Neologistics

I've Moved!

2011-07-25T10:47:00.002-04:00

Image via WikipediaOn July 25, 2011, I completed migrating all articles on Neologistics to my Neologistics Editing blog. I invite anyone who has subscribed to this blog, and also new visitors who happen upon it, to subscribe instead to Neologistics Editing.

It's my intent to keep Neologistics alive for the foreseeable future, but I expect this post to be the last article.

I began Neologistics in August 2005 mainly for fun — to hop on the blogging bandwagon, and to provide an outlet for short writing projects to supplement my long-existing personal website (also titled Neologistics), where I have numerous other creative projects, including a free full-length book about ultrarunning.

Historically, content on Neologistics has been unfocused, including articles on whatever topic I've felt like tackling mainly running, music, opinion, reviews, and humor. (At least I usually think the stuff is funny when I write it.)

In December 2010 I created Neologistics Editing to support my nascent freelance editing business, and began feeding the blog component with articles on topics related to the English language such as writing, editing, usage, and book reviews.

Before long it started to bother me that I was trying to grow two different blogs. An advantage I have on Neologistics Editing is that it's a WordPress site, and allows me to organize my library of posts under categories, thereby partitioning the content more logically than the simple chronological format on Blogspot allows.

Therefore, I made a decision last week to merge the two blogs. On Neologistics Editing, all the articles from Neologistics have been assigned to the category Legacy, in addition to whatever other categories apply, and the posting date of every item has been back-dated to its original posting date from Neologistics.

Dinking periodically with this site has been a lot of fun, but now it's time to move on to better things. And I thank readers who have followed this blog, and hope you will continue with its improved incarnation.

Giving Away My Roots

2011-03-03T11:09:00.001-05:00

When I lived outside the tiny coastal town of Searsport, Maine, I had a nasty tooth problem and had to hightail it to a dentist. I knew of one in Belfast named — I'm not making this up — Dr. Blood, and his assistant was named Savage. Blood and Savage. Hmmm. I don't think so. I wanted to be cautious. After all, I was living in Stephen King country.

I decided to take my chances instead with a practice I'd seen on the edge of town in Searsport. The office was barely a mile from my house. I no longer remember that guy's name, but at least I'm fairly certain it wasn't Dr. Axemurderer.

This man's office was in his home. His wife worked as his assistant. Presumably she was qualified, but I didn't ask to see a diploma. The dentist recognized me from when I stopped at his door two months before to deliver a special invitation to come to our Kingdom Hall.

They were a chatty couple. But have you ever tried to carry on a meaningful conversation with a dentist while he's working on you?

The doctor took one look and decided to yank out the offending fang. My mouth already full of cotton, I began to tense up as he made preparations to rip a piece of my body off of me. Assuming I might be in a mood to talk about spiritual matters, he asked me: If Jesus Christ was really who he claimed to be, why did he let people do all those terrible things to him?

"Mmmmpfhm mmmph mphmmphph mmmmpfhm" was my reply. But he wouldn't buy that explanation.

Soon my mouth was thoroughly numbed and stuffed with cotton. As the dentist anchored his body weight, readying himself to perform the heinous deed, the dentist's wife-assistant asked me, "So tell me — what part of the Chicago North Shore are you from?"

"Mmmmpfhm?" was my nonplussed reply.

I've always though my speech is as free of any regional accent as can be. Someone told me once that I speak Walter Cronkitese. Besides, I hadn't said very much, but evidently some utterance gave away my roots. (I was obviously in a frame of mind to give away roots on that day.)

When I was finally able to speak clearly again, I admitted that I grew up in Wilmette, which is what I say when I tell people where I'm "from," but of course I wanted to know how Mrs. Wife-Assistant knew this.

The woman had two advantages I was unaware of. First, she had a master's degree in some category of linguistic practice, and considered herself an expert on American dialects. In addition, she got that degree from Northwestern University, in Evanston, Illinois, the city that lies between Wilmette and Chicago on the North Shore, so lived there herself for some period of time. In fact, I lived in south Wilmette, within walking distance of the Northwestern campus, where my father also taught for a number of years.

So I guess the lesson is that just about everyone picks up little regionally-based speech idiosyncrasies. But Mrs. Wife-Assistant never told me what it was that I said that exposed me.

Taking Remedial English

2011-03-02T12:52:00.002-05:00

Image via WikipediaOne dismal February morning in 1962, near the beginning of the second semester of my freshman year at University of Illinois, I arrived late for my early morning English class, interrupting proceedings while I climbed over students in the crowded classroom in making my way to my seat.[1]

"Tedious journey, Mr. Newton?" asked the instructor, whose voice quivered with sarcasm like Paul Lynde's.

"Not nearly so much as the destination, Mr. Prahlhans," I replied, as I struggled to remove my wet overcoat.

At the university they offered new students two paths of study in basic academic subjects. I chose what was undoubtedly for me the wrong one, called DGS (for Division of General Studies) English. I adjudged the course to be trivial and the teacher to be loathsome. Always more concerned about expending time doing what I thought was interesting to myself than about superfluous abstractions like grades, I limped by, cut most of the time, and in the end managed to squeak out a D, despite having sufficient command of my native language to meet the university's low standards.

The consequence for anyone getting a D or failing grade in their freshman English class, whether DGS or traditional Rhetoric, was being forced to take a class called Remedial English — a disgraceful subject to have to stand in registration lines to sign up for, and while I accept that I'd earned that humiliation for myself by my own actions, still I grumbled about it, and blamed the inferior course and teacher I'd had the previous year.

To make matters worse, no credit was given for Remedial English, attendance was mandatory (cutting twice for any reason whatsoever meant automatic failure), and no person would be permitted to graduate without having earned at least a C (I think) in that course. A person could repeat it as many times as necessary to accomplish that end. I was in academic debtor's prison.

One relief was that there was no homework. We simply had to be present every session and listen, and we were required to write a series of six increasingly complicated essays in class, which the teacher then critiqued, graded, and returned.

For the very first exercise we had a choice of writing either about some issue of student politics on campus, about which I knew absolutely nothing, or about something having to do with Lyndon Johnson, who was then Vice President, and I cared equally little about him.[2] Being angry about the choices, in addition to having to be there in the first place, knowing that the best I could do was make something up, and so was bound to fail, I submitted an altogether stupid @#$! off-topic rant about having to write this stupid @#$! paper on this stupid @#$! topic about which I knew nothing, and having to take this stupid @#$! class. I didn't include the expletives, but was thinking them.

To my surprise, the teacher graded my paper thoughtfully and intelligently, as if it were just another badly written assignment from a clueless student (which it was). He included some written advice on how I could cope with the rest of the semester's work.

I no longer remember the name of the graduate student instructor, but for his calm handling of my tirade he deserves highest marks, perhaps even a meritorious service medal, when he could have reprimanded me, and might have griped equally from his own side of the divide about having to teach such a class to mostly morons and losers unqualified to do university level work who all needed to go get jobs pumping gas and stop spending their parents' money by being in college.

He never knew that his thoughtful comments probed a Good Attitude button in my head and triggered a permanent change in my life. Shortly thereafter my whole stance became transformed. I began to listen attentively to his carefully prepared and enthusiastically presented lectures, which constituted in toto a formal review of English, from basic grammar through advanced composition, over the course of a semester. As I listened and learned, the quality of my own writing escalated assymptotically.

As a result, despite the no-credit shameful status of Remedial English, I have always looked back on taking this course as a highlight of my undergraduate experience, and in some respects a turning point in my life, because it imposed a need for me to come directly and intelligently to grips with the techniques of writing, today one of my deepest everyday concerns. What I learned then has served me well all my adult lifetime. And it's worth noting, too, that for the rest of my academic career I never got anything but A's on term papers.

[1] Note on the image I used here. By coincidence, the classroom in which this episode took place was located in the building entered through the door under the outstretched arm of the figure in the statue.

[2] I have since learned a great deal about Lyndon Baines Johnson, whose greatest importance came after the period of this story, and find him to be a fascinating character in US history.

Running Only Four or Five Hours

2011-03-01T12:39:00.001-05:00

Image via WikipediaLong ago I considered running the Mickelson Trail Marathon. It sounded like a good race to me, and besides, I hadn't run a regular marathon in years; but running it would have required me to travel from Arizona to South Dakota.

When I proposed the idea to Suzy, her initial reaction was: "It seems like a lot of trouble and expense just so you can run only four or five hours." Because I knew exactly what she meant, I just started to laugh, then so did she, as she quickly caught on to the double meaning of what she'd said.

Doubtless some non-running spouses are of the opinion that spending time and money traveling to races constitutes a questionable use of resources that could be better used in another way, which in some cases may be true. Not Suzy. What she meant was that it's not worth the cost for me to travel to any race that will take me less than 24 hours to finish, preferably a whole lot longer, so I get more miles and hours per dollar for the experience. And that way she gets more shopping and sightseeing time. She's an economist.

The result of that discussion was that I scrubbed my plans to run the Mickelson Trail Marathon, and instead ran the Leanhorse 100-mile trail race a few years later, which is also run on the Mickelson Trail, albeit on a different part of it. Despite my almost-made-it DNF, I got to mile 96 in 28 hours before falling down in the bushes twice in twenty yards. Therefore, I definitely got almost my money's worth out of that trip. Suzy loved it, too, because she spent the race afternoon getting a massage in town.

Reading in Installments

2011-01-23T11:46:00.018-05:00

At any given time I have between one and seven books in my Recent Reading stack marked as current. These are books that I really am reading at present.
At this writing there are six on the stack:

Washington: A Life (Ron Chernow)
The Elements of Typographic Style (Robert Bringhurst)
The Associated Press Stylebook
Life (Keith Richards)
Marathon & Beyond - Volume 15 Issue 1
Jazz: A History of America's Music (Goeffrey C. Ward, Ken Burns)

In addition to those, I negotiate daily reading of the Bible, and related study materials, which I don't count because such reading been an ongoing lifetime habit of mine for the past forty years, like showering and brushing my teeth.

Usually I save concentrated, uninterrupted readthroughs for lighter works, such as John Grisham's The Confession, which I finished in four sittings two weeks ago, while putting other projects on hold. In that case, one reason for the hurry was because it's a currently popular book, I had a non-renewable two-week checkout limit on my Bexley Library copy, and Suzy wanted to read it, too — and did.

When the list grows to more than two items I think of myself as reading pieces of books in installments. When it's backed up to more more than three, I almost never get to more than three on any given day.

For heavy-duty tomes of non-fiction (Washington), technical books (The Elements of Typographic Style), or reference books (The AP Stylebook), I view each time I pick them up as lessons, as though I were studying them in school.

Books I own I annotate. For those I get from the library I often collect notes in a series of commonplace notebooks, though doing so slows down my reading.

I'm not exactly slow, but I'm not an unusually fast reader either, but make no apologies for it, since I'm not competing with anyone else; and I adjust pace according to need. At times I can tear through fifty pages in an hour, but at others, in deeply technical material, an hour's labor can move me no more than six pages ahead.

Just as Indian musicians view some ragas as appropriate only on certain occasions or times of day, I categorize my reading. When I sit down with my first cup of coffee for the day (generally between 5:00 and 6:00 a.m.) is not the time to read a legal thriller or about the insane lifestyles of the Rolling Stones. I wake up quickly and tend to reach my mental peak for the day early, so find early morning is the best time to tackle spiritual, technical, reference, and historical works, often fueling me with thoughts for what I need to accomplish in the day ahead. The evening, when my work for the day is done, is the time for work that is more purely entertaining. If I fall asleep while reading, it doesn't matter.

The Creative Habit — Twyla Tharp

2011-01-14T19:42:00.002-05:00

Cover via AmazonAs a sometime composer and writer, I have always been fascinated by listening to creative people of all types discuss their work, especially how they go about doing it. Therefore, when I recently bumped up against the title The Creative Habit, a 2001 book by master choreographer Twyla Tharp, I checked it out from the library to have some airplane reading on a trip to Arizona.

Ms. Tharp's intention is to present a how-to book, replete with exercises, because she believes that (contrary to popular romantic notions about artistic inspiration) creativity is largely a matter of cultivating and practicing good work habits that allow creativity to sprout. This belief sounds like Thomas Edison's famous saying: "Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration."

Routine

She writes first about the value of a regular daily routine, which for her begins with stepping into a cab early each morning to head to the gym for a workout. This is followed by blocks of time devoted to various categories of activity, such that by the end of day, all the most important tasks — workout, business, dancing, correspondence, and personal reading — have all been covered, whereupon she can retire, satisfied and ready to rest up and begin a new cycle the next day.

Forty years ago a close friend told me he had discovered that the more he repeated things — referring to the normal cycles of daily activities — the more good things happened in his life. His statement has stuck with me ever since, and I have learned it to be true.

The Box

Tharp says that before you can think outside a box, you have to have a box. To organize her projects, she uses literal, inexpensive file boxes from Office Depot to store all manner of physical materials she accumulates in the process of researching for and creating a new dance.

My boxes take the form of notebooks — many of them — paper notebooks that I carry around with me, and an array of computer-based notebooks any of which I may call up in a keystroke to prepend dated and labeled items of any length at the top. I'm presently composing this review using one of them, in which I have over 17,000 lines of text fragments that may someday see light of day in a blog article or other form of publication.

Where Ideas Come From

One of my most creative times of the day is that brief period in bed when I know I will be falling asleep momentarily, but am sufficiently conscious to enjoy the free associations running wild in my mind. Many is the time I've thought about getting out of bed to write down ideas that seemed worth preserving at the time, but I've never actually done it.

Ms. Tharp reports that Thomas Edison, famous for eschewing sleep would sit in a chair when sleepy, palms up, with a ball bearing in each hand. When one ball bearing fell to the floor, it would wake him, and he would immediately write down what he was thinking in that idea-rich neverland between sleep and wakefulness.

Reading

Tharp tells us: "Like an athlete in training, the more you read, the more mentally fit you feel." Rather than merely reading for pleasure, she devours the material, studying it, annotating the margins, and researching related topics.

Me too. That's how one thing leads to another and ultimately to good ideas. I certainly read a great deal of lighter material for pure pleasure — popular fiction, cartoon books, even occasional children's books — but whenever I read I hope to obtain something beneficial from the experience, even if it's intangible and hard to identify. I almost never read just to pass the time.

Skills

Ms. Tharp places a premium on the value of developing skills of every kind to the ultimate degree possible, illustrating: "A successful entrepreneur can do everything and anything — stock the warehouse, negotiate with vendors, develop a product, design an ad campaign, close a deal, placate an unhappy customer — as well as, if not better than, anyone working for him." She quotes golfer Gary Player as having said, "The harder I practice, the luckier I get," and applies the principle to skills beyond what are most essential for her art form. As a choreographer and dancer, of course she devotes great energy to dancing itself, especially to improvisation. But she also works to understand music, literature, theater, costume design, business, and a host of other disciplines that enable her to keep a company of full-time dancers employed.

A Boo-Boo

On being in a groove, Tharp commits a minor error of musical fact, saying: "When I think of a groove, I imagine Bach bounding out of bed to compose his preludes and fugues, knowing that he had twenty-four keys to work with. 'Let's see,' he must have thought, 'today I'll tackle G-sharp major and A-flat minor.'"

Bzzzt! Wrong!

Speaking with my musical editor's hat on: the pitches we call G-sharp and A-flat are enharmonically equivalent in the equal tempered tuning system that Bach explored in Das Wohltemperierte Clavier that she alludes to; simply put, to play either one you press the same key, the middle of any of those sets of three adjacent black keys on a piano keyboard.

The key of A-flat minor is plausible but unlikely, because it would require seven flats in the key signature, so that every one of the seven scale pitches is flatted. That's a lot of flats, so Bach instead wrote the minor prelude and fugue on that pitch in G-sharp minor, which has five sharps — still a lot to remember, and not often encountered, but a bit easier to read.

But G-sharp major exists only theoretically, in that the key signature would have not merely seven, but eight sharps in it, meaning that the F would be a double sharp, raised two half tones. It's possible to go on adding as many sharps and flats as desired, but there is no point to it, because once every scale pitch has been flatted or sharped, there is an enharmonic equivalent that is simpler and a whole lot easier to read, and is why Bach stopped with twenty-four of each -- the twelve major and minor keys on each of the twelve degrees in the equal tempered system that has been the standard tuning in Western music for centuries. In this case, Bach wrote the prelude and fugue not in G-sharp major, but in A-flat major, with its key signature of only four flats.

If Ms. Tharp had proposed Bach might have thought, "Today I'll tackle A-flat major and G-sharp minor," there would have been no problem. For this minor booboo we can easily forgive her, a proven genius at her art, and knowledgeable about many subjects including music, but not necessarily expert in music theory.

Thank you, Twyla Tharp, for providing these tools by means of which I may keep my own creative skills percolating.

The Tempest

2011-01-05T17:46:00.006-05:00

My base of operations

At 9:00 a.m. on December 29, 2010, I began to run the 72-hour race at Across the Years. By 5:30 p.m., after completing only 81 laps (40.5 km, 25.166 miles), I was packed up and on my way to my friends' house, to be their unexpected house guest for the next four days, where I would occasionally watch the progress of the race from the laptop on the kitchen counter, when it was available. The bad weather on Wednesday merely accelerated illness that had been coming on over the course of three days, and drove me to follow what was clearly the conservative course of wisdom.

After eleven consecutive races at Across the Years, being involved most of those years with helping to present the event, this was not how I wanted nor the way I expected to conclude my experience there. I regretted not being there at the end to say proper good-byes to so many people I have come to regard as friends.

Scrolling Back in Time

The year 2008 had been one of the toughest years of my life, as I lived the first eight months alone in an apartment, trying to master a new and challenging job, while my wife remained in Phoenix, working and trying to sell our house. Being consumed by these overbearing distractions, I nearly stopped running entirely, and suffered physical consequences. My personal worst performance of 134 miles at the 2008 race, all but the last half lap walked, betrayed the reality that I had lost my focus as a multiday runner.

After the 2008 race I made it known to my race organizer associates that the just-finished race would be my last, that I would not return in 2009 to run, nor would I be available to assist with the website and other responsibilities. I made the decision the previous June, but saved telling about it until after the race.

Unexpectedly (to me, as I was no longer included in the planning), the race took a hiatus in 2009, the first and only one since 1983. If there had been a race, I would not have been there, but because there wasn't, I managed to take a year off without breaking my attendance streak. Meanwhile, changes in my personal circumstances enabled me to work a little more on my running. By the end of 2009 I was ready to begin regular training once again.

In Spring 2010, an announcement appeared on the Across the Years website saying there would be a race in 2010. This was good news, but I had no intention of either running or helping out myself.

However, I'll always feel a sense of personal attachment to Across the Years. Above all, I created a relational database that records all race and runner data back to the very beginning; that history permeates the website, particularly in the biographies and statistics sections. If that were to become lost or mangled, much of the race's legacy would be gone, and along with it, much of what I was able to contribute the last several years.

Thus it came about that last Spring I made myself available to Jamil and Nick Coury, Across the Years' capable new race directors, to support the now hoary website for one more edition of the race, while they learned how to put on this race in the grand tradition that had developed around it.

My offer was with utterly no expectation of being able to be there to run myself. Financial and logistical problems aside (both huge issues for me at present), I didn't think I could get back in sufficient shape to run a 72-hour race.

As 2010 unfolded, my running improved. In late September, circumstances unexpectedly developed whereby I would be able to run the race. I had just run the North Coast 24-Hour Endurance Run, with encouraging results, was planning on running the Columbus Half Marathon with my daughter in mid-October (which also turned out well), and even had tentative plans to run a 50K in early December. Could I possibly be ready?

My confidence was that being in much better shape presently than I was in 2008, despite two additional years of aging (which is clearly starting to make a difference), I should at the very least be able to do better at the race than I did that year, if for no other reason than because I would be able to run a great deal more of it than I did then.

Therefore, I set my goal to reach at least 150 miles, which would have resulted in a solid mid-pack finish in a strong field, and thinking I could do even better than that if everything fell together right.

Complications

Then the complications began to set in.

I worried first about transporting my tent, but learned that space inside the tent this year would be cramped, and that the luxury condo tent I've customarily used is too big and would be unwelcome. Wimp that I am, setting up in the yard was unthinkable to me, even though some persons do well with that.

Therefore, I decided to do entirely without a tent, trying for the first time to work with just a cot, a borrowed sleeping bag, a chair, and a few cardboard boxes to keep organized. Other 72-hour runners have managed that way just fine before me. Why couldn't I?

My biggest fear was learning that the main area of the big tent would not be heated as it customarily had been, although there would be two smaller areas that would be heated toasty warm. In years past I've been uncomfortable changing clothes inside my personal tent even with the heat on. I was unsure how I'd manage under these new conditions.

Another goal I set for 2010 was to lose the 25 pounds I'd gained since moving to Ohio, which I almost accomplished by September 3, when I pulled up short with an Achilles injury while on a training run. Although it gave me no trouble at North Coast 24-hour two weeks later, or at Columbus Half Marathon in mid-October, this caused me to cut back on my training for the rest of the year, and as a consequence, I gained back six or seven pounds. I stabilized around 190, but had expected to be in the mid-170s by race day, close to my running weight when I had my best runs at Across the Years.

Ten days before the race, I began to track weather predictions, hoping for unseasonably warm weather. Ha! The earliest indications were that there might be trouble. As race day drew near, the more certain it seemed that there would be some unpleasantness. Two or three days before the race we learned that a cold front was on the way, to be preceded by heavy rain on December 29, the first day of the race. Nighttime temperatures would drop into the mid-twenties. In comparison, Columbus would warm up quite a bit. Overall, the weather would be at least as cold and a lot wetter in Arizona than at home.

These conditions all runners would share. But for me the worst news was yet to come, as two days before leaving, I sensed impending illness creeping up on me. I started popping echinacea and vitamin C, and skipped my last day of running in favor of extra rest. It was no use. Whatever was attacking me would insist on running its course, peaking on Thursday during the race.

I arrived in Phoenix at noon the day before the race and was picked up at the airport by my friend Nathan, who hauled me directly to Nardini Manor.

The afternoon before Across the Years has always seemed like a holiday to me. I love reacquainting myself with the venue, staking out my territory, and especially greeting runners as they arrive, many of whom I've now known for quite a few years.

I got my stuff set up around the cot, and sorted my gear into boxes that tucked neatly under the cot for when I wanted to lie down, and sat in a tidy row on top when I wanted access. It looked like it might work out well. Then I went into the Manor house to pick up my race stuff, and finally headed off to my hosts' house, where I was treated like royalty. (I stayed with people who have been some of our closest friends for over thirty years.)

The next shock came when Nathan informed me that because of work obligations he'd have to drop me off at Nardini Manor at 4:30 a.m., hoping that wouldn't be an inconvenience. To my surprise, it worked out well. At 6:15 p.m., after a delicious high-carb spaghetti dinner, it was 8:15 p.m. Ohio time. I'd been up since 4:45 a.m., and was already starting to nod out. So I crawled off to bed, pulled the covers around my nose at 6:30, and except for increasingly intense coughing fits during the night, slept well until 2:30 a.m., a total of eight hours in bed.

It's an hour's drive from their house to Nardini Manor. I walked into the big tent at 4:16 a.m., to find several people asleep. The temperature was not uncomfortable. I cared for a handful of necessary chores, crawled into the sleeping bag at 4:40, and other than the coughing, rested comfortably for another two hours, finally getting up at 6:50, when I heard other people stirring. In all I got a total of over ten hours of rack time before the race, which I hadn't expected.

Having no tent available, my first task was to scurry off to the bathroom to smear Bag Balm the temperature of ice and consistency of engine grease and also Vaseline onto body parts only my doctor knows the names of or has even seen.

Next I headed back to the Manor house, because I'd gotten two left gloves in my goodie bag, whereas I have only one left hand, and also a right hand that was lacking a matching glove. Another problem solved.

While packing I discovered that I'm out of Elastikon tape, and couldn't get any that day. For the first time I'd try to get through a long race with only lubricants.

I've owned and used Oakley M Frame Heater sunglasses since 1996; they live almost permanently on my head. I wear them for eye protection even in rain and darkness. They were nowhere to be found. Left them in Ohio. Dang.

Little details such as these may not seem important, but they add up, and in a long race can have a significant impact.

Finally, I set up my personal aid station near where I've always based my operations in previous years, and put a chair there (which my bottom never touched) and my Spartan collection of supplies — a smallish covered rectangular box of stuff in bottles such as electrolytes, ibuprofen and caffeine, covered by a transparent plastic bag, plus a single water bottle.

How did I feel? Still coughing frequently, but not enough to stop me from running.

The Race Begins

It was cool and overcast but not uncomfortable at the race start; we were certain that heavy rain was on the way, but everyone was in a rousing good mood.

Technically, every loop course has a net elevation gain and loss of zero feet, but every runner knows that every loop has one direction that is better for running than the other. At Nardini Manor the general consensus is that the "good" direction is counterclockwise, the direction the race starts in.

My method would be to run about two-thirds of every lap until I couldn't do it any more. In ideal conditions and earlier years, I could get through a whole 24 hours like that, with breaks only to stop at the potty.

At North Coast in September I ran a good first twelve hours, slowed down after that, but didn't sit down until fourteen and a half hours. I figured I'd be good at Across the Years until close to midnight before having to deal with significant problems.

I did well for the first two-hour segment, until we reversed directions. I had a harder time picking my run and walk spots in the clockwise direction. It seems almost all downhill to me. But I got through it.

By this time, the coughing was starting to bother me. It was hack, hack, hork, hork, spit in the bushes, and repeat, about six times per lap.

And Then the Rain

And then the rain began. It came on gradually, and at first was of little consequence. But it increased in intensity with relentless steadiness. After the first hour I scurried inside to pick up my rain gear that I'd already laid out, and got right back out.

It was fun for a while, and I heard no complaints. At the 2004 race (which became my lifetime PR year) we had an utter deluge on the first day. However, that year was not nearly as cold, and it didn't last for nearly as long.

The track began to flood and become muddy. Crews appeared with brooms, attempting to push back the puddles. Workers with shovels dug grooves to channel major water flows. Within a couple of hours it seemed pointless to even try, and the crews gave up. The path on the straightaway along the southeast end became a slick mud field. Everyone's legs were covered with mud halfway up their calves.

Adding to our running enjoyment was the strong wind that carried the ripest stench of mushy wet cow poo from the dairy farm a half mile to the north straight to our nostrils.

Some people seemed unconcerned and determined. For as long as I was there, Liz Bauer ran only in shoes, shorts, a jogbra, and Moeben sleeves, with no head covering. She looked like a desperate, drowning rat, but was running well. And she was far from the only one who seemed to be inadequately protected.

Eventually my rain gear proved to be of little help. It's plenty waterproof, but I was soaked with sweat from the inside, and with the temperature dropping, was starting to shiver in it.

I suffer from Raynaud's phenomenon. (I didn't before I moved to Ohio.) Despite this, the circulation in my hands was okay, and I endured in wet cotton gloves for several hours with no significant discomfort to my hands. After six hours I ran into the tent for the second time to get fresh, dry gloves. Thereafter, even though I kept my gloved hands tucked up inside my raincoat sleeves, these too became wet from the inside out because of the sweat.

By early in the seventh hour my right Achilles tendon began to throb badly. Was it about to explode on me? The coughing and slick mud had already reduced me to walking most of the time. I wasn't miserable yet, but wondered how much longer I could keep this up.

At this point my memory is unclear, and I don't have accurate split times to help, but as I recall, I was starting to desire some hot food. I stopped at the aid station to ask about dinner and was told it would arrive in about a half hour. I think I went in the tent for a few minutes just to see what the warm areas were like, but came back out in just a minute or two, and did one more lap. The records say that I crossed at 7:31:57 into the race, with 40.5 km, 25.166 miles. No longer thinking about a twelve- to sixteen-hour initial stretch, I'd wanted to go at least a marathon before taking any kind of break, but I was already deep into the process of shutting down.

I went first into the front warming room, where I tried to dry out my gloves while stooped over in front of the flame-belching heater. Then I went into the other warming room, where there were cots, and where the temperature was blazing hot. I was in serious need of a place to strip naked, towel off, and put on all dry clothes. There wasn't one. Other people were coping without that, but I wasn't, and had no solution, so was facing a major logistical dilemma.

I ducked my head outside for a moment. It had grown dark, and was now like Mars out there. As bad as it was inside, outside was much worse, and later the rain became torrential, and was followed by bitter cold far worse than any I'd experienced the entire thirty years I'd lived in Arizona.

I don't remember exactly at what point I realized that I couldn't fight this for another sixty-four hours, but as I contemplated the passing of the rain to be followed by cold, I knew in my heart I was done. I called Nathan to see if there was any possibility he could come and bail me out, which I realized would also make me their unexpected house guest for the next four days. He left right away. Once I knew he was on the way, there was no changing my mind, so I yanked off my chip and turned it in to Nick Coury, saying, "I can't do this," with little more explanation than that, because he was busy, and because talking about it wouldn't change anything.

While waiting, one runner commented on the conditions: "There is no competition, only survival."

I understood. Fixed-time track races are above all running events. The best performances take place under ideal physical conditions: on a flat, broad course that is long enough to keep runners from piling up on each other, in good weather, at a venue that has basic facilities adequate to care for the needs of runners in reasonable comfort. Obviously, foul weather is shared in by all participants, but can serve to introduce a level of extraneous challenge to an event that may be a disadvantage to runners whose experience has been focused on tracks, roads, and asphalt, but who have rarely had to fight the variety of difficulties that often appear in other settings, such as in long and technical trail races. On this night the trail dogs just might have had the advantage.

I arrived at my friends' house about 6:30, had a bit to eat, was in bed by around 8:30, and slept for eleven hours. The forecast said the conditions would clear up, but at 2:15 a.m. I was awakened by thunder and lightning and the heavy pounding of rain that sounded like a million elves running across the roof. Later I learned that the runners an hour away at Nardini Manor shared in that experience, which drove most of them into the tent for a while. When I got up in the morning the rain had stopped, but it remained very wet, very windy, and terribly cold all day. I spent the next three days sleeping, hanging out, reading, occasionally watching the race, and eating my generous friends' food.

Because I didn't properly conclude the race (even though there are no DNFs in fixed-time running), I'm at a loss to bring this story to a decisive end. It was what it was. I'm less disappointed than some persons might suppose I am, especially because I was able to get back one more time than I had thought possible, although I regret not seeing people who arrived after Wednesday night for the Thursday and Friday starts.

And on that note, it does seem that my days at Across the Years have finally come to an end — in the Brett Favre sense of being "done," of course! Despite the bump at the end, my time with Across the Years has been one of the great experiences of my life.

The Bible Illuminated: R. Crumb's Book of Genesis — Columbus Museum of Art

2010-10-25T21:23:00.002-04:00

Cover via AmazonWe were present at the Columbus Museum of Art on October 7, 2010, for the members only opening of "The Bible Illuminated: R. Crumb's Book of Genesis."

If you are unfamiliar with the world of comic book and cartoon art, you may not know who Robert Crumb is, known professionally as R. Crumb. But if you have had any exposure at all to that medium, you will likely know who I'm talking about, because Crumb is among the most admired of all underground comic artists. If you've ever seen the one-page comic Keep on Truckin', which was plastered everywhere starting in 1968, or are familiar with "Fritz the Cat," then you have seen a miniscule portion of Crumb's prolific output.

Crumb is not for everybody. Some of his work is vulgar, even overtly pornographic. But above all, Crumb draws well, and his work is usually at least interesting in its meticulous attention to detail, and is at times innovative.

My first conscious exposure to Crumb was by means of the collaborations he did on "American Splendor" with Cleveland comic author Harvey Pekar, who did not draw himself, but simply wrote stories about his own life, and sketched what he wanted with stick figures, leaving the drawing to others. Crumb was still unknown and living in Cleveland in the mid sixties, when they met and struck up a friendship based on mutual tastes in music. Pekar showed Crumb his ideas for cartoons, and Crumb offered to draw some of them for him, which led to success for Pekar — as successful as underground comic artists get — resulting even in the 2003 movie entitled "American Splendor," with Paul Giamatti playing Pekar.

Meanwhile, Crumb moved on to San Francisco, other work, including such jobs as popular album covers, and eventual fame in the late sixties scene of hippies and bands and all the rest — although Crumb himself was never a hippie, nor was he much like the people he hung out with and who admired him, which included notables such as Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead.
Sometime in the eighties Crumb and his wife, tired of the United States, moved to an unglamorous dwelling in the south of France, where they remain to this day. He's still hard at work.

Jump forward from the sixties several decades and most of a career, to the present. One day last year, before I was conscious of the name R. Crumb, I was browsing in the art book store at OSU's Wexner Center and stumbled upon an astonishing work: "The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb" (That's the exact full title.) As a student of the Bible for now over forty years, I was eager to see what this was about. Expecting to encounter disrespectful, gross distortions created for laughs, I was surprised to see instead a work in Crumb's polished and unmodified cartooning style that seemed to be a faithful representation of the scriptural text, and including the text itself, though using a modern translation I am not familiar with. I thumbed through just a few pages before moving on, but the experience was memorable, and I wished I had more time to look at the book.

Which brings me to the primary subject of this article. On October 7, the Columbus Museum of art opened an exhibit of not just a sampling, but of all 207 of the original pages of this book, strung at comfortable reading level in a long, snaking sequence through a series of galleries. The originals are roughly 9x12 inches each (an eyeball guesstimate), and extraordinary to look at.

It was then that I learned that every word of Genesis is written on those pages, including the genealogies, looking much like rogues galleries, and that the artist, who says he believes that Genesis is a work of men rather than the word of God, nonetheless spent five years working on the project, giving the greatest care and respect to the subject matter. It's the juxtaposition of the sacred text with R. Crumb's uncompromised and highly distinctive style that make the work special.

Decades ago I lost track of the number of times I'd read through Genesis (and the rest of the Bible, which, in contrast to Mr. Crumb, I do believe is the word of God). It's fair to say that I know what it says.

I found at this show that it's possible for someone familiar with the source material to cover the entire exhibit meaningfully, thereby "reading" the whole book of Genesis in about an hour and a half — which is exactly what Suzy and I did — with a short break in the middle to go hear a chorus performing on the grand staircase.

Imagine my amusement when I was jolted to see part of the narrative out of sequence. On one page I saw Rebekah nursing twins, and on the next she was pregnant. These things usually happen in the opposite order. That's when I discovered that they had hung up two pages in the wrong order: 89, 91, and 90. (The numbers are written in light pencil outside the printing border.)

We finished just in time to hear the last background lecture by the show's curator, who opened things up at the end for any questions. I asked whether she had been alerted to the incorrect sequence. She replied with considerable surprise that she didn't know, was grateful to find out about it, and wondered how I knew. I said I knew because I know the Bible, and saw the story was out of sequence, but it was easy enough to verify by looking at the page numbers.

Even though hundreds of people trooped through the showing, few were making it much further than halfway; it was crowded at the front, where an anatomically correct Adam and Eve are seen standing naked, and desolate by Jacob's deathbed prophecy, as if to indicate that sampling a few dozen pages was enough for most persons to get the idea. Because it was opening night, and because likely few people were reading in much detail, it's no surprise that this hadn't been reported, but if they failed to fix it, I'm sure someone else came along later and set them straight again, so presumably it is fixed by now.

If you live in Columbus, Ohio, be sure to get over to Columbus Museum of Art before January 16, 2011, when the exhibit closes.

Daughters Are Good — Columbus Half Marathon 2010

2010-10-17T20:45:00.009-04:00

Last spring our daughter Cyra-Lea wrote to ask if I'd be willing to pick out and run a half marathon with her this fall. I hadn't done that sort of running for several yearse. My last half marathon race was in February, 2004, my last full marathon was in May, 2005, and I haven't run anything but ultramarathons since then. But how could I say no? Not that I wanted to. I was delighted, and agreed to do it immediately. It would give me an excuse to try to get back to doing some real running.

Cyra-Lea and I have run together in the past. Her longest prior race was ten kilometers — either once or twice; the last time she was seventeen years old. She's twenty-eight now. Daughters are good!

It wasn't hard for us to determine that the best choice for a race would be the Nationwide Columbus Marathon and Half Marathon here in town on October 17, 2010 (today), which I had not run myself, but heard only good things about. We visited Cyra-Lea and her husband over the July 4th weekend, at which time we sat down at the computer and registered, engraving the decision in stone. We also worked out a twelve-week training plan for Cyra-Lea.

Cyra-Lea drove in from Charlestown, Indiana (near Louisville, Kentucky) by herself on Thursday. (Her husband is busy in school, so couldn't make it.) This gave us the opportunity to visit, drive the course that afternoon; on Friday to go for a walk and then to the expo, avoiding the weekend rush; and to have a relaxing Saturday.

Well — I did three and a half hours of leaf raking, and Cyra-Lea and Suzy spent about seven hours shopping, so it wasn't physically relaxing, but it wasn't stressful.

It's been a long time since I've had as much outright fun running a race as I did today. Over the years I've grown just a little bit cold toward certain features of mega-races: the large crowds, the high cost (especially when travel is rolled in), the crassly commercial sale of useless, cheesy memorabilia, and the vacuous hype are not my style. On the other hand, I certainly don't dislike the races themselves, and I advocate any sort of fitness activity that helps people live a healthier life style. But until a few months ago, given my own preference for ultramarathons (always much smaller), I figured my own experience with these races came an end long ago.

Now that I've experienced it, I'll give Columbus Marathon a solid five-star rating in every aspect of it that I witnessed, from the expo to the starting area, availability of parking, number of portajohns, pleasantness of the course (I'm familiar with most of the route that the marathoners run, too), timing, the website, aid stations, music on the course, crowd support, the finish, and food for finishers — all are superb. And all of it is practically in my own back yard.

This morning we were up at 5:00 a.m. sharp. Cyra-Lea was sleeping fitfully in the family room rather than the basement bedroom because as a nurse who works several night shifts a week her fractured sleep patterns are unlike those of most of us.

We had plenty of time to get ourselves out the door, and left by 6:05. It takes less than ten minutes to get downtown. (The start is less than five miles away; I could have walked to and from it, and might have considered if I'd been doing this alone.) The one big question was where I would park. I used to work downtown, and know the area well. We would have to come up Fourth Street, crossing Broad a block east of the race start. Surely it would be open at 6:15. To my relief, it was.

One amusing sight before the race was with some roads closed, the tangle of one-way streets downtown, and some signs up at the ends of some saying STREET CLOSED, watching confused drivers, many from out of town, wander the wrong direction on some of them, fishing around for parking places.

For me it was a no-brainer, as I knew exactly where to go. On Sunday parking meters are free. I used to park on weekends and holidays that I went to the office on a little one-way street called Pearl Alley, just 270 feet from where I used to work (all measurements in this report are according to Google Maps), a quarter mile from the center of Broad and High, the location of our place in the fourth corral, the one for slowpokes. Most parking spaces on the main streets were already taken, but all those in that block on Pearl Alley were still open. So I zipped in and we just sat and chatted in the car for a half hour before heading out to the start, just around the corner and up the street a couple of blocks.

Weather is something that no one can predict before signing up for a race. In mid-October it's possible to have the most glorious autumn weather imaginable. There is also every possibility for clouds, rain, and high temperatures in the forties. This year the weather could not have been more perfect if I had custom ordered it from a website called Weather-R-Us. It's has been brightly sunny all day, the temperature while waiting at the start was around 45, but completely comfortable for both of us, and ranged up to about 55 by the end of the race, with a high later in the day of 70.

We found a place to stand in our corral, but shortly after we arrived, Cyra-Lea wanted to visit a portapotty, so I followed, decided it would be stupid not to try it myself as long as I was there, and am glad I did, as it turned out to be a productive decision. After that I was definitely all set, and just wanted to get started.

The beginning is right in front of the Ohio Statehouse, at the corner of Broad and Third Street, a long block up from where we parked. The race began on time (7:30 a.m.), with the starting gun accompanied by fireworks that shot up the side of a bank. I was only a little bit worried when I realized they were shooting up the side of my bank. It was okay, because our deposits are insured.

As is customarily the case in these extravaganzas, we couldn't budge an inch for several minutes. I don't know exactly what time it was when we hit the timing mat. I was thinking 7:45, but it was apparently earlier than that. Either that, or we started a little later than I thought.

Music was everywhere on the course, and it was almost all well-played. The band at the start was especially good, as they began the race by playing Born to Run, followed by some song Cyra-Lea identified as being by the Beastie Boys. Throughout the race we were rarely more than a block out of hearing range from a live band, featuring everything from amplified soloists to a military brass band on the west side of the Statehouse on the return.

At this race I had two primary goals. Ideally, I wanted to finish one step behind Cyra-Lea. The second was to run the whole thing without walking. I accomplished the second, but at ten miles got separated from Cyra-Lea and finished before her.

Immediately upon crossing the timing mat, I started my watch. I did click mile splits when I saw the signs, all accompanied by prominent race clocks, but I never looked at my watch until I was done, because it didn't really matter. The three or four times I paid attention, I estimated my progress by subtracting ten or fifteen minutes from the displayed race time.

I knew this race would be slow. Not an event I had planned on doing myself, for me it marked a comeback from nearly two years of greatly reduced running, though I still did a great deal of walking during that period. And Cyra-Lea, who has inherited my genes, is no speedster either. Therefore, from the beginning I ran slowly, at times more slowly than is generally comfortable for me, in order to keep pace with Cyra-Lea.

Broad, which goes mostly east, but also angles slightly north, is — well — broad, which helped to minimize the problems with crowding in the early stages. We were able to utilize customary strategies so as to get around people: surging through holes, shifting left and right, etc. It wasn't hard at all despite the number of runners. But maybe that was because most runners were already ahead of us. For the first ten miles Cyra-Lea and I were either side by side or very close together.

The crowd support at this race, encouraged no doubt by the superb weather, was extraordinary. The spectators contributed to the excitement the whole way.
The best sign we saw on the first part of the course said:

RUN BETTER THAN TERELLE PRYOR

The reference is to The Ohio State University Buckeyes football team's phenom quarterback. Until yesterday the Bucks were rated number one in the country. But last night they were thoroughly trounced by Wisconsin, and were not helped by a handful of poor (in my estimation questionable) runs by Pryor, a versatile athlete who rushes more often than most quarterbacks.

Eventually, we turned north on Parkview, in the swanky part of Bexley, and ran by the governor's mansion. Governor Ted Strickland was standing on his corner, accompanied by body guards, and cheering. I'd been expecting to see him, so ran close to the curb as we approached — not close enough to high five, as I had hoped, but I did manage to make eye contact and exchange a friendly greeting. It's likely that many runners, particularly out-of-staters, had no idea who that ordinary-looking man in the brimmed hat and windbreaker was.

Two blocks later we turned south on Drexel, to go 1.36 miles, all downhill, on a wide street with beautiful homes. Suzy was waiting on the corner of Drexel and Main in downtown Bexley, the nearest point on the course to our house (about a mile and a quarter away), a bit past the five-mile point, where we saw her long enough for her to try to snap a picture, but we mostly just waved and cheered and kept moving. We were doing well, and Cyra-Lea was clearly enjoying herself.

Once we got past the shops on Main, the short unattractive segment of the course followed. We turned north on Nelson for less than half a mile, then ran across the south end of Franklin Park.
At the six-mile aid station I was able to pat hands with Cheryl Link, whom I know from Dead Runners Society and Facebook, but had never met in person. Cheryl ran a half marathon herself yesterday, and now, in the spirit of the sport, was out giving generously of her time and effort to help other runners. Volunteer support at this race was extraordinary, for which runners should always be grateful; we couldn't do it without the volunteers.

The road south of beautiful Franklin Park is narrow, hillier than most places on the course, with a surface that is a bit rough, but after coming up the west side, we were back on Broad doubling back the other way (westerly) a little over a mile, then south and into residential neighborhoods to the southeast of downtown. This took us back to Third Street, a few blocks south of where we started, where we headed south again, over the highway, and then into German Village.

By this time I was leading Cyra-Lea by an average of fifteen to twenty-five yards, and kept looking back over my shoulder, as I slowed, several times to let her catch up, but never stopped running. She took a couple of short walking breaks.

Around mile nine she decided she was pretty much toast, but was determined to keep doing her best. I kept looking back, and even ran backwards up to twenty or thirty yards at a time at least three times, hoping she would push herself to keep as close as possible.

Just after the ten-mile marker I turned to run backwards, searched, and couldn't find Cyra-Lea. She'd been doing really well, and said she was fine, so I had to make a decision whether to hang back, or press forward. Confident that she would be okay, I picked up the pace with the intent of running as hard as I could, knowing that a negative split was a real possibility given the slowness of the first half. Although I don't have the exact numbers, I'm sure I was right.

After going around Schiller Park in German Village, we came out to High Street, the main north-south drag through Columbus, another wide street, and a straight shot from the turn for nearly two miles until the turnoff onto Nationwide Boulevard, which encloses a quarter-mile finishing chute in massive chain link fences. I was able to run hard on some downhill segments of High.

The last couple of blocks before that turn is a horribly steep uphill, but once on the straightaway after the turn, it's a screaming downhill to the end, and I sprinted it in as hard as I could, trying to pass one final big guy, who edged me out. (I have no idea what his start time was.)

The organization after the chute was carried out with the precision of a military operation. In fact, they had soldiers manning some of the food tables.

I stood and waited anxiously for Cyra-Lea, not knowing whether she'd blown up or remained fairly close. In fact, her finishing time was only 5:27 behind mine. I was thrilled when I saw her come through the crowd sooner than I expected, with a finisher's medal around her neck, upon which she announced, "I did it! I'm a half marathoner."

There was food in abundance. I took only a bottle of water and a smallish Krispy Kreme. Cyra-Lea grabbed a couple of things to eat later. (I have never eaten or drunk anything during a half marathon ever, so by that time needed water and a shot of sugar.)

We weren't with anyone, don't know hardly any runners in Columbus, and were planning on going out for late brunch, so we didn't hang out to socialize, party, or listen to the band playing in Arch Park. The walk to our car was less than half a mile, and getting out was as easy as could be, since by then everything we had to cross or travel on had opened up, and Sunday morning traffic was light. We got back home by 11:00 a.m., showered, and went out to enjoy a large meal at Bob Evans, a popular and folksy but not fancy Columbus-based family restaurant chain.

The results reporting for Columbus Marathon, supplied externally by a company called MTec Results, is among the best I've ever seen. For each runner looked up, a number of statistics are shown in an impressively laid out display, including, in addition to final chip time, also ten kilometer split time, average pace, overall place, gender place, and age group pace, all in three different formats. It also shows how many runners the displayed person passed from ten kilometers to finish in the overall category, and how many passed that runner. From a software point of view, given that with chip timing, runners are running asynchronously, it's an interestingly tricky problem.

For reference, my half marathon PR is 2:03 and change, run over twelve years ago. When I was running them regularly I typically came in between 2:15 and 2:17. Given that caveat, here's what the numbers tell me about today's half marathon. The percentages shown I calculated myself, as I do for every race I run, dividing my place by the total shown.

7925 (3224 men, 4701 women) ran the half marathon

Average finish: 2:10:33 (I think that's fast for an average!)

Lynn Newton: 2:43:31 (90.4%)
I placed 28 out of 37 runners in the M6569 Age Group (75.7%)
I placed 7165 out of 7925 runners overall (90.4%)
I placed 3055 out of 3222 Males (94.8%)

Cyra-Lea Drummond: 2:48:58
She placed 7366 out of 7925 runners overall (92.9%)
She placed 4270 out of 4701 Females (90.8%)
She placed 917 out of 977 runners in the F2529 Age Group (93.4%)

From those numbers, I can see that after I surged ahead of Cyra-Lea after the ten-mile point, I finished 201 runners ahead of her, by a margin of 5:27. I was delighted that the gap was that small, and given that her own goal was to go sub-3:00, she is pleased as well.

This afternoon we are two tired but happy puppies, having accomplished our mission with pleasure and aplomb.

I Coulda Had a Medal

2010-09-20T22:12:00.036-04:00

It was not until August 25, 2010, that I decided to run the North Coast 24-Hour Endurance Run (NC24) in Cleveland, Ohio. Up until the day before, I assumed that I would not be able to participate, and have done no ultramarathon training at all since 2008.

The year 2010 has marked my return to running, following a period of inactivity resulting mostly from fallout following my move from Arizona to Ohio, the aftershocks of which continue to haunt me. During 2008, I ran less then half the mileage that I averaged the ten previous years. By the end of 2008 I decided to stick to long distance walking, declaring myself to be an Urban Walker; no longer would I run ultramarathons, except perhaps races I could walk.

Life changed in 2009. Gradually I began running again on a regular basis, at first in tiny bits, but ending the year with 650 miles more than in 2008. Beginning on January 1, 2010, I successfully negotiated a 100-day running-and-walking streak, through the ice and snow of dead winter, ending with a forty-mile walk on April 10, followed by eight non-consecutive rest days the remainder of April. On May 1, I began streaking once again, aiming to continue until Labor Day, gradually increasing the ratio of running to walking. Along with the benefits of all this has come the loss of over twenty pounds of slob, which has certainly helped my running, not to mention the general state of my health.

In late spring my daughter invited me to run a half marathon with her this fall — her first. How could I refuse? So we signed up to run the Nationwide Better Health Columbus Half Marathon on October 17, four weeks from now.

Therefore, the type of running that I've been doing lately has been focused around increasing the distance I can run continuously. It was just a few years ago that I occasionally knocked off training weeks with mileages in the seventies, and performed feats like running ten no-walking half-marathons in ten days. But I can't do that any more. So far my biggest running day of 2010 has been when I ran 12.3 non-stop miles on a hot day in late August. I stopped there because I ran out of trail, but I couldn't have gone too much further.

The last several weeks I've experienced recurring pain on the top of my left foot. It's not bad enough to make me lay off, but it hasn't gone away, either, and it's been more than a minor annoyance. I probably should do something about it, but I tend to belong to the "ignore it and maybe it'll go away" school of medical treatment.

Then, on September 2, at two and half miles into a ten kilometer out and back, disaster struck, when a sharp pain shot through my right Achilles tendon, causing me to pull up short with a howl. I knew immediately that I was injured for real, and that it would be impossible to go on. Unfortunately, there was no way to get back to my car except to limp cautiously at a twenty-four minute per mile pace. The next day was the first day I took off exercising since April 30, just a few days short of my Labor Day goal. I began immediately with stretching and icing my heel.

Starting the next day I ventured forth cautiously on a few very slow, short walks. There was little I could do but accept that I would have to endure an enforced fifteen-day taper heading into a 24-hour race that I had decided to run barely a week before.

On September 11, 2010, I experimented with a cautious run-walk strategy, in which I counted steps in cycles of four, starting with sixteen, but never going higher than eighty: 1-2-3-4, 2-2-3-4, ... 80-2-3-4 (320 steps total), breathing in two steps, breathing out two steps. It worked so well that I was confident I would be all right on race day, so didn't run another step until the race, but did walk four, three, two, and two miles the week before race day, and took the last two days completely off.

That is — except that NC24 race director Dan Horvath asked if I could show up in Medina, Ohio, the afternoon before the race to help load the truck they'd rented. Sure, I was happy to do that — until I saw the Ryder truck big enough to move an entire warehouse together with the mass of stuff that had to be hauled out of a basement, up a hill, and loaded onto the truck, including over a hundred cases of water, forty-eight pounds each, almost as much Gatorade, and plenty of other stuff with some heft to it, upon which I began to have visions of my race about to fly out the window. Fortunately, about ten people, including Connie Gardner and Nick Coury, who both had exceptional races, also showed up to help.

Contrary to expectations, the hour and a half of non-stop lifting and carrying worked like a miracle drug, as it helped to flush out the poisons of accumulated lethargy, leaving me exhilarated rather than tired.

Between gimpy feet and having almost no time at all to prepare for the race, I did way better than expected. My elevator speech version of the race is this: I had an outstanding first twelve hours, melted down quickly after that, but did better than last year.

On race morning I timed getting ready about as perfectly as possible. I arrived at Edgewater Park at 7:35 AM, leaving me time to set up at a leisurely pace, then get over to hear the pre-race briefing, leaving almost no time to waste sitting around getting nervous.

My preference the past several fixed-time races I've run has been to operate with a minimalist trackside arrangement, consisting of a camp chair, and a small folding table with a gym bag containing a few things that might be required, most of which I didn't need at all. The table served mostly as a place to set my trusty Ultimate Direction 26-ounce water bottle, the type with a kicker valve.

While I'm happy to have a little assistance when it's available, I've long been accustomed to running these races without support. Maybe I would run them better if I had one of those spacious and festively decorated canopy tents staffed with a large crew of zealous sponsors, friends, and family who don't mind sitting outside all night while watching me lumber by and grumble at them them every fifteen minutes or so. But somehow I don't think it would help enough to make the trouble worth it.

This year the race date was bumped a couple of weeks earlier than last year in order to minimize the possibility of disagreeable weather. The temperature reached the upper seventies, probably hotter in late afternoon on this unshaded asphalt bike path. Easterners consider this to be uncomfortable, or at least a bit too warm to perform optimally, but it never was uncomfortable to this thirty-year Arizona desert man. In the evening the temperature never got below the mid-fifties, if that low. Many male runners ran shirtless all through the night, even when thick black clouds loomed up over the lake and threatened a downpour. I put on my rain slicker when rain appeared to be imminent, but we never got more than a couple of drops. Other than that and a brief experiment with a light jacket, which I shed after one lap, I never changed any item of clothing the whole race.

One thing is certain: in any given setting, weather conditions are shared equally by everyone, for better or for worse.

When the race started, I concentrated on the technique of fixed-time run-walk that worked so well for me the week before. And so it was that I shuffled along about three quarters of every 0.9-mile loop, not doing a walk-only loop until 7:20 PM (the time I finished it), then continuing until twelve hours race time, stopping only to grab something to eat or drink from the aid station table and once for a sixty-second portapotty stop.

Some sights and experiences seen along the way:

In mid-afternoon a drum circle formed in the park to the east of the race village. They must have played for three hours. Most runners were happy about their being there.

In mid-evening some pretty people showed up: a good-looking tall man and his beautiful female companion, dressed as if they were on their way to the Oscars. The man smiled from ear to ear, wore a shiny silver buckle the size of a serving tray, and glad handed every runner who passed by, including me. I'm told they were on their way to a wedding and had just stopped by to cheer someone they knew, but they were there for at least an hour. At least one briefly strapped a race number on over dress clothes, but I never saw either one run.

On one lap late at night I talked with a young woman from New York who had been stung by some inconsiderate insect. I heard her howl when it happened. She told me she had reasoned that God was punishing her because she chose to come to the race rather than observe her Day of Atonement.

Both last year and this year the lone street crossing on the course was manned for several hours during the graveyard shift by an arrogant, potbellied cop, who fouled the air with his six-inch cigar and rude language hurled at drivers who had been stopped to wait for runners; in fairness, I never heard him say anything objectionable to any runner or volunteer. But he behaved exactly the same way last year. I hope he doesn't come back again. We don't need to listen to some comic book flatfoot abusing our long-suffering family and crew members coming and going during the night.

At twelve hours I had completed forty-five miles. To be more precise, I finished my fiftieth lap of the 0.90075-mile certified loop, giving me 45.0375 miles, when the race clock said 12:00:07. I saw it turn over to 12:00:00 from a few yards out.

Whereas this mark doesn't constitute an elite performance, its value may be appreciated better by putting it in contextual perspective. The number is comparable to or better than several 12-hour races I ran when I was five to seven years younger, and in my best ultrarunning shape ever. I've recorded three 12-hour all-night races of 43.8087, 45.05, and 43.1873 miles. Also, the 12-hour splits that I have from 72-hour races are: 38.836 (2008) 39.150 (2007), 42.253 (2006), 46.292 (2005, the year I hustled to earn my 1000-mile lifetime mileage jacket), and 45.673 miles in 2004, my PR year. Last year at NC24 (2009), when I was barely breathing, I logged around 39 miles by the twelve-hour mark, and finished with a miserable 60.98 miles, walking the whole race, and sleeping about four hours.

Unfortunately, it didn't take long for the wheels to fall off in the second half. I decided I would walk one lap; then I walked another. Then I just kept walking and never ran another step the rest of the race.

During the first twelve hours I did all the right things. I must have drunk at least eight 26-ounce bottles of water, several cups of Vernor's ginger ale (a life-giving substance if there ever was one), and quantities of Coke and root beer. I took Succeed! electrolyte capsules no less frequently than hourly, and never felt dehydrated. I ate something at least every other lap, even if it was only a couple of cookies. I started to feel full.

From forty-five to fifty miles, my condition deteriorated rapidly, and from fifty to fifty-two miles I went into a tailspin from which I never recovered.

Eating became a problem. I tried to survive entirely on race food. Unfortunately, I don't do very well with typical race food. Dried peanut butter and jelly sandwich squares, pretzels, noodle soup and potatoes that are microwaved, but are room temperature or colder by the time I get them, get old quickly. Searingly hot food is difficult to consume, but it cools off, and needs to be palatable when it's consumed to be effective.

It must have been just after 9:00 PM when they brought out the pizza, which, unlike any of the other food, was piping hot. There were three kinds: plain (meaning cheese and tomato sauce), vegetable, and vegan, but both the latter two had olives. I don't like olives, and was in no mood to pick them off, so I went with the plain. Real big mistake. It was not long afterward when I began to feel my first pangs of nausea. It was never extreme, just sufficiently unpleasant to make me not want to start running again — or eating either, and to stop on occasion to lean over the edge of the path, just in case my body chose to spontaneously jettison the evil turbulence inside. Fortunately, I had some antacid, which helped the burning, but the nausea persisted until sunup.

During the later hours I observed that few runners were stopping at the aid station. It occurred to me that the best-fed runners are probably the ones who bring crews that serve them all their own favorite special stuff, from Scott Jurekian hummus and fruit smoothies to greasy hamburgers and fries. Different things work for different runners.

After the race we received a generous hot breakfast of egg burrito, rice, and pancakes, but I was able to swallow only about a third of it, and chucked the rest. On the way home in late afternoon I stopped at a McDonald's and bought a chocolate shake, ordinarily Something Very Bad for you, but I needed something cool and sweet and soothing. It hit the spot.

However, it was not food that was my downfall, but sleepiness — as it was also last year. I've reached the stage in life where it's not unusual for me to take a ten-minute nap in the afternoon not long after a run. There's little I can do to fight the urge, and no point in trying.

But it's different when you're in a race. I've gone a full 24 hours and longer several times without needing to sleep, including every 100-mile trail race I've ever done when I didn't DNF before that time.

At last year's NC24 I felt drugged, and experienced the same thing this year. On Saturday I went fourteen and a half hours without a single break of any kind, but during the thirteenth hour my eyelids began to droop, and soon I was walking at a 22:00 pace, zig-zagging across the path, occasionally walking off the edge, and wanting nothing more than to lie down and curl up in the grass.

I had caffeine tablets in my pocket pill dispenser, and contemplated taking one. Their effect on me is unpredictable. Sometimes they serve as a wonder drug, charging me into a dynamo; and sometimes they do nothing but make me nauseated. In 2009 my reward for taking one was the dry heaves. Since I was already experiencing that unpleasantry, I had no desire to exacerbate it, so I passed on the caffeine. Would it have helped? I'll never know.

That left only sleep as an alternative. I still don't know which is tougher in a 24-hour race: struggling to fight off the mounting sleeplessness, which does sometimes pass, or trying to get moving again after sleeping a short period and awaking to find I've locked up tight as a drum, nearly need a cane to prop myself upright, and that I walk like Frankenstein's monster for the first lap.

This year, as last year, I found that a brief nap in my chair was insufficient to knock the urge out of me. Each time I woke up, I re-evaluated my goals for the race. At twelve hours, I was optimistic that I would reach eighty miles. That hope got cut back to seventy-five, then seventy, and finally I acquiesced to the inevitability that at the very least I would do better than last year. By 6:00 AM I realized that I wasn't having a lot of fun any more, and just wanted the race to be over, so I headed to my car, where I could sit and sleep more comfortably than I had in my trackside chair, with no pillow or support. At 7:30, it was light out, and I was finally no longer sleepy, so I headed out to the track and stuck it out to the end, but still moved glacially because of the stiffness that had set in.

There is absolutely no getting around how incredibly hard these races are to do. There is no faking it if one is unprepared and hopes to go the whole twenty-four hours. The lesson may be: the secret to enjoying the experience is to be in good enough shape that the fun part lasts long enough that you never get to the miserable part, which is certain to arrive if you keep at it long enough.

My prediction proved to be accurate. My total came up to 65.514 miles, ninety-eighth place overall out of 147 runners total. At least I wasn't even close to dead last. (Ninety-eighth out of 147 puts me exactly in the sixty-sixth percentile.) Plus I really am an old guy now — it's not just something I joke about — so I can use that as an excuse.

Another state I've reached is being able to take home age group hardware by just showing up. USATF championships go deep into the age groups. Unfortunately, one must be a USATF member to get it, and I was too cheap to join. If I had, I would have gotten second place in my age group, with one of the nicer looking medals I've seen to accompany the honor. There was in fact, one person in my age group who finished after me, but he isn't in USATF either. The medals may be only so much bling, but I've never gotten an age group medal ever, and after all NC24 is a national championship, not just another race.

I could write more about the good runners who performed well, but I won't, because this is my report, not theirs. The results are on the race website for all to admire. But I was especially happy to see Nick Coury get third place in the men's division, earning an opportunity to represent the US on the national team in Switzerland next year. I've known Nick since he was eighteen, when he and his two brothers first showed up at Across the Years. As of this year, Nick and his older brother Jamil have taken over management of Across the Years as co-race directors, and I've had the pleasure of working closely with them this year once again on the race website, which will be my last year of doing so.

And although I don't know her well personally, I watched Connie Gardner hammer out a superlative race, winning it with over 141 miles, about three miles short of the record held since 1993 by the great Sue Ellen Trapp. Still no record for Connie, but no one doubts that she is one of the strongest runners currently in the game.

As for me: interestingly, my feet, which had me so worried, caused me no trouble at all. I didn't even get blisters, although I'll probably lose a couple of toenails. Sometimes my back also gives out. Not so this race. I'm sore all over, but the truth is, I'm just fine, and will be running again in a couple of days.

Most importantly, I'm happier about what I did the first twelve hours of NC24 than I am disappointed about the second twelve hours; it taught me that I can still run at least a little bit if I really want to.

Pale Fire — Vladimir Nabokov

2010-08-16T21:41:00.025-04:00

Cover of Pale FireOn Saturday evening I finished reading Vladimir Nabokov's 1963 novel Pale Fire, a work that appears on a number of lists purporting to identify the greatest novels of the twentieth century.

I wouldn't dare to attempt a literary analysis of Pale Fire. It's been a staple of English literature classes for over forty years, and countless reviews and scholarly studies have been created for it; also a number of study guides, replete with pseudo-analyses. These are readily found on the Internet.

Recently I posted an article on this blog about the movie Bright Star, about the life of the romantic poet John Keats. Now here I am, writing a reminiscence of a novel titled Pale Fire, about a poem of the same name by a fictional poet John Shade. The title similarity amuses me.

Of course, that coincidence means nothing.

For readers unfamiliar with Nabokov's novel, the basic story goes like this: The main character is a lunatic named Charles Kinbote, who claims to be the deposed and exiled King Charles the Beloved from Zembla, located "far to the north." He moves in right next to John Shade and his wife Sybil. Shade is a highly respected poet who teaches at a college in Appalachia. Kinbote, a Shakespeare expert, has come there to teach at the same college, and befriends Shade. It becomes clear rather quickly that Shade has only courteously pretended interest in his neighbor, whereas Kinbote is sycophantically obsessed by Shade, who is hard at work on a new lengthy poem, which turns out to be autobiographical, but which Kinbote imagines will be about Zembla and his role there as king. While waiting anxiously for the completed poem, Kinbote makes a pest of himself to the Shades. Sybil Shade refers to Kinbote as "an elephantine tick; a king-sized botfly; a macao worm; the monstrous parasite of a genius." He has not endeared himself to the Shade household.

In the end, on the day Shade completes his poem, another lunatic, a man known as Gradus, appears out of nowhere, and shoots John Shade dead. Kinbote is convinced that the man was a professional but inept assassin whose real target was the escaped King. The police determine he is really an escapee from an asylum for the criminally insane who has come to kill a judge who sent him up, but who stupidly kills the wrong man, both in the real part of the story, and in Kinbote's imagined version of it. Kinbote steals the poem, goes into hiding, and writes the commentary that constitutes the bulk of the book.

I've obviously left out a lot, but there is far more to this novel than the story. Most unusual is its structure, which on the surface consists of a Foreword written by Dr. Charles Kinbote, followed by the 999-line poem "Pale Fire" by John Shade, and 250 pages of commentary on the poem, once again by Dr. Charles Kinbote, including an index of about ten pages. Outwardly, the book looks like a scholarly book of literary analysis. However, every word of the Foreword, poem, commentary, and index are fiction written by Vladimir Nabokov, and form a complete and engrossing novel.

Rather than write more about the story, which is obtainable elsewhere, I wish to comment on the copy I had in my possession, which came from the general circulation shelves of the Bexley Library.

After reading every single word on the jacket and in the front-matter before the novel's text begins (there's very little), I concluded that I held in my hands an genuine first edition, first impression of one of the great novels in English literature.

The cover says "Pale Fire/ A New Novel by Vladimir Nabokov/ Author of Lolita".

At the top of the inside front cover flap are the words "First Impression", and flush right at the same height it says PF/ $5.00. (Might PF stand for "prix fixe"?)

On the copyright page it says "© 1962 by G.P. Putnam's Sons," etc. There's a Library of Congress Catalog Card Number, but no ISBN number, as ISBN numbers were first instituted in 1966. And at the bottom of that few lines of text, separated by some blank space, in small caps, are once again the words "FIRST IMPRESSION".

The rest, until the back jacket cover is all Nabokov's work. On the inside back flap is a one-paragraph biography of Nabokov, current to 1962, and on the back cover, only a photo of Nabokov, with no words whatever.

The book is in excellent condition. Of course the library has stuck its own goo on it, such as the cellophane cover over the jacket, and various stickers and stamps. The binding started to come loose from the cover, but it's been well mended. On about six pages here are the scribblings of a child from a black ball point pen. (Regrettable.)

I'm humbled by the realization of what I'd been permitted to bring home from the library, to treat no differently than if it were a Sunset book on gardening or a collection of Garfield cartoons. (Which, as a respecter of library property, is carefully, regardless of content, but not everyone is so inclined.)

Pale Fire probably doesn't get checked out very often. This is the sort of item that an unscrupulous person might claim was "lost" and then resell for far more than the cost of a replacement, which would likely be some later edition, not a collector's item.

I'm no rare books collector, but for very rough comparison I found a resource on the Internet about determining the value of first edition novels that used Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five as an example. At the time it was written, the numbers looked like this, depending on the condition of the book:

Fine / Fine:	$1,500
Fine / Near Fine:	$1,250
Near Fine / Very Good+:	$750
Very Good+ / Very Good:	$400
Very Good / Very Good-:	$250
Good / Good:	$100

It pointed out that the first edition first pressing of Slaughterhouse Five was rather small, so available copies are extremely rare. I can't say how collectors might value a copy of Pale Fire as compared with a copy of Slaughterhouse Five in the same condition.

I wondered if the library tracks these things, so when I returned it today, I asked a librarian about it. She said that the library has no way to take special care of rare books, that the book was probably bought new and has just been on the shelves all this time. Yes, it's possible that someone could report it missing, pay the replacement cost, and sell it for personal profit.

No, I'm not thinking of doing it myself.

Can You Guess How Oold I Am?

2010-08-08T23:39:00.000-04:00

Image via Wikipedia

Have you ever noticed how some older people like to tell you their age? It seems I've reached that point in life where I'm anxious to tell people my age, sometimes looking for excuses to do so. It's a pretty sorry state to be in — not being the age I am, but being so anxious to tell others about it, as though there were something special about it.

(Crackly old man voice.) Let me tell you how ooold I am!

SCENE: Lynn meets a young dude at the track.

Lynn: How ya doin'?

Dude: Not bad. You?

Lynn: Okay. I'm aching, though. Can't run like I used to, you know.

Dude: I guess I can see why.

Lynn: Yep. Gettin' too oold I guess.

Dude: Happens to everyone, eh?

Lynn: Yep. Do you have any idea how ooold I am?

Dude: Haven't a clue.

Lynn: Guess.

Dude: Oh, I couldn't. Got no idea.

Lynn: Go on, just guess.

Dude: How would I know?

Lynn: Just guess!!

Dude: Seventy-three.

Lynn: I'm sixty-seven years old!

Dude: That's amazing. I never would have guessed.

Lynn: Yep, and I feel it every day.

Dude: I suppose so. Happens to everyone, eh?

Lynn: Believe it or not, I used to be able to run nine-minute miles!

Dude: Ooh.

Lynn: Can't do that any more, of course. Doubt that I ever will.

Dude: I suppose not.

Lynn: Training now just to get back in shape, maybe do another ultra or two.

Dude: Groovy.

Lynn: Did I mention how ooold I am?

Dude: I think you may have mentioned it. What was it? Seventy-two?

Lynn: I'm sixty-seven years old!

Dude: That's amazing. I never would have guessed. Look, I've gotta ...

Lynn: What did you say you're training for?

Dude: I didn't.

Lynn: So what are you training for?

Dude: The Olympic Marathon trials.

Lynn: Cool! Couple of years ahead of schedule, aren't you?

Dude: But I've got a long way to go.

Lynn: What's your PR?

Dude: 2:14:30

Lynn: Sounds like you'll make it.

Dude: Sure hope to. Errr, as I started to say ...

Lynn: Want a tip from an old-timer?

Dude: Ummm. Oh sure, why not?

Lynn: Don't go out too fast. I see all these kids jump off the start early and then die early in the race.

Dude: Got it. I'll try to remember that. Thanks.

Lynn: Take it from me. I'm sixty-seven years old, y'know, and have seen a thing or two in my day.

Dude: Sixty-seven? That's amazing. I never would have guessed.

Metropolis — 2010 Restoration

2010-08-07T10:04:00.001-04:00

Cover via Amazon

Last night we saw the recently restored version of Franz Lang's 1927 masterpiece silent film Metropolis, the progenitor of almost every later science fiction action film. The venue was one of my favorite places in Columbus, the Wexner Center for the Arts on The Ohio State University campus, in the theater that holds about 600 people. (It's the same place we saw What's Up Doc? a few months ago, with director Peter Bogdanovich present in person.) It was a packed house, and I hear it's sold out for tonight's showing as well.

This version of the film, of which I had never seen any part, has twenty-five minutes of additional footage over the 2002 version, previously thought to be definitive. The original was two hours and thirty-three minutes, but was cut down to ninety minutes by the first distributors, who were afraid no one would want to see a movie that long. The film now runs for two hours and twenty-seven minutes, so not it's 100% complete, but they've recovered just about everything. The new version was first shown on February 12, 2010.

The copy with the missing footage, thought to have vacated the planet, was discovered in Argentina (where it was made) in 2008. Work proceeded immediately on cleaning up the missing pieces and merging them into the 2002 edition. It's not hard to tell what parts are new, because the the print they worked from had deteriorated badly, and the aspect ratio of the screen is narrower than what later became standard. Some of it is so scratched it's like looking through a room through a curtain of glass beads. Fortunately, it doesn't take long to get used to this and to accept it for what it is. This has all been converted to digital format for distribution, of course. The visual quality overall is superb.

Metropolis has everything a movie-goer could ask for: a great plot with revolutionary and eschatological themes; good acting, all stylized with exaggerated and melodramatic facial and physical gestures characteristic of silent films of the day; fabulous cinematography; almost non-stop action; enormous and complex sets; a profusion of special effects that are decades ahead of their time technically, including the flooding of a city as big as New York, the transformation of a robot into a woman, burning a "witch" (actually the robot), and depictions of massive machinery; difficult stunts such as people falling off roofs; a non-stop musical score written for the original film, with Wagnerian leitmotifs, and references to everything from "Dies Irae" to "La Marseillaise"; thousands of extras; endless shots of hundreds of people at a time rushing around in panic at top speed, in tightly packed mobs, like a school of fish (not good for extras with claustrophobia); and of course, epic length.

This is highly recommended viewing for any lover of classic film. I understand it's been circulating in art theaters across the country. I don't know if it's available from places like Netflix, but I gather it is not, so watch for it at a venue near you.

Julie & Julia

2010-07-29T11:02:00.000-04:00

Image via Wikipedia

Last night we watched Julie & Julia. Yes, we're behind everyone else. All the movies we watch are borrowed from the library, so we have to wait until they are available. We haven't rented a movie in nearly three years. The last time it was from Blockbuster or Hollywood Video. Today, as far as I know, neither company even exists any longer.

Julia, as everyone in the world knows by now, is Julia Child as channeled by Meryl Streep, who can do no wrong.

Julie is Julie Powell, which happens to be my mother-in-law's name. Both the movie Julie and the real life Julie created a blog in which she reported on cooking her way through Julia's famous book on French cooking, giving herself one year to cook all the recipes. In the movie, at least, she actually did it.

For once I actually liked a movie more than Roger Ebert, whose sometimes overgenerous reviews I always read, even if I read none other. Ebert's insightful eye did serve to deflate my initial impression, but while he rated the movie with two and a half stars by his system, for reasons he articulates well, and I am impelled to agree with, I nevertheless registered nine stars on IMDB. I don't go that high very often. And I did it because it was so much fun watching Meryl Streep caricature Julia Child and because I loved watching the two women cook with abandonment and enthusiasm, and maybe because I enjoyed watching a movie about two basically happy marriages where nothing bad happens to spoil the fun. (Well, Julie's husband gets fed up with her obsession for a day, but that's easily resolved.)

Perhaps I was just in a mood for a light, popular, romantic tale. I like the movies When Harry Met Sally and You've Got Mail and thought Julie & Julia has a similar sheen to it. Believe it or not, I did not realize until afterward that Nora Ephron wrote all three. Duh.. I guess you could say she's an author with a recognizable voice.

I am not a cook, but believe I could be good at it. Yet I don't want to get into cooking because I have some of the craziest eating habits on the planet, and am best off on a daily basis if I don't even think about food and stay as far away from it as possible, eating only when absolutely necessary. I can barely eat at all without gaining weight, despite the miles I put in on the road, and if I cooked, I'd give up running and working out so I could do nothing but eat. And that would be Bad. So I'm glad that other people know how to cook and share their skills with people like me. Meanwhile I was content to be a food voyeur.

Bright Star

2010-07-23T20:00:00.001-04:00

Image via Wikipedia

Last night we watched the movie Bright Star, about the (short) life of John Keats — or at least about last part of it.

Good movie. The dialog is captivating, particularly the snippy repartee between Keats' romantic interest Fanny Brawne and his friend Charles Brown. Fanny and Charles never do learn to get along, consistently despising one another in their mutual possessiveness of Keats.

The costuming is extraordinary. Fanny Brawne was said to be a gifted seamstress who designed and sewed all her own clothes, and at least in the movie, apparently also for her whole family. Some of their attire is edgy and almost bizarre. The movie was nominated for an Oscar and also by at least one other organization for its costuming.

The cinematography, too, is simply astonishing, with a presence bordering on 3-D to the imagery. At the top of Roger Ebert's review of this film is a picture of Fanny Brawne in a field of blue wildflowers, in a pose vaguely reminiscent of Andrew Wyeth's painting "Christina's World," but of an entirely different palette. In the film this scene took my breath away. Ebert makes special note of it in his review, describing it with the words: "There is a shot here of Fanny in a meadow of blue flowers that is so enthralling it beggars description."

The acting is OK, not Oscar caliber. The main character in this portrayal is Fanny Brawne (Kerry Fox, also the best performer), not Keats; the story focuses on their brief, hopeless, and unfulfilled romantic relationship. Keats had no money or steady income as a starving poet, so was never able to marry Fanny or anyone else. He died in Italy at age 25, apparently of tuberculosis, leaving such a formidable legacy of work, largely unrecognized at the time, that he is remembered today as one of the great Romantic poets. Naturally, a great number of Keats quotes creep into the dialog, in greater proportion as the movie progresses. The closing credits roll over Keats (Ben Whitshaw) reading an ode.

Bright Star, I suppose, will appeal primarily to women. The style of the era being what it is, some of the verbiage, including even the quotes of poetry fragments, may seem a bit syrupy to some persons. Romantic era aesthetics focus on experiences that touch the emotions deeply, in contrast to (and in reaction against) the methodical, refined detachment and intelligence of the Enlightenment that preceded it. Matters of deep emotions would certainly include the type of love between members of the opposite sex that we today also label "romantic." (I'm not sure if that term was used for it before the Romantic period in art, but the reality has been a part of our common experience since the beginning of human existence.)

I don't think this movie got a lot of publicity when it came out last year, and it's not the type of thing that is likely to be found on many people's summer viewing lists. Nonetheless, it is very much worth seeing by those who aren't afraid of a film designed to stir the heart.

Ultrarunning Hyperbole

2010-07-22T11:30:00.001-04:00

Certain tainted words occur repeatedly in journalism about ultrarunning, all of which cause noisy alarms to go off in my head whenever I see them. The four most frequent culprits are:

crazy
grueling
test[ing] limits
extreme

Rarely have I ever read an article about ultrarunning by a non-ultrarunner that does not use the word crazy to describe the distance or the mindset of the runner.

I've never read an article written by someone who doesn't do it himself that doesn't describe the 135-mile Badwater race through Death Valley to the Mount Whitney Portal, or a 100-mile mountain trail race, or for that matter a 24-hour race as grueling. It's as if grueling were an automatic part of the event label: "Next month I'm going to do a grueling 24-hour race, and the month after that, a grueling 100-mile race." They're all grueling, right? I don't know of a single such race that anyone would consider easy.

The knee-jerk response of many runners, when put on the spot with a question about why they runs ultras, having not prepared an answer beforehand, is, "To test my limits," or words to that effect. Sometimes it's, "To see what I'm made of." And guess what? The answer is always flesh, blood, and bone, just like the rest of us, and in the case of ultrarunners who like to talk about their sport, perhaps also a larger than usual internal bag of poo.

I can't remember when I've ever run any distance to test my limits. God help me if I ever reach them. Then what? Congratulate myself and die?

And to persons who customarily view a standard marathon as the "ultimate challenge" (which, when you see several thousand persons young and old of all levels of fitness lined up to start, you realize it's far from being), any distance longer than that must be extreme. (See my article Half Crazy.)

To me, the word extreme brings to mind the world of X Games, the domain of testoserone-fueled backward-hatted, muscle-shirted, tattooed and pierced, foolhardy risk-takers who live on the edge of life and society (and a few of their female counterparts). I've always maintained that ultrarunning in general, as tough as it is to do well, is not an extreme sport in that sense of the word. That category of activity, in my view, must include elements of great danger over which people have little control — like jumping out of airplanes and bungee jumping. Also, I don't care much to watch rock climbers without ropes for the same reason. It's just stupid to risk one's life that way.

Which is not to say that there are not certain events in ultrarunning that could be classified as such. The Barkley, which hardly anyone ever finishes, is pretty weird, but at least no one has died doing it yet. So is the Marathon du Sables across the Sahara Desert. Some people think of the Pike's Peak Marathon as extreme, but I would call that an unusually tough marathon with one big hill, not an extreme event. One day I ran into an old man running down the street wearing a Pike's Peak Marathon t-shirt. We stopped and talked. He was in his mid-seventies, had run the race eight times, and was planning on continuing to do so as long as he was able. Didn't strike me as an extremist. He did it because he could and knew how, not to tempt death, which at his age was likely not far away no matter what.

So the next time you hear about some crazy extreme runner finishing a grueling 100-mile race in orer to test his limits, don't believe it.

My Grandma

2010-07-19T17:32:00.003-04:00

My Grandma Newton

had no automobile;
had no television;
had no radio;
had no telephone;
had an ice box instead of a refrigerator until 1952;
had no modern record player;
didn't own a book except a Bible;
didn't think much of music except hymns;
didn't approve of my father's choice of profession;
didn't approve of dancing;
didn't approve of alcohol;
didn't approve of card playing;
would play Dominoes with me by the hour;
never left the house, even to go to church, most of her adult life;
basically had no life at all;
but was probably well-suited for playing Farmville.

It was not until recently that it ever occurred to me that there was anything unusual about her.

Why Boys Fail -- Richard Whitmire

2010-05-28T09:42:00.002-04:00

Cover via Amazon

Last week I stumbled across a newly published book displayed on a book stand next to a terminal in the Bexley library: Why Boys Fail, by education reporter Richard Whitmire. Intrigued, I snatched it up and read it in two days.

The book's main thesis is:

The world is becoming more verbal. Boys are not.

That's a direct quote, stated twice: once several chapters in, as a conclusion driven to by the evidence presented, and again in summarizing paragraphs.

The problem boils down to one of a lack of basic literacy, which is increasingly lacking in boys. This reality is obvious to me as I read drivel posted to various lists to which I subscribe, and even moreso on Facebook, Twitter and telephone text messages. To paraphrase a friend: Anyone whose thoughts are limited to a 140-character event horizon doesn't have much to say.

Recently, a young friend sent me email to which I was obliged to respond, "So what's with the gansta talk?" His reply, with numerous errors edited out here, said: "It's just the way I type things out on the computer. I guess it comes from too much texting back forth to people who talk like that as well."

This is not to say that one needs to deliver essays when a short sentence or two will do. But whatever is written should at least be reasonably correct. Occasional typos and blunders in informal writing happen with everyone, and are forgivable, but when every single sentence is laden with several misspellings, along with punctuation and grammatical errors, it suggests something is fundamentally lacking on the part of the communicator; it also suggests that he may not even care. Unfortunately, the ironic tragedy of ignorance is that ignorant people don't know they are ignorant, so can't detect the problem so as to fix it.

Whitmire presents abundant data to demonstrate that in the world of formal education (meaning in schools) and in those arenas of life that follow and surround the receiving of such education, there is a rapidly increasing gender gap.

Today 60% of college students are women. With the layoffs that came as a result of the economic collapse of 2008 and 2009, the workforce in the United States is now over half female. Whitmire doesn't make the point directly, but it seems the days when Dad went to work and Mom stayed home with the kids are behind us.

In Montreal 71% of medical students, 63% of law students, 80% of optometry students, 64% of dentistry students, 56% of management students, and 70% of architecture students are women. The situation is similar elsewhere, indicating a shift to a female based economy in professions and services. While this is in some ways wonderful for women, it suggests that something has been happening for a long time with boys coming up through school age. The numbers are indisputable.

Whitmire presents and debunks the commonest knee-jerk explanations, among them:

It's those @#$! video games! World of Warcraft and Grand Theft Auto are keeping boys away from more productive activity.
Girls mature faster than boys.
It's because of the feminist movement; those women are taking over!
Boys will be boys. They love to play, goof off, and delay growing up.
If there's really a problem, it's happening only among the poor segments of society or among certain ethnic populations.

All baloney as explanations of the waning literacy of young males.

Furthermore, the problem is happening throughout the world. In Australia, also in one or two other countries, authorities have already recognized the problem and have begun to confront it.

The last part of Why Boys Fail is devoted to a number of proposed reactions, which is what I prefer to call them rather than solutions, because none have been tried sufficiently to know they will work.

It's not my intent here to present the arguments, the evidence, or the proposals. The problem is real. The reasons and solutions are not as obvious. Instead, I'd like to relate my personal experience.

When I was four years old, my mother, the oldest of eight Depression era farm kids, and the only one of her family to be sent to and complete college, obtaining a teaching degree, taught me, the oldest child in the family, how to read from the Dick and Jane series of reading primers. So in those pre-Sesame Street days I became an enthusiastic early reader, already fluently so, and even a hunt-and-peck typist, a fledgling writer, by the time I started kindergarten. My parents also introduced me to the library when I was very young, which I found to be an exciting place. In addition, we were the last family in our area to acquire a television, so that during the summers before we got one, I spent many days reading one book after another.

On page seventeen of the Why Boys Fail I encountered a subheading that caught my eye: "The Wilmette Discovery."

Glenn "Max" McGee was serving as state superintendent of schools of Illinois when he noticed that interest in reading on the part of his own two sons showed a significant decline when they were in fifth and sixth grades, something he found hard to comprehend. Here I quote:

In 2002 McGee became superintendent of the K-8 Wilmette schools along Chicago's high-income North Shore, right on the doorstep of Northwestern University. These schools feed into the famed New Trier High School, which rests high on any top ten list of America's best high schools. McGee sat down to map out a way to accomplish what he describes as making the great schools there even greater. Based on his own family experience, McGee had a hunch: Let's look at boosting boys' performance. To the Wilmette educators, this was a radical approach. Who thought the boys had any problems?

So they got to work. It continues, "In Wilmette, ... one of the wealthiest and most education-focused school districts in the United States, these inquiries are taken very seriously." They issued a 107-page report to demonstrate that McGee's hunch about the boys being in trouble was well founded.

Parents there appeared shocked by the report. Nobody thought this could happen in Wilmette. "We have very high-achieving parents ... who serve as strong role models."

"In Wilmette, nearly everyone eventually goes to college, even the slacker boys."

Quite true. The reason this interests me is that I went through the Wilmette public schools and New Trier High School myself. New Trier was then and still is today a large and high quality public high school. My graduating class was over 960 people. We were told that 96% of us were headed off to college. No other future was ever discussed or even hinted at for anybody while I was growing up. The few who did not go were largely the troublemakers and the kids in the slow track courses, but I didn't know many of them.

Our family was not rich; we were barely middle class economically speaking, as my father worked very hard to be the sole breadwinner in the family, making enough money as a classical musician to support a wife and four sons in such a place. The payoff for us boys was an enriched cultural experience that has influenced my viewpoint on education and life in general to this day.

To me education has always been only tangentially related to the formal part of it -- attending schools, getting degrees and accreditations, pursuing the so-called American dream of having a family and a house in the suburbs with all the accouterments that go with that style of living. Frankly, when I was in school, I gave almost no thought to those matters, so little that it has caused me difficulties at various times that continue to this very day, as there are many practical subjects, even at my age -- past the ordinary age of retirement -- about which my understanding is deficient.

Education to me has always been about growing as a person by drinking in knowledge and experience by whatever means I can get it, and synthesizing that in such a way that my perspective on life deepens. And thus, at least for me, it continues to be, as I attempt by whatever means I can to learn more every single day of my life.

Sadly, it appears that this is not going to happen with many young males today.

Persons interested in knowing more about this topic may be
interested in reading Richard Whitmire's blog.

Bone -- Jeff Smith

2010-05-22T08:58:00.001-04:00

Cover of Crown of Horns (Bone, Vol. 9)

Exactly one year ago today Suzy and I attended the world premiere of a documentary about comic book artist Jeff Smith, who is from Columbus area, and a graduate of The Ohio Statue University. Smith is famous in the world of comic book art as the creator of Bone, an epic graphic novel. The work has been translated into about fifteen languages, has sold over a million copies, and has been given two or three dozen different awards. I wouldn't have guessed there are that many awards for comic books.

Though I have long loved good cartooning, as one who has had no interest whatever in comic books since my childhood days of Superman, Batman, and the Disney characters—particularly Scrooge McDuck—Smith and his work was utterly unfamiliar to me. When I saw the documentary, for which Jeff Smith was personally present, and the long line of people, including many adults, who were present to meet him and have him autograph their personal copies of Bone, I knew I had to put it on my reading list.

Bone is published in nine volumes, which I obtained recently from the Columbus Metropolitan Library. I spent about a day per volume reading the nine volumes, a total of 1375 pages, adding up the numbered pages, and finished it two or three days ago.

Anyone prejudiced against comic books might think that the term "graphic novel" to be pretentious, but Bone deserves the designation because it tells a continuous and well-crafted story.

The original comics were drawn and published in black and white, and then combined under one cover, which I have seen. Smith thought he was finished, until a friend told him that he really must republish the series with color added.

What I received from the library in three different trips was all nine volumes, but a total of eleven books. One volume they sent me both the color and the black and white versions, and another they sent me two identical color volumes. Two volumes arrived only in black and white. They are all still sitting on my desk behind me, waiting to be returned. Suzy is in the middle of the last volume herself, so I'm waiting for her to finish.

Smith's friend was right: the added color is brilliantly done, so much so that I can't imagine the book without it. Nonetheless, Smith had become a superstar in the world of comics well before the series was completed in black and white.

The story is readable by young readers, but includes much detail it to keep adults entertained. The main characters are the three Bone cousins: Fone Bone, the cheerful nice guy; Phoney Bone, who is driven relentlessly by sheer greed that drives him to perpetrate crazy schemes, but remains strangely likeable nonetheless; and Smiley Bone, about whom Fone Bone says, "He doesn't have a brain," though he proves to have a heart and many likeable qualities. Smiley Bone is definitely the Ringo of the group, as the trio would be incomplete without him.

The three are white like Casper the Ghost. Fone Bone is generally seen without clothing but carries a knapsack; Phoney Bone wears a t-shirt with a star on the chest; and Smiley Bone wears a vest and usually can materialize a cigar, which is never smoked or even commented on.

The other characters include a human girl named Thorn, drawn to appear drop dead gorgeous but not at all sexually provocative, appearing to be between sixteen and years old. Her grandmother Gran'ma Ben, who squints, wears a white apron, and has a mouth that both smiles and scowls simultaneously. Gran'ma Ben is as vigorous as Yiannis Kouros, runs many miles a day, races cows, proves to be a dynamic leader, and an invincible warrior. Thorn does not know it at the start, but Gran'ma Ben was a queen. Thorn's parents, a king and queen, were killed in a war while fleeing from their city of Atheia, which makes Thorn a princess, and one who has special as yet undiscovered powers. At the beginning Gran'ma Ben and Thorn are living together in a tiny cabin in the woods.

There is a supporting cast of hilarious characters: a friendly dragon with floppy ears, a bug of unnamed type named Ted, drawn as a tiny green triangle with four little black legs sticking out of it, packs of rabid monsters called rat creatures who try to kill and eat whatever they can find, two in particular who remind me of Laurel and Hardy, love quiche, and are always bickering with one another, an inn and tavern full of humans men, and gigantic mountain lion named Roque Ja—the "r"should be rolled, but the Bone cousins call him Rock Jaw, evil hooded personages, and a host of others. Numerous new people are introduced in later volumes, some only briefly.

Fone Bone, the main character, the nicest guy, who becomes enamoured of Thorn, carries a backpack, with apparently nothing in it except a copy of his favorite book, Moby Dick, about which he can soliloquize at great length, causing everyone to fall into instant slumber. This becomes one of the running jokes for adults. In one episode Fone Bone and Smiley Bone are a hair's breadth from being devoured by a pack of slavering, screeching rat creatures, when Smiley dives for Fone Bone's back pack and begins reading: Call me Ishmael! whereupon the pack of rat monsters is rendered catatonic, frozen in sleep out of instantaneous boredom.

Later on Smiley finds a cub rat monster and cares for it, and it becomes friendly. He names it Bartleby, another nod to Herman Melville.

The story line eventually gets quite involved in intricate plot details in the manner of much fantasy fiction, a genre of which I am not generally a fan. I could care less about a tale of the struggle between mythical forces of good and evil. But story this is so well told with sufficient humorous twists that I couldn't put it down for the humor, in addition to which it is brilliantly drawn.

Some main characters do die during the course of the story, so it's not all a barrel of laughs.

There is a bit of pseudo Biblical allegory in the plot, though it's obviously not intended to mimic the Bible too closely. There are great dragons (good guys) and Mim, the greatest dragon (very bad), and a Time of the End (or the End Times). Thorn is a vaguely messianic figure, who gradually learns her role in life, is abused and suffers for a while as she attempts to seek the Crown of Horns, which sounds much like a Crown of Thorns, and particularly so given her name is Thorn; thus when she accomplishes it, it becomes a sort of "Crown of Thorn's" as it were. Except the crown is not a crown at all, but a stone wall deep under the earth, and it is not to be worn, but touched. Furthermore, Thorn is trapped in a dead bad monster's jaws with a giant tooth through her thigh and cannot reach it, but she can touch Fone Bone, who can in turn reach the wall, upon which Good Things happen.

But more remains to be wrapped up after that, as there is an apocalyptic ending, where the floppy eared good dragon appears, calls up a horde of thousands of fellow dragons deep out of the earth who rise up, surround the giant bad dragon Mim, and carry it down into a massive pit within the earth that closes behind them, which is the end of this particular war of good versus evil.

Did you get all that? Were you taking notes? I don't think I gave too much away that matters.

The ending, which takes a couple more chapters to spin out, is of course happy, and surprisingly mild, as the three Bone cousins get on a wagon and head back to Boneville, from which they were driven because of one of Phoney Bone's crazy misguided plots a year before, as Phoney is foiled in his attempt to pull yet another dishonest stunt even upon their exit.

Bone is entertaining, well crafted, and very much worth reading by young and old alike; but don't get started unless you're okay with plowing through 1375 pages of comic book.

House -- Tracy Kidder

2010-05-21T07:47:00.005-04:00

Cover of House

This morning I finished reading "House," by literary non-fiction author Tracy Kidder, still most famous for his Pulitzer Prize winning book "The Soul of a New Machine," written a couple of years before "House".

The book was published in 1985. I bought it around the time it was on the shelves in bookstores as a new publication, except I got it through membership in the Paperback Book Club. It was an impulse purchase, acquired not out of deep interest in the subject matter, but because I admired the earlier book, and I enjoy the literary non-fiction genre. With fiction a reader might get an exciting story and beautiful language, but with literary non-fiction he gets all that, if the author is good, plus he might also learn something practical or interesting.

When "House" arrived, I put it on my shelf, intending to read it, but never cracked the cover until a few days ago. The pages of the book already have a weathered look, and the binding let go of several signatures early on. It was a twenty-five year old virgin book.

"House" is about the building of a new twelve-room house for the Jonathan and Judith Souweine family in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1983. The Souweines were an energetic and intelligent Jewish couple. I say "were" because as I learned from querying the Internet about the book's principals, Jonathan Souweine died on April 9, 2009, at age sixty-one. The couple had been sweethearts since high school. "We've always been married," as Jonathan said during construction of their house. He was a successful lawyer and one time politician who ran for district attorney, but lost, so left politics. Judith is still living (in the same house as far as I know), is a brilliant woman with a PhD in psychology, has done extensive work in education, and has pursued many useful avenues of service to humanity. She is still highly active in many projects.

The story of the building of this house is told much like a novel. The main characters are not, as a reader might presuppose, the Souweines, nor even the architect Bill Rawn, but the construction crew. The tale is told largely from their hands-on perspective, since they were the ones who actually did the work of building it. Their company, Apple Corps was a cooperative consisting of four extremely gifted and dedicated carpenters—Jim Lowe (the boss and greater among equals), himself a literature reading son of a successful lawyer, Richard the workaholic, Ned the master craftsman, and Alex the philosopher who went to Dartmouth and is as equally well-read as Jim. Collectively they embrace far more culture, taste, humor, and even formal education than one might typically expect to find in a construction crew. They are as different from one another as can be, yet get along together splendidly, brothers sharing a common view about the need to do a job the right way, taking time to fix and redo details no one else would ever see, until they met their own exacting standards, usually at their own expense. As a result, their company, Apple Corps, made only $3,000 profit over and above the cost of materials and labor, which they dole out to themselves at the equal rate of $14 per hour—all against the approximately $150,000 total cost of the house, a great deal in 1983 money. The men were disappointed with the bottom line, but absolutely no one disagreed—builders, clients, the architect, the neighbors, and critics who come to look—that above all the house had been magnificently built. The work took five and a half months to accomplish.

An epilogue notes that the company went on to hire two or three younger, talented carpenters, and soon had more work than they could handle from clients who appreciated their work and were willing to pay for it. I don't know how long the company survived, but would be surprised if any form of it is still in operation today.

I have no idea where any of these men are today or what they are doing. I think they were all young enough to still be in the work force today. A quick search indicates that Jim Locke wrote a book in 1988 called "The Apple Corps Guide to the Well-Built House". I don't know anything about the rest.

By 1985, in time to mention it at the end of the book, the house received award from an association of architects in Boston, where William Rawn Associates is headquartered, for being a "house of distinction." Rawn came from a wealthy banking family, eschewed the family fortune, but was a scary good student. He went first to Yale, then Harvard Law, and after practicing law for only two years, became an artist, to his family's dismay, selling his drawings at high class galleries, and earning enough to send himself—without family money—to architecture school at MIT. Although he was already forty years old, the Souweine house was his very first project as a professional architect, designed when William Rawn "Associates" consisted only of himself. Today it is one of the most distinguished of architectural firms. The company's projects have included much in the way of prominent public spaces, especially theaters and university projects, e.g., the Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, an amazing building from what I see of it. There's also an outdoor theater at Lincoln Center built by the company.

There is an excellent and beautiful collection of company's many impressive projects on the company's Web site at http://rawnarch.com. I highly recommend a visit.

Regrettably, an hour's searching proved futile in coming up with any image whatsoever of the Souweine house. I can't even ascertain an address in hopes of getting a look using Google Maps Street View. Because the house was featured in Kidder's book, it may have been the Souweines' desire to low profile their exposure, despite being high profile activists themselves, though at the time it was built resources such as the Web did not exist, and few people, even wealthy ones, had computers. I'd love to see pictures of this house.

After the initial design, Bill Rawn, a long time personal friend of he Souweines, became a supporting cast member, dropping in once and a while to see how things are going, and serving as a catalyst to demonstrate how in the world of building construction, there is always at least minor friction between architects and builders.

Builders are like software engineers. Regardless of what clients demand and marketeers promise, what the customers actually get in the end is whatever the engineers give them. They can either like it or sue.

Accordingly, the tension and release of the story flow in "House" has to little to do with the details of house construction, about which a novice can nonetheless learn much, but is about the individual personalities in the drama, and the dynamics between them. Aesthetic principles aside, a lot of money was involved, also a building schedule that started in late April 1983 and lasted until the following mid-October; each person had his own interests and priorities in a project where much was at stake for all concerned. On many occasions there were heated words, particularly between Jim Locke and Jonathan Souweine, but in the end the clients loved their house, and agreed it was superbly designed and built. Despite some differences, everyone parted best of friends in the end.

Tracy Kidder has a wonderful ability to play the role of fly on the wall. The extensive detail he presents as direct quotes implies that he was personally on site for much of the building, and also for business meetings, and in the individual homes of the four contractors. Yet he never once mentions himself or even hints at his presence. The reader is led to conclude that he must have been there, unless he just made stuff up. But the dialog recorded has a strong ring of truth to it. When Kidder reports that Jim's face turns red and he worries he may have overstepped his bounds with a snide comment, but that Jonathan comes back with a retort that indicates he took it well, was that fabricated? It is reported as being the way things really happened, and I am led to believe that it was. A silent observer had to be there to record it.

I could say much more about "House" but won't. It was a thoroughly enjoyable read, and I recommend it.

Subtle Is the Lord -- A Reflection

2010-01-11T09:27:00.001-05:00

Cover via Amazon

Albert Einstein is such an iconic personage that Time magazine named him Person of the Century in 2000. Despite this, few people can explain what it was this singularly independent, rumpled man did to earn the world's approbation.

Countless biographies have been written about Albert Einstein. From among them I chose to read Abraham Pais's Subtle Is the Lord, touted as the "best" of the scientific biographies, meaning that after a short introduction it plunges headlong into the physics and math that are the substance and language of Einstein's lifework. Subtle Is the Lord was published in 1982, twenty-seven years after Einstein's death. Pais died in 2000.

Abraham Pais was himself a physicist and science historian, a colleague of Albert Einstein at Princeton's Institute of Advanced Study. Throughout Einstein's life, although all his scientific papers are wholly his own, he worked with numerous assistants and collaborators, because it is standard practice in the world of scientific research for scientists to bounce ideas off one another. Evidence of this practice can be seen in the number of years that Nobel Prizes have been awarded to multiple recipients in a single category for work done in tandem. Pais never collaborated himself with Einstein on any specific project, but was nonetheless a friend who had many conversations with him, usually about physics.

As a reader, it would seem pointless to expend one's life's currency learning about the lives of famous men without attempting to understand the basis of what it was that made them special. For instance, were someone to publish a biography of NFL quarterback Brett Favre that glossed over the admiration-inspiring accounts of how many games he started in succession, the championships he helped to win, his Super Bowl appearances, the records he set, the dramatic finishes he spearheaded, and why he won the Most Valuable Player award three times consecutively, favoring instead the backstory regarding Favre's childhood and family, his schooling, how much money he has made, and what he likes to do in his spare time, such a volume would be panned by critics as weak and inconsequential.

For that reason, a difficult task presents itself to writers who hope to present a comprehensive portrait of Albert Einstein the man, but who wish to skirt over the science because it makes for tough sledding. To do so is liable to result in a superficial exercise in hero worship. The problem is that Einstein's work is difficult to understand and difficult to explain.

"Albert Einstein was a great man!"

"How great was he?"

"Very great!"

"Oooh. But what made him so great?"

"He was a scientist!"

"Whoa! Ummm. That still doesn't answer my question. Why is he so highly regarded?"

"Because the whole Worldwide Community of Smartest Guys Anywhere (WC of SGA) got together and canonized him in 1919."

"Ah. Well then, that's good enough for me."

Many people admire scientists merely for being scientists, and idolize famous people just for being famous. Einstein was both.

In 1919, British astrophysicist Arthur Eddington captured photographic images and data from a solar eclipse, verifying that light bends and that space is warped. Shortly afterward, the WC of SGA announced to the world that Einstein had devised a theory about how the universe works that overturned the explanations of some of the most revered scientists they had heard about and believed for centuries—Copernicus and Newton—and that what Einstein said would change everything about physics—but not to worry, because for the time being the universe is still safe.

At that time—which happened to coincide with the end of World War I— a newspaper reported that there were only twelve men in the world who understood general relativity. Nobody ventured to identify precisely which twelve. Another anecdote reports the number as being three. Someone asked Eddington if it was true that only three people understood relativity at that time, to which he quipped that he could not think who the third person might be.

Regardless of the precise numerical truth of the claim, at the time even few experienced physicists could read Einstein's papers with full comprehension. While the concepts can be explained with illustrations both verbal and pictorial, and evidence of their truthfulness can be collected experimentally, the core of general relativity is pure math of a high order, which at first was all the WC of SGA had to evaluate it by.

The world reacted by saying, "Oooo yeah!" making Einstein, who was already quite famous, an instant world celebrity, a status he retained for the rest of his life. Later everybody bought Einstein tee shirts and pictures, because Einstein was allegedly smart and undeniably funny looking, and later still Time magazine anointed him Man of the Century, but today most people still can't explain general relativity, or any of the other work that Einstein did.

Personally, I dwell among the unwashed multitudes who lack sufficient physics and math training to absorb most of the hard stuff. (But I'm working on that.) Biographies and summaries have been written that include explanations for non-technical readers, but Subtle Is the Lord is not one of them. Fortunately, Pais provided a roadmap in the form of italicized section headers in the table of contents. A reader navigating only those sections and skipping the rest can read a purely biographical account of Einstein's life. That's the good news. The bad news is that to do so results in reading only about a quarter of the book and missing much of importance, and getting mainly the sort of material that can be obtained from a reliable encyclopedia.

I do not recommend that readers of any level of expertise eliminate the scientific material entirely. At 552 pages, well over half the book consists of equation laden writing that might appear intimidating to many. My method was to plow through this text as well, as quickly as I could, ignoring only the parts that were quite obviously out of my reach, mainly the mathematics, and dwelling on the commentary.

There is a great advantage to this tactic. The text connecting many technical points is imbued with history, consisting of Pais's explanations of how Einstein progressed from one point to the next, refining or rejecting earlier ideas, including his reasons for doing so, and commenting on exchanges Einstein had with collaborators, thereby presenting a fascinating portrait of the process and hard work that accompanies scientific research and discovery.

Contrary to notions that are likely popularly believed, most scientists, even Einstein, do not experience Archimedean Eureka! moments where great universal truths suddenly loom up fully formed as though by divine revelation. Einstein's theory of general relativity was the product of a decade of follow-up work from a paper published in 1905, a period that included much work on other topics as well. Of particular interest is the concluding work that Einstein did during November 1915, as he zigged and zagged toward the completion of his theory.

Thereafter, what remained to be done was to gather empirical evidence that the theory was true. It seemed quite certain, at least to Einstein, also to many scientists, although its ideas were contrary to intuition and previous understanding. Because of the War, politics, and bad weather, it took another four years to gather the solar eclipse data that made all the SGAs jump and shout.

It is obvious that Abraham Pais is more of a scientist than he is a writer, and not merely because of the depth of scientific coverage that he presents.

Dr. Pais frequently injects himself into the story, even in parts where he was not directly involved, for instance, in comments following the model: "Einstein said such and such, but later physicists produced evidence to the contrary, and I believe it's not true because of so and so."

Given the author's two-pronged attempt to provide both scientific and purely biographical accounts, the book's organization seems chaotic, and sometimes the seams show. Pais says things like, "Previously I explained blabbety blab, and will now skip ahead to blah blah blah and will return later to doodly doodly." A more literary minded writer would not provide as much explanation—or in this case perhaps I should say apologia—regarding his method of writing, but such is not surprising coming from a scientist whose custom is to follow the timeless IMRAD standard format for scientific paper writing: which requires presenting basic sections subtitled Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion that expose every fact possible for the analysis of peers, holding no cards under the table. The net result is a book that is undoubtedly authentic, but not literary.

The widely held myth that Einstein did not like and was not good at math in school comes from the same school as the tale that George Washington chopped down a cherry tree and then fessed up to his father. Einstein was not a runaway prodigy, but despite disliking rote learning and certain teaching methods he encountered as a student, he always did very, very well in both math and science. He taught himself calculus between ages twelve and fifteen, a subject rarely taught to persons that young.

Einstein's elevated vision made him a non-conformist—some say a rebel. He was a non-joiner, unable to subscribe to any prescribed philosophy or regimen in toto. As a boy, he was shocked upon seeing a military parade, with its row after row of seemingly lobotomized robot soldiers, purged of individuality, goose-stepping by in demonstration of their ardent loyalty to they knew not what. Revulsed, his immediate reaction, at age fifteen, was to leave his family behind and move to Switzerland, eventually renouncing his German citizenship and becoming a permanent citizen of Switzerland so he would never be forced to join the military. Einstein became an outspoken pacifist.

With regard to religion, Einstein retained his identity as a Jew his whole life, and was even offered the presidency of the newly formed nation of Israel when its first president Chaim Weizmann died, an offer he turned down with some embarrassment. Einstein had been a zealous observer of Judaism very briefly as a young boy, then backed off and became non-observing. While Einstein's final views are a matter of dispute, Einstein himself maintained that he was not an atheist, but in later life declared that he did not believe in a personal God. It appears that he was just confused, or likely undecided, as he was also about many questions scientific questions to which he pursued answers; and being, as Pais described him, "The freest man I ever knew," he was unable to swallow and digest any precooked package of fast-food doctrinal religious pap, including that of atheism, rejecting all such as mindless solutions for persons who prefer not to think things through.

A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.—The source I collected this quote from called it Matz's Law, which happens to be ironic to me for personal reasons, but I do not know the ultimate origin.

It must be difficult to write about the life of a man who earned his reputation from spending the most productive hours of his life sitting and staring into space, blinking and breathing and writing an occasional note. He didn't live in big houses, didn't drive fancy cars (in fact, I believe he didn't drive at all), didn't wear expensive suits, and didn't party. He was not a warrior, not an adventurer, and not a sportsman. He loved music, played the violin and a bit of piano, and advocated living a simple life.

The most physical activity Einstein ever engaged in was going for long walks, when he came up with some of his best ideas. Much that I have learned has been on long walks, too. Regrettably, much that I have since forgotten has also been that which I learned on long walks. Sometimes I take a notebook, but using it requires that I interrupt my run, or at least walk more slowly. I wonder if Einstein carried a notebook on his walks?

In most other respects Einstein led an ordinary life. His celebrity status made him in demand, so he graciously spent some time traveling, making appearances, and lecturing, and he got involved in various causes outside of science, but he did not seek the publicity.

When he died Einstein was still working on a unified field theory, a "theory of everything," as he called it, and wasn't making much progress. Today, fifty-five years later, they still aren't making much progress on that one. As I understand it, there may be no reason to presume that a correct explanation of how the universe works needs to be boiled down to a single theory, but work on a unified theory has nonetheless resulted in other valuable research in physics.

One thing is certain, one that scientists themselves know best of anyone, is that theories are not facts, nor are they intended to be regarded as such. A theory is not necessarily all right or all wrong. A theory merely proposes a framework of explanation regarding observations of events that have been seen to happen. Some phenomena are known and understood better than others, and the explanations for them have moved from the realm of theory to that of principle or law. In the field of science, particularly in atomic and cosmological physics, much has been observed that has been explained by various theories that are difficult or impossible to test for correctness. For instance, the Big Bang theory is one utterly untestable explanation that has been proposed regarding the origins of the physical universe, a description that relies on Einstein's theory of general relativity, and one that is compatible with the belief that a Designer and Creator started it all rolling. Exactly how He may have done it is beside the point; exploring questions regarding such matters will no doubt keep mankind occupied for as long as he continues to occupy this planet.

Even time indefinite he has put in their heart, that mankind may never find out the work that the true God has made from the start to the finish.—Ecclesiastes 3:11

If anyone thinks he has acquired knowledge of something, he does not yet know [it] just as he ought to know it.—1 Corinthians 8:2

Which reminds me—I think I need to learn more about this guy.

My Buddy Mozart

2009-12-25T20:45:00.013-05:00

A friend approached me one evening, an older (but not ancient) woman, wanting to know if she correctly understood what she had heard—that I had at one time been a professional photographer in New York City.

Having no idea where she might have acquired such misinformation, I assured her that like most persons who own a digital camera I'm an enthusiastic taker of snapshots, but among the thousands, aside from a few cases when the subject, lighting, and the spasm of my trigger finger coincided serendipitously, there are no masterpieces among them; that my ignorance of the technicalities of photography approaches the profound; and that no one has ever paid me a nickel for taking a photograph, nor have I ever attempted or hoped to receive compensation for doing so. In short: No, I am not now, and never was a professional photographer in any sense of the word.

To keep the conversation rolling, and because I intuited to some degree what she may have heard inklings about, I added that my artistic career was limited to curtailed attempts to compose music, during part of which efforts I did indeed live in New York, but that was a very long time ago—the late sixties and early seventies. I added that it was not utter failure to be any good at it that brought that phase of my life to an end, but the need to remove myself from an unhealthy and destructive environment. Most people of my age and older are well aware or can imagine that the popular music scene in New York City in the sixties was eminently life threatening—physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually—to anyone who got caught up in the thinking and conduct of that mad era. Having no reasonable alternative that would allow me to stay in the business, I simply got out.

The friend, who seemingly understood what I said, then added the question: "Was Mozart around there at that time, too?"

Mozart? Working in New York in the sixties? She thought perhaps I might have known him? Briefly words failed me. Finally, I was able to choke out the reply: "No, my dear. Mozart died in 1791. He was a contemporary of George Washington and the other Founding Fathers of the United States. That was two hundred years before my time. I'm a contemporary of Bob Dylan, not Mozart." "Oh!" she replied, apparently unfazed by the time gaffe, probably unfamiliar with the name Bob Dylan, but disappointed to realize that I had not rubbed shoulders with the particular celebrity I had named.

I love this dear lady, who was only trying to be friendly, and attribute her parochial naïvety to a deliberately self-inflicted withdrawal from contact with worldly society to a degree and for reasons that seem appropriate to her. Still, I have to wonder how one's Weltanschauung can become so discombobulated that a person's recognition of essential historical figures is skewed by centuries. The episode constitutes yet another demonstration of how easily a fundamentally ignorant person, by a simple misstatement can lead others to think, "If you don't know that, what do you know?"

Lemme see ... did the apostle Paul ever appear before Bill Clinton? Maybe I'll check that out on Wikipedia.

Festivus 50K 2009

2009-12-14T00:07:00.003-05:00

On Saturday, December 12, I ran the Festivus 50K for the second time. The race is an out and back, mostly on the Olentangy River bike path, starting at its northern extremity in Worthington, Ohio, through the streets of downtown Columbus, where there's currently a lot of construction and opportunities for persons unfamiliar with the course to get lost, and back onto the bike path for a little piece before reaching the turnaround. The part from north of The Ohio Statue University is the best part of the course. South of OSU—yuck.

Near the end of the North Coast 24-hour race in Cleveland last October I resolved that I would not enter another ultramarathon until I lose twenty-five pounds. Festivus was the exception I had in mind all along because: it's free, a no fee no tee event where you provide your own support and record and email your finishing time to the race director if you care to have it listed; it's run on the bike path where I train three Saturdays out of four; in contrast to the previous two Sunday races, it was even scheduled for a Saturday, my usual long run day; I try to do a marathon or longer long run or walk once a month, and needed one for December. With January and February staring me in the face, I don't know if the weather will permit me to get one in either month. So I did the race.

Last year I finished in last place by a whopping margin of three hours and seven minutes, partly because I walked the whole thing, as my last training run for Across the Years, where I walked for three days, and partly because I missed the turnaround point (the marker had been removed), so walked an extra mile or so. Otherwise I would have saved an hour to an hour and a half and been last by only an hour and a half.

Before every race I go through a period of thinking: "I don't really have to do this. It's gonna be long. It's gonna be hard. I don't have anything to prove to myself or anyone else. No one is forcing me to do this."

The feeling is strongest when I get out of bed on race morning and check the weather. It's early. It's dark. I'm not a morning runner, though I've always been cranked and ready to go by the start of any race I've ever been in. There's too much to think about, going umpteen times over my checklist. I hate taping and Bag Balming my feet, but know I'll regret it if I compromise on any part of my proven routine. It'll be cold out there. I'll be alone all day long—but that's never stopped me from doing a training run.

Happily, I've never DNSed any race. If I say I'll be there, I will be. By the time I was dressed and ready to leave, I was anxious to get started.

I left the house at 7:45 to make the start time, set for 8:30. True to the forecast, there was nary a cloud in the sky, nor would there be all day long. The prediction was for a high of 35, which is warmer than it had been earlier in the week, and turned out to be an underestimate. More good news. I can handle that temperature.

I turned on the car radio, tuned permanently to WOSU, the NPR station at The Ohio State University, which broadcasts mostly classical music when it's not airing the usual NPR news and information programs. Some music perfect for the day was on—a baroque trumpet concerto, the sound as sweet and bright as peppermint. Just as I was starting to get into it the sound cut off. Oops, I forgot—the radio in my 1994 Mercury Grand Marquis will play for two minutes or less, then cut off for the rest of the day. I don't know why, though it seems to be temperature related. The only likely solution is to replace the radio, which I'm unwilling to do, even though there are several years of life left on the car.

Whoop! Suddenly the radio came back on, which usually doesn't happen. By this time some other cheerful noise was playing. Being in a jovial mood, I began to whistle along. Oops, I forgot—the blower fan for the heater in my car doesn't work, so when I whistled, I suddenly found myself fogging the windows with whistle steam. Dang! While trying to wipe off the windows with a rag so I could see, the radio cut out again. A guy can't even manifest being in a good mood these days.

I arrived twenty minutes early and saw a dozen or so runners standing where the start would be. Aha! I thought—a crowd of early arrivers. Looks like there'll be a pretty good number. I fumbled with my gear and my camera inside the car before getting out, realized upon stepping out of the car that I'd need to take off my gloves to work the camera, said nuts with that, tossed the camera in the trunk, turned around, and all the runners were gone. They turned out to be some running club assembling for their Saturday morning workout. I looked around and didn't see anyone at first who might be doing Festivus. I did have the right date, time, and place, right? I did. Within a minute or two runners started crawling out of their cars, mingling and making preparations.

There were reportedly forty to forty-five runners at the start. Some said they wouldn't be going the whole distance. After two years of living here, I still don't know many runners in Columbus, but I did get to talk to a few people, including familiar ones.

Festivus is informal to the max. Race Director Dan Distelhorst hoped everyone looked at the route on the Web site, or at least just knew what it was, since he wasn't planning on describing it. One woman, possibly from a team of four people who drove in from Cincinatti and finished together, asked: If you've never seen the course is it possible to get fouled up? I was too quick to speak up and said it couldn't be easier. I hope she didn't get lost, because there are in fact some tricks it would help to know about, particularly getting through all the construction downtown, and also a couple of places on the bike path itself that could be confusing.

True to the forecast, it turned out to be gorgeous, with an official high of 41, and no wind to speak of—for one who was adequately dressed. I talked to one runner before the race who was worried he might be overdressed. He was standing there in shorts and a sweatshirt, while I stood by in running underliners, long johns and tights on the bottom, long john shirt, a North Face technical shirt, a hoodless sweatshirt, and my Across the Years 1000-mile jacket on top, a beanie and full head cover, and a pair of running gloves covered by down filled gloves. On my back was my 100-ounce Camelbak Mule, filled only halfway, which turned out to be a mistake. The other runner voiced the maxim: "Dress for the end of the race, not the beginning!" Fine. In my case by the time I got back to my car with no heater it would be pitch dark, or close to it, and cold again, so I was prepared.

Finally we took off. The official weather report said the low temperature was sixteen degrees Saturday, though it didn't seem quite that cold to me. But it was bright and windless, with prospects for a nice day. As we took off, I overheard one lady complain to another about being cold. The other replied: "It should get better in about twenty degrees."

By one hundred feet from the start I was in last place. The other runners were out of sight by two hundred yards, and I never saw any of them again until I encountered them as they were returning, which began just north of OSU, nine or ten miles from the start, when I still had many miles to the turnaround. Unlike last year, this time at least I recognized most people coming back, or they recognized and acknowledge me, as friendly greetings were exchanged. I had the good fortune to be seen running rather than walking on most of those occasions.

People have asked me what I think about when I run long distances. The answer could fill an entire essay. One thing that occupied my mind on this day was what I've most recently been reading: a book that discusses social changes in the United States in 1800, the year Thomas Jefferson was elected President and the whole nature of the government changed, with consequences that remain down to today.

As I got near to OSU, I saw many geese and a few ducks—hundreds of them—all in the water, and every single one absolutely motionless. Usually they're swimming around, at least slowly, bobbing for food, honking and quacking and doing all the geesely, duckly things that geese and ducks do. It was like a scene from Alfred Hitchcock's movie "The Birds." They were just there. Some had their heads tucked in, apparently sleeping or maybe just trying to keep warm. I guess I would turn motionless pretty quickly myself if I were sitting naked in the middle of a body of water that was near freezing. I'm living my third cold season in Ohio; this was a strange, eerie but peaceful scene of a type I've never seen before.

I always take a good look whenever I pass by the Mausoleum—errr, make that the enormous OSU football stadium. It's hard to imagine that venerable shrine ever being replaced. It's been in operation for 87 years and is ideally located. Where would they put a new one? Putting an updated building on the same spot would probably be perfect, but where would they play during the years a new one was being rebuilt?

Living near The Ohio State University is one of the things I like best about living in Columbus; knowing it would be was one of the drawing points for me. I have no formal connection to the school whatever, only an emotional one. While growing up our family lived less than a mile from another Big Ten university football stadium, Northwestern's Dyche Stadium. My father taught at Northwestern a number of years. Later I spent six years as a student at University of Illinois, and even though I left school as a sixties radical, I loved campus life. Even when I lived for seven months in Buffalo, I sensed a connection with SUNY, as one of my band's musicians played in a new music ensemble there, and I even played two concerts there myself. In Phoenix, we had Arizona State University, where my wife got both a bachelors and masters degree, and my daughter got her RN/BSN. Despite this, the nature of the city is such that I never felt any special attachment to or special interest in that school the whole time I lived in Arizona.

I've digressed; but these tangents are among the things I reflected on during this particular long outing on the road.

I felt great the whole race. At the turnaround I felt invincible, as though I'd barely started. I wore no watch (another thing of mine that's broken), so used the clock on my cell phone as a timer. When I checked my time at the turnaround, it said I'd done the outbound part in 4:17, just as the third runner was about to finish. I was sure I could finish in under nine hours, and maybe even grind out a negative split.

That didn't quite happen, but this time out I avoided the usual death march. My first sign of tiring came around twenty miles, the traditional location of the "wall." But I was well equipped with gels and the like, so I kept feeding myself, and my energy level revived. Unfortunately, I ran out of water, which didn't help. Normally I don't drink much (less than I should) in colder weather, and I just underestimated my needs, trying to cut back on weight carried.

Soon thereafter I stopped at the solar air compressor station in the wetlands just north of OSU, where bicyclists can get free air in their tires. I juggled some of my gear around, shed my full head cover and outer gloves, and stuffed them into my Camelbak, as it was the warmest part of the day and I was actually a bit too warm, which may have contributed to my slowing down. It got cooler later, but never uncomfortable since I worked hard to keep moving quickly as my decrepit body would allow.

When I got to the bridge that crosses the Olentangy River for the last time, which Google Maps tells me is 1.03 miles from the start/end, I started running without letup, and to my amazement, managed to run it all the way in. I rarely can do that. When I arrived there was just enough light left to see. I brought my headlamp, but obviously didn't want to make a stop to dig it out and put it on for the short bit that I would need it. Last year I could have used it, as I walked well over an hour in the dark.

My finishing time was 9:06. My 50K PR is 5:49, three hours and seventeen minutes faster, but that was ten years ago, and that was then and this is now. Given that I finished an hour and fifteen minutes faster than last year, only in part due to the extra mile or so that I traveled last year, and ended feeling strong, I'm pleased with the result, and confident that the hard work I've been doing lately to get back into shape has started to pay off.

The Real Inventor of the Internet

2009-11-24T22:20:00.005-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

An urban legend that circulated in 2000, one that persists today as a standing joke, was that Al Gore, then running for the office President of the United States, made the wild claim to have "invented the Internet." Although Gore made no such claim, he did frequently talk about the increasingly greater role he played, starting in the late 1970s, in promoting government support of high-speed telecommunication systems. Gore's part in this is little known to the populace at large, but in this work Gore distinguished himself more than any other high profile government official is likely to be able to claim.

Less known than Gore's part is that played by none other than Thomas Jefferson, two hundred years before Mr. Gore.

By 1779, while the American Revolution was going full tilt, Thomas Jefferson, then a representative in Virginia's House of Delegates, submitted two proposals to the Virginia legislature. One was "A Bill for Establishing Cross Posts," intended to promote "the more general diffusion of public intelligence among the citizens of this commonwealth." He also introduced "A Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge," with similar, but slightly different purposes. Implementation of either arrangement would require the state to invest in some infrastructure, at a time when funds among the states in the newly nascent nation were in severely limited supply.

General information, the type of communication that takes place between family, friends, and business people, could be handled by a well-designed postal system. But the purpose of cross posts was intended for the high-speed exchange of higher priority intelligence such as military data.

These plans were at first tabled by the Virginia Senate. Shortly afterward, by the end of 1779, Jefferson found himself unexpectedly elected governor. Discreetly, he refrained from using his greater authority to force adoption of his plan, reasoning that it had been the voted-on decision of the duly constituted legislature to reject the idea.

In 1780 the dynamics of the ongoing war changed. Communications between George Washington and Jefferson became unpredictable. Washington himself emphasized the value of establishing an efficient system of transmitting military intelligence as quickly as possible. As things were, it took over a month for decision makers to get word regarding the movement of soldiers, the outcomes of confrontations, and the needs for supplies. As a result, Jefferson's idea for establishing cross posts was revived and enacted.

Cross posts were mail route roads branching off the main north-south trunk road through Virginia, a sort of interstate highway of its day, connecting it with other American States. These roads created a flexible network, and constituted state-of-the-art communications technology.

Military intelligence was not to be carried by ordinary postal service. A special team of horses and riders were provided, along with a system of instructions for carriers, by means of which communiques were to be carried and handed off, with timed and dated receipts being required. These receipts were analyzed and used to predict delivery times with increasingly improved accuracy, or such was the theory.

Unfortunately for the war effort at that time, success of the system depended on couriers who were good at what they did, dedicated to the cause, and willing to shoulder their responsibilities seriously. Not all lived up to those standards, so the system didn't work as well as Jefferson had hoped. (Neither did a lot of things Jefferson thought up!)

Today the components that drive the modern Internet are well known. Messages are transmitted by means of data packets over networks of electronically connected devices such as routers, computers and cell phones, using a seven-layer stack of protocols. In Jefferson's day the same general objectives were accomplished by means of good roads, fast horses, and a system of rules for controlling the flow of messages.

Therefore, to anyone who cracks jokes regarding Al Gore's role in inventing the Internet, I will retort: No, it was really Thomas Jefferson who invented the Internet.

North Coast 24-Hour Endurance Run

2009-10-06T23:23:00.008-04:00

The North Coast 24-Hour Endurance Run (NC24) in Cleveland, Ohio made a spectacular debut in its first edition on October 3–4, 2009. As host to the USA Track and Field/American Ultrarunning Association national championship, it drew a total of 107 runners: 82 men and 24 women. That the venue provides a fast course for racing is evident in that the race attracted many of the best runners in the US, and that 41 of those runners ended their day on the road with more than 100 miles, a figure that I personally regard as outstanding.

The race is so named because Edgewater Park, in which it was run, is on the edge of Lake Erie, with virtually the entire US Great Lakes system lying to the north, west, and east. The park features a looped walking path, USA Track and Field certified to be 0.90075 miles long, with an asphalt surface in perfect condition, and only one moderately tight turn, a concern to faster runners at times they are running at top speed, which in a 24-hour race is not often.

A primary concern in selecting a venue is to find one that lacks hills. It should be as flat as possible—ideally, as flat as a standard high school track. But this is rarely possible, except on actual tracks, which are sometimes available, but which presents other problems. Therefore, close is considered good enough.

The path at Edgewater Park is about as flat as any runner in an event of this type could hope for. All such courses tend to have a "better" direction for running, even though on a loop the cumulative rises and falls cancel each other out. NC24 was run in the clockwise direction. The start is by the ramada on the west end, next to a large parking lot, just off a sandy beach. There is s slight rise on the northwest corner, a slighter but longer one across the north segment, followed mostly by gradual descents, with one shorter but steeper drop in the southwest corner just before returning to the start.

Having had the privilege of participating in discussions with the race organizers for this race since the beginning, I'm aware of the great care that went into selecting the location. The day before the race, we arrived at Edgewater Park to take a look, when I also took a few photographs of the course, and also compared the lower park immediately to the west, which the organizers also considered using. While the lower course is prettier in some ways, with a much nicer ramada, the path has some difficult turns, snakes around too much, and even has one place where runners would have had to cross over a segment of grass. It was immediately apparent to me that the organizers made the right choice to use the other one.

How It All Came About

At the end of 2008, for various personal reasons, I nearly withdrew from ultrarunning entirely. I still walk long distances faithfully, and was able to average around fifty miles a week in training most of the summer, despite fighting off a problem with plantar fasciitis. The condition required aggressive treatment with two cortisone shots and a careful but quick return to longer distances, but without any running. It was when I started to add running back into the mix last June that the problem began. My goal in training was simply to get to the starting line feeling healthy and ready to go 24 hours continuously.

Despite my intent to focus on other pursuits, including my job, I became involved in discussions about presenting a 24-hour race way back in September, 2008. While out walking on my favorite training paths, exploring an area near where I live, but previously unknown to me, I discovered a little area that I thought would be nearly ideal for a 24-hour race. Though I still knew very few runners in Columbus, I did know a couple, and through a fortuitous and timely contact with Dan Fox, who lived then in Cleveland, I connected with some local runners and pitched the idea of creating a 24-hour race here. Though there was some interest, and a couple of other possible sites were suggested, there was not enough critical mass available to get the project rolling, particularly inasmuch as I was not willing to be the one to do all the work myself.

Word got back to Dan Fox through his friend, Columbus ultrarunner Rita Barnes, who attended my local discussion. It turned out that similar efforts were being proposed by some runners in Cleveland, including Dan Horvath, Joe Jurczyk, Connie Gardner, Debra Horn, and some others. Discussions were still in the larval stage. These are people who regret the loss of the 24-hour race at Olander Park in Sylvania, Ohio, near Toledo, about 125 miles west of Cleveland, which many US runners remember as being one of the best races of its kind, but which folded when the race director would no longer work on it.

One factor that influenced the effort to put on the race was the experience of Cleveland ultrarunning legend Connie Gardner, who came within forty meters of setting a new American 24-hour record last year at the Ultracentric race in Texas. As the story came to me, she quit from exhaustion after being told she had the record. Later, upon re-measuring the course, they found it to be short, denying her the record. That had to be a crushing disappointment to Connie, and I have no doubt it has haunted her ever since.

Before long, the informal chat that went on among the Cleveland runners became more focused. I was invited—may have invited myself—to continue participating in the discussions. I made it clear that I was unable to accept any responsibility as an organizer, but based on my years of working with Across the Years, might have some stories, observations, and suggestions gleaned from my experience that might be useful. And so it was that I came to be a peripheral participant in the planning for the race, never really doing anything myself other than shooting off my mouth, remaining appropriately neutral as an outsider about decisions made, but keeping myself informed about the progress.

Originally, I did not intend or expect to run the race myself, but as things developed, I saw that because it was within reasonably short driving distance (about two and a half hours), it might be practical to consider. At the time I was working at a highly stressful job, which had detracted significantly from almost all the other things I wanted and needed to do at the time, particularly from giving attention to matters of personal health and fitness. In fact, the situation was spiraling out of control. However, I no longer have that job (at this writing I'm unemployed), so at least I have had freedom to train more. The main questions were whether I could get back in shape adequate so as not to embarrass myself at a race, and whether we could budget it. Both of those factors worked out favorably, so I locked the event in my schedule and began to plan—just like the old days.

In the end, other than my performance at the race, everything went as smoothly as I could ever have hoped for, and we had a rewarding and refreshing three days of vacation away from the turmoil that constitutes our current life situation.

Preparations and Gear

Making preparations to leave seemed simpler than usual for this race. One possible reason is that now that I have spent 31 24-hour days looping around a track, I've learned to be self-sustaining during the race itself. I don't need and for the most part prefer not to have a crew, except I do appreciate it when Suzy is on site and will do me the occasional favor of refilling my water bottle or digging something out of my bag for me. But I would rather see her helping out the race as a volunteer than devoting exclusive effort just to me, because once I'm rolling, I don't need it.

Therefore, for this race I took a minimalistic approach. Some runners show up to these races with elaborate tents, crews, and shelves of equipment and special foods. From experience I know that I have no need of a tent for only 24 hours. So I determined that I would make do with a gym bag containing plenty of warm clothes in case it got wet or cold, a Craftsman hard plastic toolbox I use in which to put stuff like bottles of electrolyte, ginger, caffeine, lubricants, tape, scissors, and so forth, and a collapsible camping table and chair. This is, in fact, added up to far more than I had available at the FANS race in 2004, where all the gear I did have sitting in a gym bag on a chair got thoroughly soaked by a thunderstorm, and was not useful to me.

I've see some runners burn far too much time fussing around with shoe changes, re-taping, changing clothes, napping, and just about everything they can think of other than actually moving forward. I've made all those mistakes myself. At Across the Years last year, which was my last race, I went 72 hours without changing any clothing except outer layers of sweatshirts and coats, depending on the temperature. I tend to wear more than most runners because I get cold easily, but at that race I never even took off my shoes except to get in my sleeping bag. Yes, I stunk badly enough to be a candidate for burial at the end, but I'd saved a lot of trouble and time.

Therefore, even though I brought extra clothing to NC24, I dressed in the morning in what I intended to wear for the duration of the race, and that's exactly what I was still wearing at the end.

Travel

Suzy lined up a couple of errands she wanted to run to stores in the Cleveland area the day before the race, so we left home at 7:15 a.m. on Friday morning (October 2). We had been watching the weather forecast all week. It poured rain all day long, with a couple of brief respites late in the afternoon and evening.

Our first stop was at Edgewater Park, where I was able first to locate and padlock the two portapotties at Dan Horvath's request, and then walk the path slowly, taking photographs, including several that were off the course, from the nearby pier.

My first impressions were: the ramadas are funky; the whole park looks less than inviting on a soaking wet day; there are a few pretty views; the degree of rise and fall on the course would not be a problem for me, therefore even less so for any of the runners seeking to deliver superior performances; and the closeness to the lake is a pleasure to the eyes. I grew up four blocks from a beautiful beach on Lake Michigan, and also lived in Maine for a while, just a few yards from the Atlantic ocean, and love to see waterfront. We were also entertained by the presence of geese and gulls in abundance.

We headed next to where we would be staying, and returned in time for a pre-race meal at Porcelli's Bistro in downtown Cleveland. Far more runners showed up than were expected—I estimate about forty—requiring the restaurant personnel to hustle hard to take care of us, and taking a little longer than normal to get everything ordered and served. The staff did an outstanding job, and the food was delicious. They probably didn't make much money from alcohol from this group, but I'm sure they were happy to have the spike in business.

I had hoped to be in bed around 8:30. Even with the delay I was able to pull the covers up around my nose at exactly 9:35, had the alarm set for 5:35 a.m., and slept like a baby until 4:15, but continued to rest quietly until the alarm went off.

My morning preparations, which I now have down to a science, went quickly. We arrived at the park by 7:25, in time to find a choice location to set up my aid station, though in truth there is so much available space that there is room for every person participating to stake out a large and comfortable personal estate, with no limitations on size.

One of the greatest pleasures of any of these races, because the number of runners is small, so that in time you get to know a lot of them, is to meet new people—in this case, I especially enjoyed pre-race socialization with Stuart Kern from Maryland, and Columbus runners Kathy Wolf and Mike Keller, with whom I'd exchanged several rounds of email, but had never met in person. Also, I was at least able to touch palms with ultrarunning's current rock star Scott Jurek on his way in. We had exchanged email a few times in 2007 when he signed up to come to Across the Years, but he was unable to make the race, so we never met.

The Race Progresses

Following a brief pre-race informational meeting, the race began precisely at 9:00 a.m. as 107 runners set out on their journeys. The skies were gray and threatening most of the day, and it even sprinkled just a few drops barely a minute or two before the start—possibly our Creator's way of warning us that if we really want to do this, we're on our own. It never did rain during the race, and temperatures remained in the range of roughly 60 during the day to 50 at night. By about 8:30 p.m. the clouds even broke, and we were treated to the sight of this season's Harvest Moon, accompanied by an extraordinary shimmering glow. Whenever the moon was out, the light was bright enough to cast shadows. While a very few runners wore headlamps for night running, I can't imagine what they thought they needed them for, as between the moon and surrounding lights there was plenty of light to run by all night long.

The conversation between runners at every long distance race I have been a part of goes through a series of distinct phases:

Here We Go: Silly quips, mostly about how long the race is. "Are we almost done?" "Only 23:55 to go!" This lasts between one and five minutes, long enough for people to have to start breathing hard, and realize what they have gotten themselves into, when they would rather save their breath for something more intelligent.

Races We've Done: "So, I did Leanhorse two years ago." "Well I did Comrades this year." "That's great. I ran Hardrock." "I ran the Hardrock course in 1926." "And I ran Hardrock in 1925 while carrying a piano on my back." A little intimidating oneupmanship can sometimes be leveraged to a strategic advantage, even at this stage of the race.

The Strategy and Gear Phase: "How often do you plan to walk?" "Are you going to go straight through or sleep some?" "What are you drinking?" "Do you tape your feet?" "I think I may have forgotten to screw my head on right."

The Serious Phase: "Grunt." "Shut up and leave me alone." "Maybe if I just put my finger down my throat I'll feel better." (Been there, done that.)

The Reduced Expectations and Rationalizations Phase: "Well, I was really hoping to break Kouros' record, but short of that, I'll be happy just to stay out here a while and avoid getting injured."

The Late Night Phase: "Where's my Mommy???!!!"

The Race Phase: Except for the leaders, most people really have no idea where they are in the standings until sometime near the end, when they might take a look to see if there is someone nearby they can overtake, or someone just behind who is a threat. The last part of a fixed-time race, from about thirty minutes out, increasing in intensity until the very last second, is when the runners still on the course put forth their hardest effort, when little conversation takes place, because too much heavy breathing precludes it.

Lynn's Race

Lynn did not race. I lost count of my laps after four, and never had the slightest clue how far I'd gone or where I was in the standings, other than being certain it was way far down the list, until I got back to a computer after the race.

I've been working on a method of walking that looks a lot like slow running, the sort real old guys do, or runners who are completely depleted, except I do it when I'm fresh, and on purpose. It requires leaning forward, letting my arm swing determine the cadence, and just relaxing. Once in a while I start to slump over, like someone who is utterly exhausted, but if I remind myself: This is not running! This is walking!—I can take immediate steps to straighten up, relax, and concentrate only on my turnover and avoiding dragging my right foot, something I've always done, but can do less if I concentrate. Unfortunately, I don't have this technique down to where I can continue this motion hour after hour, but when I do it, I can sustain about a 14:00 walking pace, as contrasted with about a 17:00 pace if I just walk along normally. (And a lot slower later in the race.)

I've never had any kind of speed, but at times have been able to demonstrate fair endurance. My goal at the start of the race was to maintain forward motion, and not to take any breaks other than at the portapotty and whatever brief moments are necessary to stop at the aid station to pick something up, or at my table to grab my water bottle, take a couple of big gulps, and put it down again. In the past I have almost gotten through an entire 24-hour race without any sort of breaks—but not quite—and at three 100-mile trail races I got beyond 24 hours, once to 28 hours before having to drop, without needing to stop and sit except for rapid maintenance, and without extreme problems of sleepiness.

But at NC24 it was not to be. I felt perfectly fine for a long time, but by about twelve hours, I started to drag, and decided to take a caffeine tablet. When I use these in training (infrequently), they prove either to be a miracle drug, or they will have only marginal effect, and may irritate my stomach. At least I know that I was faithful about drinking, taking electrolyte, and eating, as I would grab something to eat almost every lap, making sure to get variety in my choices—fruit, pretzels, M&Ms, soup, sandwiches, pizza, macaroni and cheese, and cookies all come to mind as being on the menu for the day.

And so it was that at NC24 I went 14:30 without a single rest stop, but by the last lap before breaking, I was sure that if I tried to go another without a rest I would have taken a dive in the grass somewhere along the way.

I don't know what my problem was other than I've just lost too much of the fitness I once possessed, which wasn't exactly world class to begin with.

Reluctantly, I plopped myself in my chair, shut my eyes, and slept uncomfortably for a while. I brought no blanket or tent, so all I had to keep me warm was a large bath towel.

When I awoke, I promptly rolled to my left and experienced about five minutes of dry heaves. Fortunately, nothing came up. Strangely, this is sometimes the best thing that can happen to a person with an upset stomach. I felt much better after that, and got up to start walking again, but was still sleepy.

Two slow laps later I went down a second time, then walked two more laps and went down a third time, that time for quite a while.

After that I was all right once again, and continued on without further breaks until the end of the race. But this period of distress lasted the entire graveyard segment of the race, from 11:30 p.m. until 5:00 a.m.

From then until the end was just a matter of getting it done. I enjoyed watching other runners, particularly the leaders, who were running with such focus that I didn't dare to utter more than a word or two as they flew by. Sometimes I think I'd like to punch out the lights of the next person who says "Good job!" or "Looking good!" or the one I really hate: "Hang in there!" I got that last one less than two hours into the race. Did I already look like I was on my last legs and just needed to keep clinging for another twenty-two hours? I certainly didn't think so.

We were able to get credit for a final partial lap. White lines painted on the path were pre-certified as lying exactly in 100-yard increments from the start. At the end of the race a signal sounded, everyone still on the course stopped where they were, and threw down a stick they had been given about a half hour before the end with their number on it. Afterwards, a volunteer came by, picked up and recorded the sticks and gave credit up to the last 100-yard segment completed, tacking that total on to the number of laps run times 0.90075 miles.

I had misunderstood the segments to be a tenth of a mile. I ran rather than walking the last two or three minutes of the race. When I passed one marker with 30 seconds to go, thinking I could not get another tenth of a mile in 30 seconds, I pulled up and walked a bit more, but when the horn sounded I was not very far from the next mark, and realized that if I'd run it I could have made it past one more mark. That's when I realized they were not a tenth of a mile apart.

My total official mileage was 60.98045 miles, which I can comfortably round up to 61 miles for the purposes of conversation. If I had logged the extra 100 yards, most of which I did in fact actually run, it would have brought me to 61.03727 miles, which I would rather be able to round down so as not to be guilty of exaggerating my already meager accomplishment.

This figure constitutes a personal worst for me at 24 hours by a margin of 15.33 miles. Here is a list of my distances for all the 24-hour races I have run.

Race	Date	Miles
Across the Years	12/31/99	81.52
Olander Park	09/15/01	83.72
FANS	06/05/04	82.82
San Francisco 24-Hour	10/20/07	76.31
North Coast 24-Hour	10/03/09	60.98

Everybody Else

Although not everything went as expected during the race ("That's why they play the game," as Chris Behrman likes to say), there were some outstanding performances. Following are a few comments and anecdotes about various runners that I know, listed in finish order.

At the pre-race dinner we sat at the same table with Phil McCarthy from New York and five or six other people. Phil and the others talked about running; he sounded completely prepared. Should we call this listening session the McCarthy Hearings? Phil ran steadily the whole race, always alone, because no one else could run that fast, winning it and the national championship with 151.52 miles, along with a cash prize of $900.

John Geesler, from Johnsville, NY, is the Across the Years poster boy. We particularly like one shot from last year, when John stayed on the course despite being injured, and spent some time doing laps with Gavin Wrublik.

John has had some great days, and a couple of bad ones. His race at NC24 was superb, where he ran hard at the very end to come from behind and take second place by a tenth of a mile in the last lap, with a total of 139.41 miles.

Dan Rose, from Washington, DC, is the one John beat. Dan finished third with 139.28 miles.

For me the highlight of the race was watching Jill Perry from Manilus, NY run the best looking race I've personally witnessed, winning the women's race, championship, and prize money, with an outstanding 136.33 miles. Her running was smooth as glass the whole way. She told me after the race she had to take a break to tend to some physical problems, and also threw up once. Jill is a beautiful and shapely lady. Imagine my surprise when I learned she is also the mother of five children! Now I'm really impressed. A little research turned up that Jill has some sort of sponsorship deal with DryMax socks.

Cleveland area runner Debra Horn, who was on the 2009 U.S. Women's 24-Hour Run National Team, which won the silver medal at the World Championships, turned in a remarkable third place finish of 128.93 miles, behind Anna Piskorska of Blandon, PA, whom I did not get to meet.

John Geesler's friend David Putney, who did well at Across the Years in 2007, finished NC24 with 124.68 miles.

One of the great performances of the day was by Dave James. His 100-mile split was an almost unbelievable 13:06:52, but then he backed off and finished the race with 119.80 miles. His pace for 100 miles was 7:52.12. That's thirty seconds per mile faster for 100 consecutive miles than I have ever run any single mile in my whole life.

At times we could hear Dave coming up behind and requesting the inside lane, which I'm sure most runners were willing to yield. On one occasion, going around the sharp turn, where there is sand to the right and also a drop, he tried to squeeze by on my right, but since I don't wear my hearing aids when I run, I didn't hear him coming on that occasion. I'm not deaf—I just didn't realize he was nearly on top of me, and he almost wound up doing a head-first into the sand.

I guess the lessons we can learn from that experience is that the only proper way to pass, as on a highway, is on the outside, unless a runner is already well over to the left; and just because someone requests the left lane does not guarantee he will get it.

I mentioned Connie Gardner earlier, who also did a lot to help with creating the race. There was no opportunity for me to say hello to her beforehand. Once it started, Connie showed fierce concentration, and I didn't want to interrupt her focus, but after a few hours I happened to be just behind her when she was walking a few steps and regrouping, so I used that opportunity just to introduce myself. She looked at me with a look that said: "So what?" Bad timing. I said I knew she was obsessed at the moment and asked her how it was going. She said it was going all right, but I had seen that although she was running well by most people's standards, she seemed to me to be struggling. By the end of the race she had 116.20 miles—certainly not the record she had hoped for, but I admire Connie above all for not quitting just because she wasn't going to set a record.

In general, I tend to respect runners who show by their action that they recognize that in a fixed-time race there is no such thing as a DNF, and for better or worse, once you have logged one lap, you're in it until the end, and whatever your total is, that's how it will be shown in history. I imagine that for some runners that's harder to manage psychologically than a DNF.

I recognized Frederick Davis from Cleveland, because he ran the 72-hour race at Across the Years in 2002. When I said hello, his first words to me were, "You've put on some weight!" Busted. Frederick is about six feet and 140 pounds himself. He wanted to know if I'd been injured or just quit. It was helpful that he offered a menu of options. Right then wasn't a good time to expound on my life history and present circumstances, so I gave some weak excuse.

Ray Krolewicz from South Carolina may have run the most ultramarathons of anyone in the last thirty years, and he used to win an awful lot of them, too. He finished this one with 105.39 miles.

Dan Fox recently moved his photography business to Seattle. As one of the people who sparked the creation of this race, I'm glad he was able to return to run it. He ran most of the way with Rita Barnes, getting 101.79 miles, and Rita got 100.88 miles.

In fact, five runners got 100.88 miles indicating that all probably decided to go for 100 and quit. Good for them, but it seems to me if any had taken the trouble to run even a partial extra lap at the end, he would have bumped up his place in the standings by that many people. It is supposed to be a race, after all.

Don Winkley, who has run Across the Years numerous times, is one of the great runners of very long distances, including several finishes across the US and France, and a finish at the 205-mile Volunteer State trek across Tennessee last summer. Don is now 71, and finished NC24 less than half a mile under 100 miles. I saw him hauling butt at the end, too, so know he was going for it.

Leo Lightner, age 81, and from the Cleveland area, had an as yet unratified national age group record at 82.72 miles. Someone else set an age group record as well, but I didn't catch who it was.

Scott Jurek is ultrarunning's current rock star, and a legendary Nice Guy. He had an un-Jureklike day, quitting at 65.75 miles. As we were leaving I ran into him and encouraged him not to give up on doing a 24-hour race, since this is the third time that I know of where he has been entered but has not been able to perform up to his enviable potential. He laughed and said he wouldn't give up, but needed to do one when he wasn't tired. He ran another race not long ago (I forgot which one he said), and is still recovering from it.

Mark Godale, the current US record holder for 24 hours, came out of the chute like he was possessed. I learned later that he came not to run a full 24-hour race, but was shooting for a particular time at 100K in order to qualify for the National Team. I don't know what his goal was, but by 57.65 miles he realized he was not going to get it, so stopped for the day.

Technically, therefore, I beat Mark Godale in a 24-hour race! And with a little more effort that was probably within my power to produce, I might have been able to beat Scott Jurek as well, because that's how the game is played. In the end it's not about how fast you ran at the beginning before blowing up and melting down, but about how many miles you log in 24 hours. So I beat. Sorry. :-) (But they know that.)

This report would not be complete without mentioning that US National Team doctor Andy Lovy showed up with six of his medical students, leaving him freer to run himself than he usually is at Across the Years, where he is a fixture, and along with John Geesler (and me), is a 1000-mile jacket owner. Andy, who is now 74, got 38.73 miles.

And So ...

In January I thought my ultrarunning days were over. And maybe they are, but at least I managed to pull one more race experience out of the hat. When it was over I was a little stiff the rest of Sunday, but slept well and was able to spend seven hours on my feet visiting the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Monday before driving back to Columbus. My plantar fasciitis did not flare up, and my blisters and other foot problems were so minor as to be insignificant.

There is something powerfully attractive about ultrarunning that draws me to it. With each race it remains to be seen whether I will ever do another, but I remain interested in the sport, so I suppose that as long as there are opportunities for me in it I will continue to return.

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