Saturday Run

I took about 85 minutes, so the pace was a pathetic 8:23/mile or so.

The party is at Noon so I had to go early in the morning and I am not really a morning person when it comes to running.

I really have nothing to add to this.

Obama on Abortion & Interrogation [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

More than a few people have said some version of this to me since Wednesday:

I was taken aback during Wednesday press conference when I noted the difference in Obama's answers to the questions on waterboarding and abortion. I haven't seen anyone note the inconsistency of his reasoning. When it came to torture/ waterboarding/ enhanced interrogation techniques, Obama said we shouldn't take shortcuts. Even when it's hard, we should take the high road. It's in our nation's character to take the more noble option, though it will require a lot more work and effort to get the same information. But when it came to the issue of abortion, while he readily acknowledged it was a morally and ethically weighty issue, he said it should be an available option. Why? Because he trusted that women, along with their doctors and their families, appreciate the ethical weightiness of their decision and will make the best decision for their circumstances. Oh, how I wish we could swap those answers! How is it that he cannot trust the educated opinion of government lawyers as they balance ethics (of inducing discomfort and pain) with practicalities (of stopping mass murder) and advise as to where enhanced techniques cross the line to become illegal torture? But a woman, by virtue of having two x chromosomes, can be trusted to weigh ethics (of live and death) and practicalities (of inconvenience and economic difficulties) while having a personal vested interest in those practicalities.

05/01 10:04 AMShare

Dialog on IM which (I swear) does make sense to us

Wife says: I've added Caprica and I'm moving it up to the top

Dr. Kutner was murdered. says: Is it even out?

Wife says: Yeah and there are even user reviews on it.

Wife says: Sounds like it has a lot of sexy time

Dr. Kutner was murdered. says: As long as I can keep my dr. caligari

I finally found it!

It is hard to see me. There are three guys all in a row and in step on the right hand side of the picture. I am the one in the back. I was wearing black tank top with a long sleeved yellow shirt underneath and the sleeve pulled up to the elbow. Also, you can see that I was wearing black ankle socks and white shoes with gold trim.

Pictures from here(page 144) There are 359 pages with 12 pictures each, so it is a bit of a challenge to figure out where to look. What I did was to find people with about the same net time at the 30 kilometer mark, who also (because we are dealing with net time) started around the same time. Also complicating matters is that only a few runners in each picture have bib numbers that you can make out. And then the only ones which are useful are the ones in the 9000 group.

Dog Picture

A while ago I did (or perhaps wanted to do, but gave up on) a post containing WFB and his favorite dogs: Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. For the life of me; every search came up with plenty of dogs, plenty of WFB but none with both.

Now, by accident I found such a picture. It was included as part of an excerpt of Growing Up Buckley by Christopher Buckley in The New York Times Magazine.

So here it is!

Awww!

More Fuel test data

Earlier in the year I decided it would be interesting to see just how often I fuel-up my car. Today, the 27th of April I put gas in. So I made it almost 6 weeks! I probably won't have to buy gas at all in May.

I went from the 9th of February to the 18th of March between fill-ups.

Groton Road Race

In the first mile...

46 209 DAVID PECCHIA 46 38/262 M 18/102 M4049 CHELMSFORD MA 45:45 7:22

I came in 46th out of 435, but ran about one minute slower than last year. I think there are two good excuses for that: It was really warm this year and I just ran a marathon less than one week ago. I really think the heat accounts for all of it since I came in 57 out of 371 last year. This year's effort puts me in the top 11% and last year's was about 15%. So while my absolute performance went down, my relative performance improved.

What the other numbers up there mean: 38/262 men. 18/102 men in my 40-49 age group.

I did manage to catch and pass this guy before the end.

All pictures from Jim Rhodes The Runner

Running the numbers

I got my final results back from the BAA and at first I was really pleased: My number was 9899 and yet I came in 6792. It should be remembered that your bib number is directly in proportion to your qualifying time.

At first I was pleased because I assumed that finish order was a zero-sum game: If one person finishes ahead of his number, then someone else must finish behind theirs. So for instance if # 1 finishes 20,001 and everybody else finishes in order, then they each gain one place position and that one runner looses 20,000 place positions. It all equals-out.

Just to confirm this hypothesis, I looked at 20 runners in order 9880-9899 and summed-up whether they gained or lost position. Here is what I found: There were three runners with no finish. Not everybody who signs-up ends up running and not all runners finish. In fact: there were around 28,000 entrants and about 23,000 finishers, so we are missing about 5,000 people. This will have no impact on #1, but # 28,000 should gain 5,000 finish positions just by completing the race. I had a # that put me around the 35th percentile part of the pack, so I should gain 1750 positions just by finishing at the top 35 percent point.

The average gain for the 17 runners I looked at was 1320 place positions. This is not far from my above estimate of 1750. When I sum up the three that did not finish and subtract from the aggregate gains, the average gain drops to 361.

I am still happy about picking up around 3,000 place positions, but around half of that was me and the other half simply a function of showing up and finishing.