Yea! I helped the team again.

Men's 40+

9.  GREATER LOWELL ROAD RUNNERS 
40:39   43:09   44:06   45:06   45:47 (47:40) (49:52) = 3:38:47
John Dowling, Fil Faria, Ken Goodin, Glenn Stewart, David Pecchia, Tom Amiro, Michael Brodeur

Scenes from the race

The girl handing out water probably ran in the 3K which was just before our 10K race.

The Race start: We began on this bridge, ran a couple of miles through neighborhoods, back over the bridge, another 4-mile loop and then finished by crossing the bridge one more time.

These nice ladies got us fired-up before the big, steep, mile-long climb; which was just ahead.

The elite ladies start: #334 won the race and the smiling runner # 73 is 45 years old and won for her age division.

Added: Some pictures of the race posted by Locallyrun.com...

The hill

Done!

A couple of hundred feet till the finish.

Bridge of Flowers 10K

233 28/67 M4549 45:47 7:22 David Pecchia 47 M 554 Chelmsford MA GLRR

This is a long ways from my best 10K time, but this was a very difficult course (all hills) so maybe I should not feel so bad.

This was a New England 10K championship race and so I have to compare it with other grand prix races. The only other 10K in this series that I ran was back in 2007:

326 659 DAVID PECCHIA 44 M 84/197 M4049 CHELMSFORD MA 44:41 7:12

This was a hilly course too, but not nearly so bad. The key metric would be how well I did against men in my age group: 28/67=.4179 84/197=.4264 So, I did do slightly better in this race than in the one from 2007.

Where are they getting these ideas?

Back in the days of the second Gulf War, it was a constant trope of my liberal debate opponents that, "Iraq was a distraction from Afghanistan". That is to say, we could have wrapped things up nicely in the first war, but diverted too many resources away from the "good" war. Anyway, ancient history right? I was just reminded of this when a couple of days ago a smart liberal from work claimed that we pulled troops out of Afghanistan to fight in Iraq.

The press and liberals may have thought that nothing was going on in Afghanistan, but the steadily increasing numbers of troops fighting there would not agree. It is an odd and probably solipsistic view that if we are not thinking about something, it must not be taking place.

The following statistics are from the (I believe) mildly anti-war, National Priorities Project U.S. Troop Levels in Afghanistan

Fiscal Year Troops

2001 N/A

2002 5,200

2003 10,400

2004 15,200

2005 19,100

2006 20,400

2007 23,700

2008 30,100

2009 62,000*

My Wife and I were watching some concert video of The White Stripes and at some point they did their cover of I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself. I noted that it was a cover but didn't remember who made it famous. I thought it was a show tune but in retrospect, I must have been thinking of a great scene from My Best Friend's Wedding.

Julia Roberts plays the friend of a guy who is getting married and since she wants the guy, she spends much of the movie trying to make his fiancee look bad. In this scene, knowing that the girl, played by Cameron Diaz is shy and cannot sing, puts her on the spot at a karaoke bar. The girl tries so hard and is so earnest that she wins over the whole bar and the guy loves her even more. Major backfire!

A little research showed that it goes much further back than this movie.

DUSTY SPRINGFIELD-I JUST DON'T KNOW (WHAT TO DO WITH MYSELF)
Uploaded by pierrot77. - Watch more music videos, in HD!

Oh yeah, here is most famous (now) version...

A Short Imaginary Conversation Between Two Private Citizens

Former Gov: Hiya! I see you've gotcher self a sign...

"Teacher": Yeah, I was hoping you'd come by and explain why you quit.

Former Gov: Why? Did you vote for me?

"Teacher": No.

Former Gov: Well then, once I was in office you decided I was doing a great job and are disappointed that I quit?

"Teacher": No. I'm glad you quit.

Former Gov: Maybe it is just me, but normally when I get my way about something I don't also demand an explanation. Furthermore, I gave an explanation--to my supporters--as to why I felt it necessary to resign. They deserved an explanation and they seem to have accepted what I put forth.

"Teacher": I suppose it does seem churlish to ask a question when there is no conceivable answer that would be satisfying...

Okay, now I've really gone off into fantasy-land...