

Science

Check out this example of a water turbine that generates electricity from natural currents.

Evolution Larry Moran has a blurb about natural selection and points us to an article that explains some common misconceptions.

I admit that I was a bit surprised that I didn’t have these misconceptions. For one, I know that not all beneficial mutations get fixed in an allele; there is some chance involved. Also, I know that environmental changes are not required for natural selection to take place, though they can have an effect (e. g., the nuclear accident at Chernobyl lead to voles adapting to the highly radioactive environment. After all, natural selection produces (on the average) improvement and not necessarily “optimum” (in fact, an optimum can fail to exist).

And yes, there are things such as genetic drift in which some non-beneficial mutations become fixed.

Health care Robert Reich wonders if President Obama overreacted to President Clinton’s failure in the health care area; he wants him to be a bit less bipartisan and to twist some arms. He also warns about watering down the public option with things like “triggers” or “breaking it down to the states”; a large group has better negotiating power.

Back Home (for now); 8 June 2009 (pm)

Random Observations
NBA The Lakers are up 2-0 over the Magic with an overtime win in game 2. It was exciting to watch. But what annoyed me though was the reporting on what happened in the last play of regulation. The Magic had the ball with 0.5 seconds left and tried an alley-oop pass from out of bounds. The pass was open but Lee missed the shot. The announcers seemed to blame “the rookie” when in fact Gasol (the Lakers center) contested that shot and forced Lee to adjust his attempt just a bit; that was just really good defense, in my opinion.

(from here)

see 50 seconds into this highlight video:

To me, Gasol deserved more credit for his defense (on that play) than he got.

The trip home I decided to take I-94 out of Minnesota to I-39 in Wisconsin. Yes, it rained and rained heavily at times, but the highway was good…until I got to Illinois. I was greeted with a lane narrowing and a toll, then with 3 lane reductions on I-39 to I-80 then yet another lane reduction on I-80; there is just more construction on the Illinois roads than just about anywhere else.

Evidently I am not alone in thinking this:

Respondents voted the following as the worst roads by segment:

– I-94 in Chicago

– I-10 through Louisiana

– I-70 from Kansas City to St. Louis
[...]

This was the third consecutive year that Arkansas’ I-40 has been voted the worst stretch of road and the second year that Arkansas roads have been voted worst overall.

In voting by state, Arkansas was followed on the worst roads by Illinois, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, New York New York, state, United States
New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of and Michigan (tie).

Truckers’ voices heard: Most improved roads

On the upside Upside

The potential dollar amount by which the market or a stock could rise.

Notes:
This is basically an educated guess on how high a stock could go in the near future.
See also: Bull, Downside
….. Click the link for more information., the truckers acknowledged states that had made investments in their highway systems. The states with the most-improved roads included:

– Pennsylvania

– Louisiana

– Texas

– Illinois

– Florida

Maybe next year Arkansas will make this list. Nearly all of 1-40 between Fort Smith and Little Rock is scheduled for a $350 million resurfacing plan, with repairs beginning as early as this year.

Specific road segments that praised for most improvements since last year were I-80 and I-81 through Pennsylvania, I-20 through Louisiana, I-55 through Illinois and I-10 through Texas.

So we have the worst, but we are also improving. We’ll see if the improvements hold; given our state’s corruption I wonder if the improvement projects really went to the best bidders.

Other observation
Seen in the parking lot of the Chinese buffet: a white “hummer stretch limo”.

There were some teens and some overweight man (the kind that wears an untucked t-shirt and looks pregnant) puffing away on a cigarette. Yep, I eat at some classy joints!

Well, there really is a cute bullfrog in the pond in front of the place; some day I’ll get a photo.

At the race last weekend I found out that rain can even make black spandex become transparent; no the stripes on her undies did NOT make her look fat.
Hey when one is getting tired and disappointed, one has to look for the bright sides.

June 8 2009 link Dump (AM)

I don’t have much to add but I did do some blog reading; here is what I found interesting.

Health Care
President Obama’s remarks:

Robert Reich: talks about the fight with big pharma (they want to kill a national option as a national option would yield a bigger pool which would enable a stronger negotiating position for the plan). He also talks about the pitfalls of putting the national option on a “trigger basis” (comes into effect if certain benchmarks are not met)

Economy Paul Krugman points us to an article which blasts the conservative media for misleading on President Obama’s job numbers.

Politics This seems odd, but more heavily male districts are more likely to elect a woman representative or political leader (governor, representative, senator) than a normal or a more heavily female region. This trend applies for liberal and conservative districts/regions/states.

This chart is taken from Nate Silver’s article and shows the result of a regression.

Religion
This is via Friendly Atheist.

We also are linked to this video which explains “Bible based marriage”.

One note: I remember reading the book Biblical Literacy by Rabbi Teluskin. He comments that many of the Bible episodes show exactly what one shouldn’t do in a marriage!

Science and Mathematics
Sometimes bad math papers get published and, yes, end up getting blistered in the reviews.

I remember one time when a little paper of mine got reviewed; I was horrified as I had written this as sort of an expository primer for students. Fortunately the reviewer knew what I was up to and reviewed it that way.

Sandwalk: Larry Moran has little patience when people in evolutionary biology jump to conclusions. (e. g., notice the phenomena of daughters talking more to their moms than to their dads when they are ovulating and claiming that is is an anti-incest defense mechanism)

Orangutans can use tools! Check out this article about an orangutan shorting out an electrical fence system and then making a ladder in order to escape. Hat tip: Science Avenger.

———————–

FANS 24 Report

Yes, this is me in the last couple of hours of the race.

I’ll quote the race director:

POST-RACE UPDATE
Very cold, very wet weather severely challenged the field, but could not stop Michael Henze from shattering
Danny Ripka’s course record of 136 miles, which had stood since 1999. Henze completed more than 147 miles.

I noticed that Ripka ran much of the later stages of the race without a coat as did the female winner. Not a lot of clothes means not a lot of extra water weight.

I have to admit that I admire those who run fast in these things; it seems that all of them have a very short, very compact efficient stride with not much knee lift.

My race The first 10-15 miles felt fine, though I felt myself starting to slow just a bit. I took Succeed tablets every lap and they worked ok; nausea wasn’t to dog me until I ate solid food 12 hours into the race; by then I shouldn’t have (given that I was exhausted from the effort). My initial laps were a bit too quick as well; the 32-33 should have been 35-36. I was to pay a heavy price later.

Also at about 4 hours I started to get some pain in the back of my right knee; part of it is that I have lots of scar tissue in that leg and it aches during wet weather. The other part is that, where I have put in enough miles to “fake it” through a marathon, I haven’t done enough miles to walk in this fashion for such a long time.

I took Tylenol at 4 and 8 hours. But when I took Tylenol at 4 hours (2 extra strength tablets) I got some face tingles and felt just a tad bit “loopy”; I was worried that I had taken too much sodium? I figured out that it was the combination of the drug and my lower blood volume when I took it again at 8 hours and got a similar effect.

At around 6 hours I knew that it would be rough sledding and I told Bruce Leisure (the racewalk coordinator) that 100 miles was out of the question but that 100 km would be realistic.

Still I was holding a reasonable pace, though after stopping for nutrition at 8 hours, I took some time to change into a new jacket and a dry shirt. That revived me a bit though it took more time off.

At 10 hours I had passed over 40 miles and seemed to have settled at a realistic pace. The rain had lessened and I was enjoying things: the lake (and the huge channel catfish that you could see as you passed over the bridge), the other competitors, etc. One lady had me wondering if I were hallucinating as she put on some white with black leopard spotted tights.

I wasn’t worried about the walking competition; I had lapped Barb Curnow 3 times but I knew that my finishing ahead of her would largely depend on my NOT blowing up as this tough lady tends to walk all of the way through.

It turns out that our competition really amounted to which one of us would sleep less; she had a rough time of it as well.

I was also having a friendly back and forth with the eventual winner of the 12 hour walk; he’d get a bit ahead, stop for one reason or another and then catch up to me. It turns out that we tied at the 12 hour mark.

Food wise, I was eating white bread and bananas; that worked fine for the first couple of feedings.

Crunch time came at 12 hours when I hit 47.7 miles (11:52). I thought “do I eat another solid meal or do I switch to soups/liquids NOW”? I tried more bread; bad mistake.

I almost instantly got sick and that lap (albeit with weigh in, lamp pickup stop) took an ugly 51 minutes. I felt horrible; I had to kick myself into finishing the lap. That did put me at 12:43 for 50.1 miles (best since 2006) but I was miserable; my stomach was turning somersaults. I had thought about trying to tough it out for one more lap (double marathon) but decided to rest for 30 minutes.

30 minutes became 90 and I went out again. The first post rest lap (in the darkness) went very well; I took a swig of diet coke and it went bad again. I had to stop and puke just a bit during the next lap; part of my previous meal didn’t digest (though some of it had). That loop took over 1 hour to do so I stopped again.

This was my protracted rest stop that killed me in terms of distance. I stayed in my car for 4:30; I had woken up at 2:00 into my nap and felt much better but my right knee (behind the knee area) was killing me. So I thought about dropping; I shut my eyes and awoke 2:30 later and my knee felt ok.

I decided that I wanted 100 km so I got up, checked back into the race and got going.

It was 21:41 into the race when I finished that lap (now 57.5 miles) and I was walking better. In fact, Betty Greene (wife of John Greene, centurion from the year before and a mathematics professor) walked with me for the lap that got me to 100 km.

By then I was actually passing many of those who had stayed out the entire time; it is amazing how quickly rest revives me.

I still had time for one more long lap that got me to 64.6 miles and it was just over 23:32 into it. I couldn’t quite average 14 minute miles over the last 27 plus minutes; I did get in 7 full laps (1.75 miles) plus a half lap (.125 miles).

At the post race breakfast I sat with the Curnows and found out that Barbara had also taken a rest; she finished her last long lap about 30 minutes quicker than I had and therefore had done a few more short laps. She finished with 66.9 miles to my 66.5; the third place walker got 65.

So to the “wouda-couda-shouda”: getting up 40 minutes earlier would have sealed the “win” for me. But she could say the same thing. On the other hand waiting 20 minutes more would have knocked me back to 3rd.

Lessons learned:

1. The body weight and the marathon and the slow 100 miler did help, but I simply didn’t have enough miles using the “almost racewalk” motion to be competitive. I used a straight hiking style at McNaughton and I should have mixed a lot of that into my race here.

2. Solid food doesn’t work when I am exhausted. When I knew how bad I was feeling at 12 hours I should have only taken liquid and slowed the pace until I felt better.

3. I need the concentrated race specific miles; I didn’t have those.

4. I need to accept that my times will be slower when it is rainy and adjust the expectations accordingly.
I weighed in the day before at 183.5 (shoes, shirt, shorts). My first 4 hour weight had me at 187 and my second had me at 191, and that was not factoring in my fanny pack. THAT was one reason I was feeling so sluggish. (note: the race has a mandatory 4 hour weigh in)

5. Social: it was fun seeing everyone again. It turns out that Julie Berg had a tough time of it (got some bad news mid run) but I enjoyed seeing her anyway. The volunteers were nice and I’d like to give a shout out to the “safety patrol” guy who walked with me during my “get sick” lap; he has finished a 50 miler and recently did a 3:29 road marathon. Funny, but I was too loopy to remember his name, but I not only remember his marathon time but I also remember how he paced his best marathon (7:45 for the first half, 8:00 for the next 7 miles).

Of course, I also enjoyed meeting the Greenes again and Betty’s brother (who ran a hard 24 hours).
And as usual, I’d like to thank Bruce Leisure for the time he put into this; I hope to do one of his “judged walks” soon, though I am going to have to spend some time fixing my technique errors. Yes, centurions are not judged on knees, but my current style is horribly inefficient and I am going to have to spend some time fixing that up.

Laps:

lap	miles	lap time	cum. time
1	1.7	22:30
2	4.1	33:52	56:23
3	6.5	32:37	1:29:00
4	8.9	32:25	2:01:26
5	11.3	31:55	2:33:21
6	13.8	34:47	3:08:08
7	16.2	34:00	3:42:09
8	18.6	39:36	4:21:46
9	21.0	35:16	4:57:02
10	23.4	34:32	5:31:34
11	25.9	34:54	6:06:29
12	28.3	34:42	6:41:11
13	30.7	35:26	7:16:38
14	33.1	36:10	7:52:48
15	35.6	51:08	8:43:56
16	38.0	36:47	9:20:43
17	40.4	38:09	9:58:53
18	42.8	37:27	10:36:21
19	45.2	36:23	11:12:44
20	47.7	39:19	11:52:04
21	50.1	51:05	12:43:09
22	52.5	2:24:24	15:07:33
23	54.9	1:05:40	16:13:14
24	57.3	5:28:29	21:41:43
25	59.8	37:56	22:19:40
26	62.2	35:23	22:55:04
27	64.6	37:06	23:32:11
short laps
1	65.6	14:46	23:46:57
0.8725	66.5	12:35	23:59:34

Lap 15: changed shirts
Lap 21: ate, was mostly miserable
Lap 22: slept for about 1:30
Lap 23: threw up
Lap 24: Rested/slept for about 4:45

FANS 24 2009: Wet, wet, wet..

It started raining right when the race started; it started to let up a bit 9 hours into it but by then, many of were soaked enough to have gained weight during our weighings.
My race: same old story; a few of my early laps were way too fast and by 12 hours I was too exhausted to hold down food.

I hit mile 50 at 12:43 (fastest since 2006) but the lap to get there was miserable.

I rested about 1.4 hours, went to 55, got sick, and slept for 4:30 and came back 21 hours into it.

I ended up with 66.4 miles; first (for the walk) was 66.8 and third was 65.5

The male winner for the run got over 145 miles and the female winner was in the 120s.

More later; my eyelids are closing.

In Minnesota June 2009

I am in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the moment. I have checked into the Crown Plaza (53 dollars a night…thank you internet!) and am only about 15 minutes away from the race site.

I weighed in at 183.5. I met up with David (shooting for 130 miles in the run) as well as the Green family. I also met Juli Alstars (dirty girl gaiter) and wished Barb Curnow luck.

Right now the weather is beautiful but it is supposed to be 45-50 all race long with rain starting in the late morning and not letting up until dawn the next day.

So I need to configure my gear; I have a cooler, a Tupperwear tub with snap top for emergency stuff and will pack some extra dry clothes in the car (I have a permit to park close so I have easy access.)

The trip I-74 is one construction zone after another as is I-35. Still the trip took about 7.5 hours with stops. I was a bit irritated that the I-494-I-35W interchange was blocked and the instructions on how to get around it were very confusing; that is one cause for road rage, IMHO. Then again, around here, I should be grateful that the bridges held up.

One can see the stimulus money in action; every time you pass a stimulus highway project there is a sign proclaiming that. Hey, it might conserve fuel as well, as the trip is unpleasant enough (at times) to discourage someone from driving!

Actually, Iowa was fine.

Cell Phones
On the way up here I witness two near accidents were the person ahead of me had to swerve off off onto the shoulder to avoid hitting a stopped line of cars ahead of them (on the interstates). But one interesting case saw a semi go right on the tail of a small car that was right on the tail of another semi; a third semi was just to the left. I thought for sure that I would see a “bug sandwich” but that didn’t happen.

So as I went past the small car I thought the driver might be some shaken up old person.

Nope: it was a snowflake just happily blabbing away on a cell phone, utterly unconcerned at the havoc around him.

Facebook I just got a “friend request” from a person with this wall photo:

Needless to say, I am skeptical.

5 June 09 (am)

Yes, I am about to get on the road. Still blogging relaxes me so I’ll do some.

President Obama’s Speech

Here is some opinion on it. I love the conclusion:

Before Thursday’s speech, and after, Mr. Obama’s critics complained that he has spent too much time apologizing and accused him of weakening the country. That is a gross misreading of what he has been saying — and of what needs to be said. After eight years of arrogance and bullying that has turned even close friends against the United States, it takes a strong president to acknowledge the mistakes of the past. And it takes a strong president to press himself and the world to do better.

Social Issues

When it comes to abortion rights and the abortion debate, how one sees the world really fixes one’s opinion. If one sees abortion as “murder”, there is no room for compromise. If one doesn’t, then it becomes a privacy/rights issue. How one deals with the “when does the fetus become a separate human being” question affects how one thinks. This issue is explored here.

Right wing nuttery It is illegal to plot for the death of a President or to call for it. But one can pray for it and that is exactly what some social conservatives are doing. In this case, it was Alan Keyes’s running mate, so this guy isn’t a Republican.

Bill O’Reilly: caught either lying or getting his facts wrong:

SUMMARY: Bill O’Reilly falsely claimed that on CNN, “[o]nly Anderson Cooper at 10 o’clock covered the story” of the slaying of Army recruiter Pvt. William Long. In fact, in addition to the coverage on Anderson Cooper 360, CNN covered Long’s shooting on 15 shows from June 1 through June 3.

In either case, you can’t trust what he says (my guess is that it was sloppy “research”).

Judge Sotomayor Law is highly technical and “common people” (myself included) have opinions on our Supreme Court nominee. That doesn’t mean that our opinions of a judge’s decision are valid. Much of the time a judge is NOT deciding “is this a good thing” or “is this law good” but rather “is this consistent with existing law and is the existing law consistent with the Constitution”. Here is but one example of that (and yes, this one of those things that I’ve done out of ignorance):

Buchanan’s attack echoes a claim by the conservative Washington Times that “[t]here is growing evidence that Judge Sotomayor believes some races are more equal than others,” in part because Sotomayor voted to allow a challenge to New York’s felony disenfranchisement law to move forward:

In Hayden v. Pataki, a number of inmates in New York state filed suit claiming that because blacks and Latinos make up a disproportionate share of the prison population, the state’s refusal to allow them ballot access amounts to an unlawful, race-based denial of their right to vote. [...]

Yet, operating on a dubious and extremely broad reading of the Voting Rights Act, Ms. Sotomayor dissented from the decision. In a remarkably dismissive, four-paragraph opinion, she alleged that the “plain terms” of the Voting Rights Act would allow such race-based claims to go forward.

These attacks misrepresent Sotomayor’s decision. First of all, Sotomayor did not “tr[y] to overturn” anything. The majority in Hayden voted to toss several inmates out of court before they could be given a trial to determine whether New York engages in race discrimination. Judge Sotomayor’s dissent—and the 20 page dissent by Judge Parker which Sotomayor joined—said nothing about whether New York violated the Voting Rights Act; the dissents merely argued that the inmates should be given the opportunity to prove their discrimination claims at trial.

More importantly, Judge Sotomayor based her dissent, not on the notion that “some races are more equal than others,” but instead on the radical notion that judges should follow the law as it is written.

Hat tip: the history professor blog Edge of the American West.

More Law: The Legal Satyricon talks about rich, powerful people trying to carve the law to suit them at the expense of the rights of all of us. The issue here is that a rich young woman went joyriding in her daddy’s expensive car, got in a crash and was killed; people took photos of her body and put them on the internet.

Had this been a poor person who had this happen to them, the “privacy issues” of the photos wouldn’t be a legal one (though it would still be an ethical one; just because you CAN do something doesn’t mean that you should).

Read the article; I’ll post a couple of snippets:

But, I’m not prepared to turn my pain into the suppression of the dissemination of lawful material, nor do I want a new law named after my best friend. Shit happens. Sometimes, when shit happens, there is a camera, a witness, a compelling story, and then those of us who were just minding our own business have to suffer the feeling of an ice pick into our hearts every time the needle skips on the vinyl of life. Those with privilege want to use that ice pick to chip away at our constitutional rights – which only further entrenches their privilege. If we let them, by the time they are done, we will have a patchwork of laws created by extreme outlier incidents, pushed for by the overprivileged like me, the Catsourases, and the legal academy – ushered in by a wail of hysterical shrill cries from those who follow them over the cliff.

Then, the 99.99% of other incidents that happen in daily life would be governed by these outlier incidents – slowly turning our entire existence into one that mimics our time in the security line at the airport.

This reminds me a bit of the “overreaction to rare incidents” that I’ve talked about before (in the realm of “saftey”).

But this this paragraph tickled me:

If you live in some dump like Lakeland, Flori-duh, driving your crappy car to your crappy job and coming home to your crappy house and watch your crappy TV with your crappy stained t-shirt on while you look at your crappy ugly redneck wife and your stupid inbred redneck children, it must really suck.

Actually: 1. ALL women eventually get old and 2. I hate silicon and botox. I’d rather have the poorer wife with her fat butt and dimply legs than some mannequin. Ok, I want her to be smart, so let’s make that an educated, intellectually interested “all natural” wife.

As to the other stuff: sure I get tired of teaching disinterested, mostly untalented snowflakes and I wish I had written a better Ph. D. thesis. But I don’t resent the research professors (those who research full time). I might envy them but I admire their intellect, hard work and creativity.

Oh yeah, I don’t have a fancy car, but I walk to work.

About to Pack for FANS this weekend

I am getting my stuff ready for the FANS 24 hour race this weekend.

The forecast for the weekend: 50s and rain (it had been pretty all week ). The silver lining: the public won’t be out on the path in force. Also, I won’t have the mud to contend with like I did at McNaughton this year.

Nevertheless, I had better pack a blister kit, lube, etc., and I had better tape.

As far as how ready I am:

Negatives
Not as many training miles as I normally like to have (e. g., before I did the Cornbelt 24 hour in 2004 where I broke 100 miles and then got 88 miles 1 month later).

Positives:

1. Body weight; under 185.
2. Ok marathon (5:14) considering I didn’t prepare for it (e. g., focus, speed work, etc.)
3. 100 miler (slow, on a muddy, hilly trail) 8 weeks out. That is about as ideal as it gets.
4. Rested, not over raced, over worked, stressed out, etc.

What I need to remember:
1. Sodium. I need those tablets at least every hour, perhaps more often (every 2.42 mile lap?, 2 out of every 3 laps?)
2. Eating: every 4 hours; not too much at one time. Perhaps more often (e. g., soups) during the evening.
3. Effort: in 2006, I burned myself out trying to maintain too fast of a pace for the slippery conditions. It the path is slippery and “slow”, accept it, keep the effort under control and be ready to take advantage when it dries off (if it does)

Goal: steady effort for the duration, save bathroom and blister breaks. In 2004 (Fall), I got discouraged at quit at 70 miles, though I had 8 hours left. I came back after 4.5 hours and ended up with 81 miles; I could have had 95 or more had I stuck with it.