Meb’s Marathon Win and My Marathon (and beyond)

Meb Keflezighi became the first US Citizen to win the New York Marathon since the Alberto Salazar/Bill Rodgers days. Great!

Note: Keflezighi won a silver for the US in the 2004 Olympics; he immigrated here with his parents when he was 12 years old and because a citizen in 1998 (when he graduated from UCLA).

No problem, right? Isn’t this a prototypical American success story?

Well leave it to some a-hole to say “oh, he is some hired gun brought in to win medals for us”. Really.

Hmmm, whatever happened to “doing one’s homework” before one writes an opinion?

More here:

Some say Meb Keflezighi is not really American. Probably the same people who say Barack Obama is not really an American.

Written by: Matt Fitzgerald

The headline says it all: “To Some, Winner Is Not American Enough.” It appears above an article printed in the November 3, 2009 edition of the New York Times and it refers to a mostly online controversy that erupted in the wake of Eritrea-born American citizen Mebrahtom Kelflezighi’s victory in last Sunday’s ING New York City Marathon.

Oh well, there will always be racist, xenophobic idiots out there, and many have word processors.

Speaking of marathons and beyond, here is my complete list:
(note as the quantity went up, the quality went down; I “peaked” in 2000 and again in 2002-2005 and have gone downhill since then. I’ve put my “quality” efforts in bold; “quality” depends on the course and my abilities at that time in my life)

1980
Maryland Marathon: 3:33

1981
San Antonio Marathon 3:48

1983
East Lyme Marathon (CT) 4:24

1998 (2)
Quad Cities Marathon 3:55 (hot: 207 out of over 1000)
Chicago Marathon 3:46

1999
Quad Cities Marathon 3:45

2000 (2)
Lake Okoboji (IA) 4:25
Indianapolis Marathon 3:38

2001
Lake Geneva Marathon 3:40

2002 (4) (13 total)
San Diego Marathon 3:57
Fairfield (IA) 50K 6:22 (walk)
Quad Cities Marathon 4:44 (walk)
Rocket City Marathon 4:04 (run) (injured going in; had to run/walk)

2003 (5) (18 total)
McNaughton 50K (run) 7:04
Ice Age 50K 7:18 (walk)
Park City Marathon (UT) 5:17 (walk)
Judy Birthday 50K (walk; informal-Fat ass type)
Quivering Quads (MO) 50K 8:11 (walk)

2004 (7) (25 total)
McNaughton 50 mile 12:46 (walk)
Cornbelt (IA) 24 hour (101 miles), walk
Wandleweekend (NED) 24 hour (88 miles) walk
Fairfield 50K 7:16 (walk)
Quad Cities Marathon 5:13 (walk)
Chicago Ultra 50K 6:20 (walk)
Ultracentric (TX) 24 hour 81 miles (walk)

2005 (8) (33 total)
McNabb (IL) FatAss 50K 6:25 (run, sort of)
Chicago Ultra 50K (spring) 6:42 (walk)
McNaughton 100 34:16 (walk)
Andy Payne Marathon (OK) 5:25 (walk)
Lean Horse 100 (SD), 29:34 (walk)
Quad Cities Marathon 5:34 (walk)
Chicago Ultra 50K 6:29 (walk)
Ultracentric 24 hour 70 (walk)

2006 (6) (39 total)
McNabb (IL) FatAss 50K 6:37 (run, sort of)
Houston Ultra 24 hour 76 mile (walk)
Stigma 8 hour 27 mile (trail) (walk)
McNaughton (100 DNF), got to mile 50 then 20 more.
Ice Age 50K 7:36 (walk)
FANS 24 hour 83 miles (walk)

2007 (4) (43 total)
FANS 24 hour 66 mile (walk) (couldn’t train until 5-6 weeks prior)
FX 12 hour 34 mile (walk)
Farmdale 33 miles 9:27 (walk)
Ultracentric 24 hour 58 mile (walk)

2008 (3) (46 total)
McNaughton 50 mile (staged; 31:37 walk)
Andy Payne Marathon 6:16 (walk)
FANS 24 hour 47 miles (walk)

2009 (5)
McNaughton 100 miler (47:45; staged, walk)
(brutal conditions; the drop out rate was astounding: 74 started the 100 and 27 finished; 47 started the 150 and 27 made it to 100 (including the 12 who finished all 150); in total 54 out of 121 starters made it to 100 miles and I was one of these)
Rockford Marathon 5:14 (walk)
FANS 24 hour 66 miles (walk)
Mulshoe 44 (DNF, ran out of time at mile 29) walk
Quad Cities Marathon 5:28 (walk)
McNot-aGain 30 mile 8:55 (walk) (fought through injuries for these last two; almost no training was possible)

3 November 09; Usual topics

Civil Liberties, misuse of sexual offender laws, running

What in the heck do these have to do with each other? Surf to the Legal Satyricon and find out.

Academia
When do you “just give into it”? Here is one professor’s dilemma.

PZ Myers gives a public lecture at another university and gets critiqued by the snowflakes! Oh, does this look familiar.

Paul Krugman/Economics
Krugman finds the peril of assigning any credit to what Bill Clinton did as president.

He also talks about President Obama’s tendencies to spout the “conventional centrist wisdom” on economic matters and hopes that it is just talk.

Toxic Religion
Jerry Coyne: Points out that Muslim extremists, well, justify their tactics via religion. But I should point this out: in World War II, many of the Japanese used suicide tactics (albeit on the battlefield) and there was no “heavenly reward” awaiting them, as far as I know.

Politics
Republican politicians still have trouble “owning” their Republican party affiliation.

3 November 09 (am) Athletics; no politics

Workout notes 500 warm up (8:58), 5 x (25 front kick, 75 free) on the 2 (made them all…barely), 10 x (25 fly, 25 free, fins) on the 1 (49 each; one 51, one 50), 5 x (25 3g, 75 free) on the 2 (1:47 each).

Then yoga; decent class by Ms. Vickie.

Ultras: I have some data on last week’s McNaughton 30 mile race:

There were 31 finishers of the 30 miler. I was the only walker and I finished….30′th.
The lady who finished 31st looked terrible just before mile 5 (she was wearing bee-wings ). But she hung in there and finished, thereby saving me from being last.

Finisher number 29 passed me with .25 miles to go; I was even with finisher 28 at mile 25 but I really slowed down in the final 5 miles.

Finisher 28 started off his last 10 mile loop with a 15 minute lead on me. I caught him at the mile 5 aid station and he ended up finishing 30 minutes ahead of me! (He was running)

There was also a 10 mile single loop race; had I just done the 10 mile loop I would have finished 20 out of 34!

So, while I was well ahead of several people during the first loop, almost all of them stopped (as planned) at mile 10.

Median time for the 30 mile: 6:51
My time: 8:55
Median time for the 10 mile: 2:26
My first loop time: 2:38

Note on age: 31 finishers for the 30 mile; here are the places for the 50 and over crowd:

16, 23, 24, 28, 29, 30. Notice a pattern?

The 50 and older crowd had 0 finishers in the upper half, 6 of 15 for the second half.

My analysis: yes, I was hurt by not being prepared, and yes, I was somewhat injury limited at how hard I could push. But I am glad that I started and finished this race, even if it wasn’t one of my better performances.

In terms of my longer races this year, this is how I rank them (all were walking 100 percent of the time):

1. Rockford marathon 5:14
2. McNaughton 100 (47:54, but this one had a DNF rate of greater than 50 percent, and I wasn’t even last!)
3. McNaughton 30 8:55 (good for the first 20, and ok for the first 25 but then….)
4. Quad Cities Marathon 5:28 (died in the last 20, but I was badly undertrained and yes, injured going in)
5. Muleshoe Bend (4 laps or 29.3 miles in 12 hours): Rocks, 95F heat at the start, then rain and mud. But most rocks, rocks, rocks! Technically this was a DNF as it was a 60km race with a 12 hour time limit, but the laps measured 7.3 miles instead of the 6.2.

Speaking of ultras and such: Here is an entry from a national class racewalker, Ray Sharp:

Yesterday I walked 40k indoors, 175 laps of a 230m (7 lap per 1600m) course. My 1600m times were: 9:43, 939, 937, 932, 928, 924, 921, 921, 924, 922, 929, 926, 924, 917, 918, 913, 856, 854, 851, 848, 843, 848, 824, 804, 755. My 10k splits were 59:50, 58.48, 57:01, 53;00, for a time of 3:48:39. Very hard work the last hour; fun to finish strong like that.

Wow.

These People do not Suffer Fools Well….

Recursitity: a mathematician wonders:

One of my long-term book projects is about mathematical theorems that give people fits. A good example is Cantor’s theorem that the real numbers are uncountable. The proof is simple enough that you can explain it to a 10-year-old, but some adults simply don’t get it, no matter how many times it is explained.

For example, see this thread over at Mark Chu-Carroll’s blog. It just goes on and on, with one poster (“Vorlath”) babbling away, but making no progress at all in comprehending this very simple proof.

I’d be interested in understanding the psychological mechanisms behind this kind of misunderstanding.

The fact that he finds this remarkable means that he hasn’t spent much time with average undergraduate students in the United States. No, I am not talking about average MIT students; I am talking about students with, say, ACT scores of 25 or less (roughly 1100-1150 on the old SAT).

In all honesty, one math major (albeit a D student) didn’t understand why he got zero credit when he did this:

I had him write out a few terms (he was insulted when I made him do this) but eventually he got it. Now understand that his guy, while clueless, is more able than most “business calculus” students (and below).

Now let’s talk about Cantor’s diagonal argument???

Remember that we live in a country where less than half of the people accept evolution and 20 percent think that the sun goes around the earth:

Dr. Miller’s data reveal some yawning gaps in basic knowledge. American adults in general do not understand what molecules are (other than that they are really small). Fewer than a third can identify DNA as a key to heredity. Only about 10 percent know what radiation is. One adult American in five thinks the Sun revolves around the Earth, an idea science had abandoned by the 17th century.

Jerry Coyne: evidently can not stomach someone (correctly) dismissing a religion’s claim as absurd while demanding respect for their own beliefs:

The question of why bizarre Christian beliefs are treated with more respect than the equally bizarre tenets of Scientology has a simple answer. “Modern” religions, like Scientology and Mormonism, seem more bizarre simply because they’ve arrived on the scene only recently, making their man-made nature more apparent, and because their adherents are not in the majority.

Indeed, next to the problem of evil, the problem of Why My Religion Is The Only True One is the greatest of all arguments against faith. Christians — or adherents to any other religion — can simply give no good account of why their beliefs are the right ones, while those of Hindus, Scientologists, and Muslims are badly wrong. It would be a dishonest Christian who would deny that had he been born in Saudi Arabia, he would be as big an advocate for Muhammed as he is now for Jesus. Ask an evangelical Christian how he knows for certain that all Muslims and Jews are going to hell! Believe me, the answer won’t satisfy you.[...]

Now don’t get me wrong. I agree with Sullivan: Scientology is exactly as ludicrous as he makes it out to be. The South Park video is a hoot. But what Sullivan fails to get is that the beliefs of Catholicism and Christianity are just as weird as those of Scientology.

Forgive me for shouting a loud AMEN.

Unbelievably, there are those who are sympathetic to the argument that the teaching of science must somehow be sensitive to the religious beliefs of others. Coyne sees this argument for the rubbish that it is:

For a long time Ruse has been making the ridiculous argument that if you feel that evolution promotes atheism, then teaching evolution is the same thing as denigrating religion in the pubic schools. Apparently the man is serious. Although Ruse loudly and constantly praises himself for his perspicacity and deep understanding of philosophy and politics, he seems unable to comprehend this simple fact: the erosion of one’s faith by the facts of biology, astronomy, geology, biblical scholarship and the like does not mean that these fields are equivalent to atheism. Is that so hard to understand?

These fields ARE equivalent to naturalism however; when one does science, one has to assume that the laws of science are being followed at all times; no deity, angel, devil, pixie, etc. intervenes.

McNOTagain trail run | WEEK News 25 – News, Sports, Weather – Peoria, Illinois YouNews™

there is a commercial. But this should show some of the first 5 miles of the McNaughton course; the big hill shown at the end comes at mile 4.

more about "McNOTagain trail run | WEEK News 25 -…", posted with vodpod

Today’s workout: the life guard was there on time but the door to the pool was locked; hence a late start.
500 in 8:52, 5 x 200 on the 3:30 (3:20, 19, 16, 16, 14), 400 of drill/swim (fins), 100 paddle.

Post Race Fatigue and why I train

Last night, my right leg didn’t cramp up but my left inner thigh cramped up.

But I am tired; fatigued; dragging. It seems that yesterday, I went one lap (10 miles) more than I was prepared for, though I was going ok at mile 25; I was all but finished by mile 27. I pointed out how few miles I did in preparation (due to my injury).

This brings me to the point of this post: why do I train? I’ve asked myself this question when I’ve struggled late in races (to absurdly slow paces toward the end of some of my 100s); I said to myself “I could do this well with no training at all”. Wrong.

I train (about 70 milers per week when I am in full training mode) so I CAN get to mile 70-80 before I start feeling as I did at the end of 30 yesterday.

1 November 09 (noon-ish)

I am watching the Bears game and enjoying it; they are up 16-0 on the Browns late in the second quarter. But there is no lead that the Bears are incapable of blowing.

Posts:

Racial Gap in Education: continues to be real. But how someone ends up depends much upon what they bring with them to school to begin with; the home life (and things like pre-natal care, nutrition, well-child check-ups, being read to while young, having access to libraries) make such a big difference.

But once the kids get to the higher levels of learning (high school or college):

Teachers are also divided.

“I’ve done both and I’ve found that when you have kids mixed together, then you’re gonna find that this group of kids at this level cannot work at the same level as someone else,” says Richard Moss, an African-American math teacher with 37 years of experience. “OK? So that it makes it difficult to organize, and then the frustration level increases at both ends.”

You even see this in college when one gets an “off semester” calculus II course in which there is a mixture of students:

1. Those who placed out of a semester.
2. Those who have already flunked the course once and
3. Those who needed a remedial math course.

If you teach to the bright ones, the not-so-bright ones are lost. If you teach to the not-so-bright ones, most of the class gets bored and cheated. If you teach to the middle, no one is happy.
Of course, this isn’t a racial thing but this is a “mixed ability” thing.

Speaking of smarts and politics, this is a thought provoking article:

Numerous commentators questioned George W. Bush’s intellectual capacity, especially compared to his Democratic opponents. Howell Raines, former executive editor of the New York Times, wrote before the 2004 election, “Does anyone in America doubt that Kerry has a higher IQ than Bush?” In fact, an analysis of military aptitude tests by columnist Steve Sailer showed that Bush’s IQ is at least as high as John Kerry’s, but more notable is Raines’s supreme confidence about Bush’s deficiency.

More recently, Sarah Palin was routinely attacked for her alleged cognitive limitations. A false rumor even floated around the liberal blogosphere that she scored an absurdly low 841 on the SAT.

So are these attacks unfair? Yes, if they are leveled at top politicians. It is nearly impossible to rise to the top of the American political scene without some real smarts. Party leaders are rarely geniuses, but it is almost inconceivable that they could have below average IQs.

Nevertheless, liberals are on to something when they question the IQ not of the conservative politicians themselves, but of some of the voters they represent. A certain bloc of the conservative electorate may very well be less intelligent than its liberal counterpart. Lazar Stankov, a visiting professor at Singapore’s National Institute of Education, published “Conservatism and Cognitive Ability” earlier this year in the peer-reviewed journal Intelligence. Here is a quote from the article’s abstract:

Conservatism and cognitive ability are negatively correlated … At the individual level of analysis, conservatism scores correlate negatively with SAT, vocabulary, and analogy test scores. At the national level of analysis, conservatism scores correlate negatively with measures of education … and performance on mathematics and reading assessments.

Provocative, yes. But two important caveats are needed. First, by “conservatism” Stankov does not necessarily mean people who favor free market economics. He has in mind a kind of traditionalism probably best described as social conservatism:

I had to think about this; how could Palin not be considered dumb?

But then I had to reread what the article said. I consider Sarah Palin to have political skill but to be pretty much a moron…and she is, when I compare her to my friends who have Ph. Ds in mathematics who are still publishing research. But she isn’t a moron compared to the U. S. public at large:

Most Americans do not accept the theory of evolution. Instead, 51 percent of Americans say God created humans in their present form, and another three in 10 say that while humans evolved, God guided the process. Just 15 percent say humans evolved, and that God was not involved.

1 November 09 (am)

I didn’t get up late for morning swim after all; I had forgotten about the time change.

Update: 2200 yard swim; 500 of back/free (11), 500 of side/free (10:08), then 100 drill/swim, 100 paddle, 200 free, 200 drill/swim, 100 paddle, 100 free, 100 drill/swim, 100 paddle, 100 free, 100 IM.

Last night: my right leg didn’t hurt but I got cramps in my left inner thigh. I’ll buy some bananas and juice after my swim.

Personal: I’ll have to grade, do some minor stuff around the house and maybe catch an NFL game. All three college games that I switched between were blow-outs: Oregon 47-20 over USC, Texas won 41-14 over Oklahoma State and ND whipped Washington State 40-14. I was doing an ultra while Illinois finally played well in hammering Michigan 38-13.

Posts:

Politics: nice commentary

Science Over the next few days I hope to read some of what PZ Myers said about the Darwin conference at the University of Chicago. This link takes you to his blog where you can scroll down to see the posts.

Science and Religion This is a nice take of compatibility:

1: Evolution guided by God.

Also known as “theistic evolution.” Among progressive and moderate believers, this is an extremely common position on evolution. They readily (and rightly) dismiss the claims of young-earth creationists that humanity and all the universe were created in one swell foop 6,000 years ago. They dismiss these claims as utterly contradicted by the evidence. Instead, they say that evolution proceeds exactly as the biologists say it does, but this process is guided by God, to bring humanity and the vast variety of life into being.

A belief that is almost as thoroughly contradicted by the evidence as young-earth creationism is.

Nowhere in anatomy, nowhere in genetics, nowhere in the fossil record or the geological record or any of the physical records of evolution, is there even the slightest piece of evidence for divine intervention.

Quite the contrary. If there had been a divine hand tinkering with the process, we would expect evolution to have proceeded radically differently than it has. [...]

2: An immaterial soul that animates human consciousness.

I will acknowledge freely: We don’t yet understand consciousness very well. The sciences of neurology and neuropsychology are very much in their infancy, and the basic questions of what exactly consciousness is, and where exactly it comes from, and how exactly it works, are, as of yet, largely unanswered.

But research is happening. The foundations for our understanding of consciousness are beginning to be laid. There are a few things that we do know about consciousness.

And among the things we know is that, whatever consciousness is, it seems to be an entirely biological process. A massive body of evidence points to this conclusion.

When we make physical changes to the brain, it changes consciousness. Drugs, injury, surgery, sensory deprivation, electrical current, magnetic fields, medication, illness, exercise — all these things change our consciousness. Sometimes drastically. Sometimes rendering an entire personality unrecognizable. Even very small changes to the brain can result in massive changes to consciousness… both temporary and permanent. [...]

There is much more there; it is well done.

McNaughton 30 miler

I finished the McNaughton 30 mile race today; due to my injury I was not prepared to cover the distance; at least not hard.

For photos of the course, go here (for a tour of the race course). Note; it is fall here so most of the trails were leaf covered and the trees were either bare or multi-colored.

But given the 11 hour cut-off, I figured I would slow walk it.

The first couple of 10 mile loops went fine; 2:38 and 2:49. But the third got downright ugly (3:27); most of the extra time came in the last 3 miles of the loop; I got sick (threw up my water/succeed tablet stuff) with just over 1 mile to go in the loop and was nauseated afterward. IMHO, this was just my being over-taxed for my training. At the time I was gaining on someone in front of me; it turns out that I got passed with .25 miles left in the race.

It had rained for much of the week (top 5 wettest October here) but the course was in reasonably good shape; there were a couple of muddy places.

It was chilly at the start and yes, there was lots of SPANDEX. I actually saw some on the first loop; I was chasing a pack of women who, well, didn’t seem to know what they were getting themselves into. The one poor young woman in the bees-wings was complete toast just prior to the end of the series of hills that started with golf hill. At that point I only saw a couple of guys on the course and in the last 6 miles of the second loop I got lapped 4 times.

I felt really good on the first couple of loops but then the body started to shut down; the hills got longer and I was feeling inclines that I didn’t even notice on the first couple of loops. That was just simple fatigue talking (from being undertrained). I was walking adequately until three miles to go; those 3 miles took 1:10 to do (normally 50 minutes).

Injury: I did take two Advil in the morning (5 am) but no NSAIDS (or any other pain killer) during the race. I felt it mildly.

My training up to now:

My “on foot” Miles:
7-13 September 17 miles
14-20 September 6 miles
21-27 September 31 miles (26 at the Quad Cities Marathon)
28 S-4 October 14 miles
5 – 11 October 21 miles 6 were on the stair master, 10 at McNaughton
12-18 October 14 miles (all on the Stair master)
19-25 October 26 miles (12 on the Stair Master, 10 McNaughton, 4 Wildlife park)
Week of race: 3 stair master workouts (40 minutes each)

Of course I swam 3-5 times a week too. But I had only 1 really adequate workout in the last 5 weeks.

Ok, here is a collection of photos that others have taken.

Me: finishing one loop

Leaving he water crossing:

The water crossing:

More photos: here (Greg) and here (Klopenstein).