  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
Week of March 30, 2004 - April 5, 2004 Why Is
This Night Different From All Other Nights? Because we eat matzah and bitter herbs, dip food in salt water twice, recline while dining, and refrain from making fun of Major League Baseball's steroid farce. Oh, okay, just one comment, because it's too good to pass up. Barry Bonds' lawyer, Michael Rains, said that the feds are trying to set a perjury trap for Bonds. According to the New York Times, "Rains said it was logical to assume that Bonds told the grand jury during testimony that he did not use steroids. Bonds appeared before the grand jury Dec. 4. But if a urine test showed that he had tested positive for THG or some other steroid, Bonds could then become vulnerable to a charge of perjury over his testimony. THG was not detectable last baseball season, but a screening for it has since been devised and could be applied to a retesting of Bonds's urine sample." "A perjury trap is created when the government calls a witness before the grand jury for the primary purpose of obtaining testimony from him in order to prosecute him later for perjury." United States vs. Chen (933 F.2d 793, 796-97). Some courts (though by no means all of them) will dismiss statements made in such circumstances. Bonds and other athletes testified last year before a grand jury that was investigating steroid suppliers. The athletes received immunity for their testimony. And, until recently, investigators were unaware that the urine samples of all major league players (including those who testified before the grand jury) had been saved. It's hard to see how there could be a perjury trap when Bonds was granted immunity for this testimony and when there has yet to be any evidence that he actually lied. But Rains' comments strongly suggest that Bonds did lie in his testimony when he (Bonds) denied taking steroids. Which means that BARRY BONDS TOOK STEROIDS (we've put that in bold just in case you're not paying attention). Remember, there's still no proof that Bonds did anything wrong, just a lot of suspicion, which Rains is only encouraging with statements like these. Rains already looks like he's trying to get his client off on a technicality, but Bonds' real trouble won't be with the U.S. Attorney's office, but with Major League Baseball and the fans - two groups that won't care about technicalities. Birthday Short Trivia Quiz: Which member of the website staff who now lives in Hong Kong is celebrating a birthday tomorrow? No prizes for guessing this one. Triple
PR We missed Sue Pearsall's result in the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler the first time around. (We're maintaing that her name wasn't on the original list of finishers until it's proved otherwise.) Her result is posted now, and we're happy to report that not only is her 1:10:14 finish a PR, it also includes PRs for 5 Miles and 10K inside the race. Wallopped This site is known for it's near-real-time reporting of race results and sightings of members in magzines, movies and other websites. But we don't limit ourselves to just current events; our dedicated staff is constantly tracking down anything we may have missed. And so we have two web sightings of Ellen Wallop (see famous quote #1462 for more info on her). First, a race result from last October 19th. Second is an April 2002 article from the Columbia News Service detailing Ellen's experiences as a wedding photographer. That article, by the way, was written by Alexandra Polier, who became slightly famous when it was alleged that she'd had an affair with John Kerry. (Then it turned out she hadn't, and we all forgot about her again.) The Un-Uniform
Uniform Almost as serious as the Trials themselves was the trial by fire that produced Margaret Angell's unique CPTC racing singlet. Only shortly before her race, Margaret learned of a USATF rule that limits the size of team logos on uniforms worn in the Olympic Trials. Like any intelligently designed uniform, CPTC's singlets have easily readable (read: too big) team logos on them. Margaret's options were to cover the logo with tape or wear something else. After several teammates had ransacked ancient stores of retired CPTC uniforms, still no logo fit within the USATF thumbnail. But all was not lost. Margaret's frequent training partner Bill Haskins possesses many little-publicized gifts, among them the ability to apply original designs to clothing via an arcane, quasi-industrial method performed at the construction site that he oversees. He knocked out Margaret's one-of-a-kind CPTC uniform for the occasion. We can only assume that it performed as well as its wearer did.
The Best
of Times We're happy that our members are running such great races, but it's also making us do a lot of extra work updating the Best Times pages. This weekend alone Margaret Angell took over the top marathon spot by running 2:44:05 at the Olympic Trials, Clinton Bell grabbed second in the 1500m with 3:53.48 at the Duke Invitational, and Brad Weiss ran 2:55:41 in Paris, improving his PR by 1:17 and his place on the marathon list by 14 spots. Worth
3000 Words (So Far) We don't have any of our own photos of Margaret Angell yet, but we've found a few on the web so far. There's one on Let's Run (bottom center picture), and two on iPlayOutside (1, 2). Plus we expect to see a few pics of Margaret on fast-women when they finish uploading their photos (which they may have already done by the time you're reading this). Thanks to Shane Clarke and Roland Soong for the links. Wave an
Orange Flag Raymond Prybylski knew of these other orange flags: Bhutan, Ivory Coast, India, and Niger. We did a little more research at the World Flag Database, and found these (click on any of the pictures for bigger versions of the flags):
Olympic
Trials Deena Kastor said she would face tough compeitition in the Olympic Trials. Her competition diasgreed (Colleen De Reuck: "She's so far ahead of the rest of the pack."), but it turns out she was right. De Reuck pulled ahead of Kastor with about two miles to go, and won the race. The top three finishers (and Olympic qualfiers) were:
More importantly, Margaret Angell finished in 2:44:05 (a blistering 6:15/mile pace), for 31st place. That's a PR by 2:15, and it moves her into first place among CPTC marathoners. More details, and hopefully some pictures, as soon as we get them. Update: Stuart Calderwood noticed that the results page includes half-marathon splits, and that Margaret's were nearly perfect: 1:21:58 and 1:22:07. Not only that, but Margaret passed 21 runners who were ahead of her after the first half, and also finished ahead of the four other women who crossed the midpoint in 1:21:58. The number of runners who passed Margaret after the first half? Zero. Summer
Track Races For the last two summers, NYRR has sponsored weeknight track races. This year they've decided that track runners shouldn't get to sleep in any more often than road runners, and have switched to Sunday mornings. The race dates are still tentative, but will probably be at the City College Track (Convent Avenue and 133rd Street) on June 27, July 4 (seriously?), July 11, and July 19. Plus a special "Thursday Night at the Races" at the Armory on May 6 from 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Roger Bannister's historic sub-4:00 mile. Distances for the meets are still to be announced, except for the May race, which will be just the mile. Boy Is
His Face Crimson! This site only engages in April Fool's Day pranks on the home page. The journal entries are still real. But, really, how could we have even made this one up? It seems that a man named Weldong Xu was actually dumb enough to fall for the Nigerian 419 scam. The scam, named after the section of the Nigerian Criminal Code that it violates, is the one where an emailer asks for your help in transfering millions of dollars (usually from the estate of a deposed dicatator or corrupt businessman) some out of some African country, for which you will receive a percentage of the funds. Along the way the scammer asks you for some money to help faciliate the transaction, and after he's fleeced you enough, ups and disappears. We (and most of you, too) receive about five of these emails per day, mixed in with all the miracle diets, offers for discount perscription drugs, proposals to enlarge various body parts, and occassional viruses. But back to Mr. Xu. He got one of these emails, which promised him a $50 million profit, and he went for it. It's not clear yet how much he "invested" in this, but it was more money than he had on hand, so he collected $600,000 from 35 friends, colleagues and students, claiming it was for SARS research in China. Yes, students, because Mr. Xu is (or, until last week, was) a professor at Harvard University and researcher at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. (At this point you're probably wondering if this might really be an April Fool's story after all, so we'll just refer you to the original story in the Boston Herald, as well as all the cites on Google News). Xu never caught on to the fact that he was being conned until Tuesday, when he was arrested for his own scam. So what kind of elite Ivy League school hires people this dumb? And what does this say about the Harvard Alumni on this team? We're not sure, but we plan to mock them mercilessly the next time we see them. Runner
in Chief Toby Tanser reports that Bill Clinton is looking to run a marathon this year. We can't find any other confirmation of this, but there's no reason to think it's just an April Fool's story. Assuming he's serious, we think he should train with CPTC. Specifically, we think he should work out with us at the East Sixth Street Track, which will hopefully involve the Secret Service barring all the soccer players from getting in our way while we run. Fool Us
Once... This one almost got us.LetsRun.com had the following headline on today's homepage: "Regina Jacobs Files Lawsuit Against Suzy Favor Hamilton. Jacobs says Hamilton basically forced her to get on drugs and as a result her reputation is now ruined. The women who were denied US Olympic spots in 1988, 1992, and 1996 as a result of Jacobs being on the team are also expected to join the suit against Hamilton as co-plaintiffs. Experts predict that the case could reach the $5-10 million dollar range in damages." We wondered what claim Jacobs might have, but recognized that, with the litigiousness of today's society, this wasn't all that implausible. Then we read the rest of the article:
At least one reader didn't see the humor in this:
As something of a First Amendment scholar, we would like to respond to the letter writer: You are a moron, both for not being able to tell that the article was a joke, and for thinking that you can sue over it. Frankly, we're a little worried about your ability to even hold down a job. However, we think you might be able to help us in transfering $142 million from an account belonging to the late Gen. Sani Abacha into the United States. For your assistance you'll get 10% of the funds and a job at Harvard University. Precisely For the record, Paul Bendich is the club math genius. I will however happily accept a nomination as the club's official math *geek*. As if my case needs pleading, I should point out that I noticed Alexandra Horowitz's 5k result this week. Seems that the Carlsbad people are real sticklers. Most times, 18:41 will be listed as a 6:01 pace, since 18:41 divided by 3.1 equals 6:01.613, and in most cases, pace figures are rounded down. Apparently, the Carlsbad folks took into account the 1k actually equals .621371192 miles, not the convenient .62 that we usually use. That being the case, 5k is 3.10685596 miles. 18:41 divided by 3.10685596 equals 6:00.815/mile, thus if we continue the practice of rounding down, Ms. Horowitz did indeed run a 6:00 pace.
Bronx
Race Want a chance
to run on the Grand Concourse before the Bronx Half-Marathon rolls
around? Check out the Bronx
Community College 10K on May 1. Ten-year age groups, with trophies
to the top five runners in each. Plus flat panel color TVs to the
overall winners and "DVD" (we're guessing that means a
DVD player, not just a movie, but we're not sure) for the second
place runners. Somewhere
to Run, Nowhere to Hide Jeff Wilson reports that "Those who've grown used to 'hiding' their not-so-valuables in the bushes around the Daniel Webster statue need a new plan. The shrubbery has been removed — completely." Photos Photos from the Intrasquad Relay are now up. Photos from Masters Indoor Nationals will be up soon. Compromising photos of certain members will be posted after that unless we receive $5,000 in unmarked, non-sequential bills. You know who you are. If you're not sure whether we have photos of you or not, we recommend you pay us anyway, just to be on the safe side. What a
Wonderful World! Real baseball (i.e., games played at a time people can actually watch) starts next week, but the season technically kicked off with Tampa Bay beating the Yankees 8-3 in Japan, resulting in these wonderful American League East Standings:
Ride Needed
for Boston Marathon John Affleck writes: "I'm looking for a ride to Boston on the weekend before the marathon (preferably Sunday). Anybody who is looking for someone to carpool/split gas and tolls can drop me a line at mcflick@att.net." Wins Two more 5K wins for Chris Solarz, giving him 4 of the team's 10 wins so far this year. He even got into a picture for one of them.
Relays Congratulations to Team F for winning the CPTC Intrasquad Relays in 12:07.13. This may be a team record, but we're still waiting for club historians to confirm it. Full results on the results page (obviously). Photos of the event and the follow-up party at Dallas BBQ to be posted soon. Week of March 23, 2004 - March 29, 2004 Flattery
Will Get You Everywhere Want to see your name on this site? Either do something really foolish that we can mock you for endlessly, or else write an email like the one J.T. Mann just sent us: "Great site. I always enjoy it. Although Devon got recruiting credit, I always thought that the Webmaster should at least share in the credit because the site was a HUGE draw." Trials
and Tribulations Think this Saturday is notable just for the National Tartan Day Parade? Well, there's also a small race going on in St. Louis known as "The 2004 U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Women's Marathon." There's lots of info at the St. Louis Marathon site, the USATF site, Runner's World and fast-women.com, but all you really need to know is that our very own Margaret Angell will be one of the runners. For those readers who stumbled across this site by accident, we offer the following bio of Margaret, taken from fast-women.com:
Weekend
Recap Stefani Jackenthal won the March Madness Biathlon, Amerigo Rossi improved his Best 1500m Time, and Alston Brown set a new world record in the mile for M55-59 with 4:49.33. The team also picked up some nice hardware at the Indoor Masters Championships, with Sid Howard and Catherine Stone-Borkowski taking home two golds a piece, and Devon Martin and Mary Diver each picked up a silver in the 3000m. Just another weekend for CPTC. Suffering
for One's Art Roland has tracked down an old article in which Stefani Jackenthal recounts her experiences at the 2002 Escarpment Trail Run 30K. He asks: "Have you ever done anything like this for the Famous Sayings page? I know I haven't." We're barely willing to read about such challenging events for the Famous Sayings page... Best Time We're pretty good at basic math, but we still miss things when we're not paying attention. Like the fact that eight kilometers is really, really close to five miles. Close enough that an 8k result should certainly be considered for the Best 5M Times List. Luckily, our resident math genius, Jonathan Cane, knew that 8k=4.97 miles (4.9709695 if you prefer more decimal places), which means Margaret Schotte's 28:31 in yesterday's 8k would be about 28:41 (more like 28:40.992) for 5 miles, and that, as a result, she moves from 3rd place to 2nd on the Best of Times list. More on
Health We knew there had to be better articles on obesity than the CNN pieces we mentioned yesterday. Here is one from last year about the correlation between excessive television viewing and obesity. NYRR 8K We have lots of photos from today's 8K races - both the open race and the Men's Championships. No photos from the Police and Fire run, since we didn't see any CPTC folk lining up at the start. Additional photos of the Championships can be found on the NYRR site, but - at least for now - we have more photos than they do. Health
News CNN has two stories dealing with the obesity epidemic: a general analysis on why Americans are getting so fat, and an examination of the role high-fructose corn syrup plays in the process. The fructose study comes in for some criticism from both sides of the fat debate. We question the assertion by UNC-Chapel Hill professor Barry Popkin (who worked on the study) that "We cannot increase our physical activity enough to offset the extra 200 calories a day Americans are consuming." Really? What if Americans just started exercising a litte more? Far East
Update On March 7th I ran the Shizuoka Sumpu 1/2 Marathon. The race name does not even sound much better in Japanese but it looks better. The Chinese characters that it is written in, that is. You see it contains the characters...oh never mind; it is to esoteric and boring to continue. The race was held in the prefectural capital and started and ended in the grounds of the castle that used to guard the area. The walk to the start winds through the twisting castle walls (all that is left) and I can truthfully report that castle walls are very effective at chanelling and reducing the speeds of crowds of people. I learned that it is difficult to attack a castle. The race was an out and back course through the town and along a river to the port and back. The weather was coolish (around 10°C) but clear with a head wind on the way back. This is different from normal races, where there there is a head wind both going and coming. Don't ask me why. It just is. The race was run pretty evenly with very sparse crowd. My gross time was 1:24:36; chip time was 1:24:21; overall place was 245/1733, and among 30 year olds 44/421. When I entered the finish chute suddenly everyone was cheering. I felt great. For me I thought. But no, the top women's runner was right behind me. Just for a brief moment it was nice. For comparison (with what I am not sure), the race was won by the men in 1:14:39 and the women's in 1:24:40.
When is a race
not a race? When you run it as a training run? I once tried this
tactic on a former webmaster but he threatened to reveal my times
so I am not sure about the new WM's policies. I ran the Arakawa
Shimin Marathon on March 21st. Warm day (13°C), no wind, very
flat course. A nice time to run with 10,000 of your friends. The
"race" is nice and well attended with almost as many Japanese
drummers as there are aid stations. The stations deserve mention
because they only serve one side of the road on this out and back
course. So, even if you are thirsty you are only allowed to glimpse
refreshment on the other side of the road. This can be quite difficult
about mile 20. They do have a "sherbert station" around
mile 21 which serves cold iced sherbert. Quite refreshing. I ran
the "race" in a gross time of 3:14:30 and net time of
3:10:59 and was 196/2757 among 30 year olds (not really fair when
you are 29.5) and 528/10565 ovearll. The question is, if I run this
when I am not
Sweatpants
Found One of our runners left a pair of sweatpants at the statue of Daniel Webster after yesterday's workout. Jeff Wilson took them home. If they belong to you, email him at jeffdwilson2000@yahoo.com to make arrangements for their return. Boston,
My Boston... Patriot's Day is just around the corner, which means it's almost taper time for the CPTCers who are running the Boston Marathon. A quick search of the race's website revealed the following runners: Men: Peter Allen, Doron Fagelson, William Haskins, Gordon Holmes, Kevan Huston, John Kerner, William Kormaroff, Adam Newman and Gordon Streeter. Women: Bethany Aquilina, Elizabeth Kaicher, Susan Strazza and Electa Varnish. If you're planning to run, but don't see your name listed here, please email us. Evolution A new study in the journal Nature suggests that the emergence of humans may be due to a gene alteration some 2.4 million years ago that caused the jaw to shrink, providing more room for the brain to grow. In addition to explaining more about human evolution, this also supports the old adage: "Big mouth, small mind." A Photo
Album These days, everybody — and especially their mothers — are keeping photo albums on the Internet. So we were yawning through yet another collection of Central Park photos when we woke up at the sight of the real treasure of Central Park at the bottom of this page. Reconnected Yes, we're back on line, which means we're spending all our time checking out all the sites we missed over the last week. Remember that list we put up before we went on vacation? Well, we've spent the last two hours reading them. We would have started earlier, but The O.C. was on. We're mostly caught up now, so here are a bunch of links to check out:
Photos The batteries in our camera died at the start of Sunday's Front Runners Track Meet. Marty Levine had better luck, and posted a bunch of photos on his site. He's also got a bunch from the more Marathon. We'll swipe them for this site later. The Low-Stupidity
Diet Jane Brody trashes the Atkins Diet in a Times article titled "Sane Weight Loss in a Carb-Obsessed World: High Fiber and Low Fat":
Julian Niccolini of The Four Seasons is even harsher on Atkins: "I think it's totally disgusting. You cannot eat that kind of food all the time. It's going to f---ing kill you! When people come to the Four Seasons, they are smart enough to understand that they want to live." From Details, via The Kicker. Olympic
Torch Relay Runners Ross Galitsky informs us that NBC is looking for runners to carry the Olypmic torch. Specifically, they want "real runners who look like olympic runners." Also, you should be between 18 - 30 years old, and fit one of the following demographics:
If you're interested, call Rita at 212.787.3700 (work) or 212.873.7193 (home) as soon as possible. She promises this will be fun and that you'll get paid. Tuesday
Night Armory Workout Report This was the last indoor Tuesday workout for the middle distance crew. Yes, we'll be at the Armory next weekend, but just for the intrasquad relays, and then it's back to the Columbia track, which is so far away. Perhaps this explains the relatively large turnout of 26 runners (plus Alexandra Horowitz' dad). Or maybe it was the simplified workout, with most of the crew running 6-8 x 600m. Or maybe it was the weather, which was nice enough to make you want to run, but just cool enough to make running indoors sound good. After that, everything was the same as it always is. Noah Perlis challenged our objectivity as a reporter. The Dictator complained about everyone calling here dictator. Chris Price was reading a new book. Jess Reifer behaved in a childish manner. And Coach Tony talked for a long time. It's time for a change of scenery. Protest
Note Our Far East Correspondent looked at our three-line summary of the IAAF XC championships and blew his top with this note: "So Kenenisa Bekele won both the short and long courses, and Edith Masai won the short course. Who won the women's long course? Is this a poor attempt to get back at the pro-Aussie stance of this website when someone else was webmaster?" As you might have guessed, the long course winner was an Australian, Benita Johnson (see some nice photos here). So why didn't we mention her? Not because of any Antipodean antipathy, but because our slow internet connection discouraged us from reading the entire article. (We're told that our modem will be back to full speed tomorrow, which will deprive us of the best excuse we've had since taking over this site.) Where
to Run Derek O'Connor writes: "I am currenlty working in London for a few months and am struggling to find places to run other than on the streets. I think it would be a great help if we had a page on the website that gave suggestions for running routes for different cities that people visit. Then, when you travel, you could use this page as a reference." Actually, we have such a page: the Where to Run page. Right now that page only has details on a few NYC locations, but we're happy to add any other routes, whether in New York or across the world. Week of March 16, 2004 - March 22, 2004 Give Us
Money! We received a fund-raising letter from our alma mater the other day. We read through nearly an entire paragraph until we found this section: "Giving to [school] through the Annual Fund is like voting. You do it whether you are happy or upset. You do it because you believe in the mission and because it's the right thing to do. ... For those of you who ... think you can't afford a donation right now, the next time you buy that extra beer at the bar or that early morning Starbucks, think about possibly donating that amount to the Annual Fund." We don't really see the connection to voting, except in the way it presents us with multiple options, and we chose to put our money towards that extra beer instead. We think that was the "right thing to do." Links Stories completely unrelated to CPTC get a minimum of 500 words devoted to them on this site. These items relating to running/triathlons/health in general get one sentence and a link. At least until are cable modem is working again. Turns out the roommate didn't pay a recent bill, but she assures us that this will all be resolved in a day or two.
March
Focus Race The March focus race for the short- and mid-distance runners is this Saturday: the NYRR 8000. Not only will you be running in the friendly confines of Central Park against a strong local field, but you will have a rare opportunity to watch the USA's best male runners compete in the 8K Championship immediately afterwards. Meb Keflezighi is back to defend his title from last year, along with 27 others who have run under 14 minutes for 5K. See details here. The race for mere mortals begins at 9:15; the elite guys start at 10:10. Plus, the Police-Fire race starts at 10:15. Will our own orange Finest and Bravest be there? Come out on Saturday to find out! Bola No, we don't know why Bola Awofeso is making this face. But we imagine it's somehow related to his claim to have had a pet lion when he was growing up.
Armory
Race Recap Today's Front Runners track meet was the last Armory meet for the season, and CPTC said a nice farwell. Alston Brown set another world record, this time in the 400m. He ran 53.194, beating the old record by 1.16 seconds, and edging Charles Allie by .004 seconds, for one of the most dramatic finishes we've seen. Jessica Reifer and Catherine Stone-Borkowski went 1-2 in the women's 800m Invitational, while Isaya Okwiya ran sub-2:00 in the men's Invitational. And, after training with us over the winter, David Lansner (PPTC) lowered his time in the mile from 6:23.5 in January to 6:10.05 today. Now it's on to nationals next weekend, and then the outdoor season! Best Time Congratulations to Amerigo Rossi, who takes over the number 2 spot on the Best 800m Times list by running 1:53.8 in Los Angeles on Friday. 'Tis the
Season Spring is here, spring is here, life is skittles and life is beer... According to the calendar, spring began yesterday. Hopefully the weather will catch up soon. We've been trying to put away our winter running gear for a month now, but we keep getting these days that force us to dig out the running tights and jackets again. Expect
Delays We are having a lot of trouble with our cable modem, so updates may be a little light this weekend. Hopefully we'll get this fixed in time to post results and (maybe) photos from tomorrow's races. Just Out
of the Starting Gate: Marion Labat Comess Another photo from Noel Comess:
Around
the World Update #17 - Southern Thailand Dear all, Here is our last e-mail from South East Asia: Beach Time Thailand beaches are worldwide famous, and rightly so. Most have the usual ingredients that make great beaches: pristine water, coconut trees, white sand, etc. but we find that the most interesting is their variety. We started on the calm Island of Lanta, where the main beach is a wide and long pure stretch of white sand. We moved on to Khaolak, a much narrower beach, but with much better amenities, like restaurants (did we mention that Thai food is fantastic in the South?). We finished in Ao Nang, a much more crowded beach station, but with beautiful mountains in the background. From Khaolak, we did a one-day trip to Ko Phi Phi, where the movie "The Beach" was shot. Huge sugar-loaf-like cliffs (like in Rio or in the Halong Bay) fall into the water in every direction you look, a view pictured on every tourist brochure on Thailand. From Ao Nang, we went twice to Rai Leh and Phang Nga beaches, with rock formations similar to those on Phi Phi Island, but with less tourists and with beautiful resorts: probably the two most beautiful beaches we have ever seen, even beating Brazil’s best, and it means a lot! 4 nights - 4 days Live Aboard diving trip to Similan and Surin Islands We left Khao Lak under heavy rain, and cruised for several hours at night on the stormy sea. Luckily, we woke up the next day with beautiful weather, which last the next 4 days. Believe it or not, we had pretty busy days on the boat. There was a lot to squeeze in 24 hours! 5 meals (excellent Thai food), 4 dives (up to 60 minutes each), plus the dive briefing before each dive (as we were changing site and dive profile at every dive) and the equipment preparation (though this was made very easy by the very careful Thai crew who did most of the work). In between dives, we also had short visits to nearby beaches on the islands, to get the perfect sun-tan and play volleyball in crystalline green water, optional diving from the upper deck, while at night, we watched DVDs (watching "Finding Nemo"in a live aboard dive trip is a must!) and shared dive stories and experience. Some dive sites were beautiful coral gardens, with soft and hard corals of all shapes and colors: fluorescent yellow, red, purple, pink, white, blue and green. Other dive sites were wrecks. The first one used to be a live-aboard boat, whose name was Atlantis... so where else than at the bottom of the sea was it expected to end? Don't worry, our boat was rightly named "Manta Queen." Maybe next time, we should look for a "Shark Princess" named boat, as we saw no shark (one shark did see us, though, but only the instructor got to see it). Apart from the "expected" fish like angelfish, barracudas, surgeonfish, parrotfish, moray eels, etc, we had a few surprises underwater: The weirdest encounter was with the titan triggerfish. Contrary to other types of triggerfish, the titan is pretty big and very unfriendly, especially when looking after its nest. A few of us (incl. Anne) got "charged"by a triggerfish. One fish swam straight against the cameraman videocase, then charged again and bit fiercely one of his flippers. Other triggerfish just swam straight towards us to intimidate and watched us swim away, the only way to escape from a nasty bite. As one of our diving buddy said, "you don't mess up with a fish that eats stones"(they eat hard coral bits). We did a "sunset dive" on the third day, though this could have been called a "special nemo" dive. On that site, we saw so many clownfish of different types and sizes. Some were all black, others beige, others red and black, and of course we also saw real "nemos," like the one in the movie. The nemo clownfish seems to be, to us all, the most charming creature one encounters underwater, and we regularly stared, with a big smile, at these beautiful little fish sticking out of their anemone. What else? Mating octopus, changing colors every few seconds; "cleaning stations," an area where fish wait for being cleaned by smaller fish or shrimps; scorpionfish, which are so good at camouflage that we saw only a few although they are everywhere (the bad thing is, they are venomous, so we had to be careful not to touch or rest on anything), and finally the pufferfish, which blows itself up like a ball when it feels danger. However, what made this trip truly memorable is the following: The most amazing dive of all "Mantaaaa!!", one of the dive instructors shouts like crazy, catching everybody’s attention. Most of us were busy gearing up for the second dive of the day and missed the 4-meter wide animal jumping out of the sea. We are at Manta Point, at the right season (i.e. when plankton density is at its highest) to see the Manta rays, and this is the dive we have all waited for, the dive we all came for. The first group jumps into the water much faster than usually, and, within 5 minutes, all the 20 divers from our boat invade the site, hoping for the best. The dive starts with what is called a reef dive, observing into details a huge reef. After 15 minutes, we both forget the reason why we are here, fascinated by the colorful wildlife. At some point, Olivier calls Anne to show her one of these cleaning shrimps hidden in a crack. Instead, Anne extends her arm away, pointing toward the big blue, with eyes wide open. Everybody realizes straightaway what is going on: there is an enormous Manta ray, just a few meters from us. We start swimming towards it, but it unfortunately disappears into the blue, after a couple of loops around us. Two minutes after, what we believe to be the same ray comes back to us, maybe amused or curious. It is as if it were flying, spreading its fins like wings, very slowly but going so fast nonetheless. Then again, at 12 meters deep, it comes back. This time, Olivier decides to stay with it. For a few seconds that felt like minutes, he stayed at no further than a few meters from the ray, until it makes a wide turn, showing its bright wide anterior part. This animal has a grace that words cannot describe. Luckily, we were part of the group that got the closest and the cameraman taped everything on DVD, so we got to see the entire scene again on screen (and we bought the DVD!). A very special moment that will remind in our mind for a long, long time... We are leaving in 24 hours to rest for a few days in France, before starting the third and last part of our journey: India and Nepal. Cheers,
"City
of Lost Mittens" Remember how Alexandra Horowitz has been collecting gloves over the winter? Well, this Sunday she's doing something with them:
Apartment
Available Kevan Huston sends the following: "Have you ever wanted to live in Central Park? Well, we can offer you the next closest thing: a 1 bedroom apartment 37.8 meters from the Bridle Path! Yes, that's right folks: our apartment at 6 West 90th Street is available as of May 15th, 2004. The rent is stabilised and probably in the high teens after vacancy appreciation. This is not a sublet but a vacancy: We are posting this because, as runners, this is as good as it gets in New York City. Kevan, for one, lowered his Half PR by 5 minutes whilst living here; and Ana PR'd in the marathon by 16 minutes! What more do you need? Call us for details: (212) 580-8682. Baby Jogger
Wanted If anyone is selling or about to toss a baby jogger, please contact Marvin Cabrera at mc334@columbia.edu or (212) 854-1718. Whole
Foods Gabe Sherman has an article about the new Columbus Circle Whole Foods Market in this week's New York Observer. We strongly suspect that this is the same Gabe Sherman who is on our team. Tuesday
Night Armory Workouts Report Lousy Smarch weather! Good thing we still have the indoor track, although the ugly conditions outside appear to have kept many runners away from the Armory last night as the two workouts combined could only muster 35 participants. First up, as always, was the middle distance group, under the somewhat-rusted iron fist of Dictator Devon. Though still beloved by her subjects, she no longer inspires as much fear. Why, when 7:15 rolled around and the 7:00 workout still hadn't started, some members even threatened to start the workout without her! Imagine, the runners more anxious to begin the workout than the coach!! Luckily they refrained, giving the boss a chance to explain the workout, which was different for the different classes of runners, based on which meet they are training for and what distance they plan to race. This basically worked out to a separate workout for each person, although the runners did manage to form some semblance of groups. Except, of course, for Noah Perlis, who always makes up his own workout. As he explained to guest runner Warren, "I'm too old to survive the entire middle distance workout, and too slow to run with the sprinters." Then he advised Warren not to talk to us, lest we print libelous statements about him on this site. After that the coach complained about all the photographs with the word "dictator" in the caption, even though we didn't post them. And Jessica Reifer confided that she'd finally found the elusive back door to escape from the Armory, but refused to divulge its location. What's going on here? No fear of the coach or the workout reporter? The late group was much more respectful. Nobody complained that the workout didn't start until 8:20, even though Coach Tony's only announcements were the weekend's race results. Nobody called the coach any names. And only two people made fun of our shoes. Of course, they had more reason to be nice to us, since we were one of the timers, along with Tony and Stuart Calderwood. Kieran Calderwood tried to help out, but he still needs a bit of work on his timing skills.
Brief
Chat Peter Gambaccini's latest "Brief Chat" for Runner's World Online is with Katherine Switzer. Switzer was the first female entrant of the Boston Marathon in 1967, won the New York City Marathon in 1974, and was one of the earliest members of CPTC. Altered
Sports Nike has a cool new ad in which famous athletes are seen excelling at sports other than the ones they are famous for. Andre Agassi is the Red Sox shortstop (as if Nomar didn't already have enough worries about his future with the team); Atlanta Falcons QB Michael Vick and Chicago Bears LB Brian Urlacher lace up their skates for the Colorado Avalanche, Randy Johnson becomes a bowler, Serena Williams a beach volleyball star, Marion Jones a gymnast and Lance Armstrong a boxer. We'll buy Urlacher as a hockey goon, and Serena could spike a volleyball as well as anyone. We'll even accept Marion on the vault. But if Lance ever stepped into a ring wouldn't it be for kick-boxing? Gut Class Last fall, University of Georgia basketball coach Jim Harrick, Sr., was forced to resign over major violations of NCAA rules and his son, assistant coach Jim Harrick, Jr., was fired. Harrick Jr.'s most egregious transgression was givng A's to three members of the basketball team in "Coaching Principles and Strategies of Basketball", even though they rarely attended the class and missed the final exam. Now it turns out that attending class and taking the final exam were optional for all students. But just to be sure everybody got an A, Harrick designed the easiest test imaginable (which was made public last week), consisting of 20 multiple-choice questions, including "How many points does a 3-point field goal account for in a basketball game?"; "How many halves are in a college basketball game?"; and "In your opinion, who is the best Division I assistant coach in the country?" We're going to go out on a limb here and guess that "Jim Harrick Jr." is the answer to that last one. It's a bad sign when the parodies of your test are harder than the real exam, but Harrick actually boasted about the class: "I thought personally it was a great idea. I took great pride in that class ... Teacher of the Year award, I thought I was going to get." Of course, to get an award like that it helps if your students actually show up to fill out the teacher evaluations. Week of March 9, 2004 - March 15, 2004 Mona
Lisa Smile No, not the movie, which we refuse to see because all of Swim Jen's lines were cut (remember, half the women we know are named Jennifer or Kathy, so they all get nicknames here). Also, it looked really bad. But we were referring, rather, to the original painting. For centuries, people have asked, "Why is the Mona Lisa smiling?" The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (the author, and not Red's favorite runner, who, in any case, spells his last name "Browne") does not enlighten us on that question, which is not surprising as the book is riddled with gross factual errors. Personally, we've never obsessed much over the reason behind La Gioconda's little grin, but it came to mind today when we were asked to explain another soon-to-be-very-famous smile. At the Colon Cancer Men's Half Marathon, there is a photo of Devon Martin looking very serious and then this is followed another photo of her with a marvelous smile. Why is she smiling? Knowing we wouldn't be able to rest until we solved the mystery, we asked the person who ought to know — the photographer. Here is his explanation:
And here we thought she was just happy to be spectating rather than running. On a related note, the same photographer tells us:
However, as this photographer is well aware, this site never lets the truth get in the way of a good story. The caption stays. The Amazing
Andreas Andrea Haver comments on the 5K she ran this weekend: "I am so pumped! This was indeed a great race for me, though I didn't win any prize money." No, all she did was finish in 7th place, and take over 4th place our Best 5K Times list. And she got herself a nice picture, courtesy of Jim Rhoades' website.
Meanwhile, Andrea Costella finished 4th overall, and 1st in her age group, at the Casear Rodney Half Marathon. The results page clearly states that "this was not a day for a personal record," because of the sub-40° temperatures and 17 mph winds. Even so, Andrea was a mere 20 seconds off her PR, and on a hilly course. She also ran 5 minutes faster than she did at the same race in 2003. History
of the Tighes Lynn Blackstone has more info on Mike and Nancy Tighe: "Nancy Tighe ran for CPTC from 1975-1977; Greater New York in 1978; unattached in 80-81; Atatlanta in 1983; Mike Tighe, a 31-minute 10K runner and 54-minute 10-miler, a winner of numerous junior championships in running and biking, was recruited to CPTC by Dave Blackstone after his mother Nancy was already a member. Oh, I know how CPTCers shun going into the ancient history of the club; however, I am going to do it anyway at least in this note. In 1975 the National AAU Women's Marathon Championship was joined with the New York City Marathon, then held within Central Park, and the National AAU Women's Team Champion for 1975 was CPTC with a team comprised of Katherine Switzer, Lynn Blackstone, and Nancy Tighe." Thanks I'm off to Ghana in a couple of hours. Thanks so much to everyone who donated sneakers and clothes. I was incredibly touched by everyone's generosity which went far beyond my expectations. And my expectations were high!
An Early
Vote for Best Photo of the Year John Prather writes: "The photo of Alan cresting the hill with all the bare trees in the background and nobody else in frame is one of the coolest running photos I've ever seen, and without a doubt one of the best CPTC photos ever." A Few
Days at the Races Everyone knows it's not a race unless a few runners show up in orange; that's why we get so many race notifications in our in box. Here are the three most recent:
The
Golden Child Sid Howard picked up two Gold Medals at the World Masters Indoor Championships in Sindelfingen, Germany, this weekend. He won the 800m in 2:22.67 and the 1500m in 5:00.52. Possibly
the Most Unexpected Sighting of an ex-CPTCer of All Time
Peter Gambicinni writes: "I just went to see In America, about a poor Irish family settling in New York - a couple and their two young daughters. It's sensationally good, better than any film that got Oscars recently. The family's goodhearted junkie neighbor is played by .... Michael Tighe. Acting under the name Michael Sean Tighe. He's got about eighth billing." And who is Michael Tighe? John Kenney tells us: "Mike is Nancy Tighe’s son (she was the former Atalanta President in the early 80’s). He had lots of talent running wise, having run low-30’s for 6 miles if I’m not mistaken. I had a few runs with him and enjoyed his company. I’m not sure if he ever formally joined our club or not." Photos Photos from
last week's MAC Indoor Championships
are now up. Photos from today's
race Movie At Lincoln Center's "New Directors New Films" festival, this year, there is a film that may interest our members. The film, called Strong Shoulders, will only have three showings. Shows tend to sell out really fast, but you can try your luck as a stand-by as well. Details below:
New
Arrival Noel Comess and his wife Christelle would like to introduce their daughter Marion. Noel writes: "March 5, 2004, 11:22 p.m 6lbs 9oz 19" at Mount Sinai. Everyone's ecstatic. Some are more achey than others. All is well. Now we know what you're talking about. xox PS Note the similar hairstyles."
Record
Holder What is this fuss about this big lobbying effort to get Andrea Haver to give up a spring marathon to run track instead? Do you really think that she is such a rookie as to never have tasted the thrill? We point out to you the following items from the track & field record page at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges Women 4x800m:
Ronda Blackwell-Andrea Haver-Erin Robertson-Danielle
Neff - 9:33.51 and then most astonishingly: Women's 3000m
steeplecase: Andrea
Haver - 11:26.27 (eat your heart you, Jessica!) More
Cooking Classes More Cooking
Classes from Soy - new dates and new "Curry" class SOY We're
Back A big hand to the true master for taking care of the site over the last week. We'd give him back permanent control of the site, but he won't take it. Anyway, we're back home now, and working our way through everything we missed. This will take a couple of days, so if you sent us an email that we haven't addressed yet, don't complain until Sunday. Or complain if you want to, but we'll just ignore you. Watch
Your Language! Last August we declined to print a common obscenity, writing "While we have no personal objections to the use of profanity, even at its most excessive, we do not want this site to run afoul of any overly sensitive filtering software, thereby depriving children everywhere of the pearls o | |||||||||||||||||||||
