Fastest indoor time of all time. Third fastest all time.
15 m.p.h. I ran a 3:57 as a high schooler too. For 800 meters.
High Schooler Runs 3:57.6 Mile
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Category Archives: Sports
My Funny Winnipeg Friend
On the SuperBowl:
“I didn’t bother watching most of the Pre-Game stuff. I watched the Half Time show. It featured a Black Canadian, who doesn’t know how to spell his own name. That don’t impress me much. Trust Me, he ain’t no Shania Twain. ( See what I did there?)
We didn’t get to see all the American SuperBowl commercials, cuz Canadian Broadcast Rules are created by Socialists, bent on going Green, eliminating cows and coal, and providing Free Health Care to All.”
Meet Kidd G
My morning reading included this New York Times profile of Kidd G., a 17-year-old from a small Georgia town who built an audience as a rapper on TikTok and SoundCloud before pivoting to country music.
Still processing these sentences:
“Before committing himself to making music, most of Kidd G’s attention was devoted to sports, particularly baseball and fishing. (He received two college scholarship offers for fishing.)”
Wut?
The Main Challenge For the Brooklyn Nets’ New Big Three
Jesse Washington says its character.
“In all fairness, there’s more to Harden’s and Irving’s character than basketball. Irving is a generous and passionate advocate for social justice. Harden helped buy food for 5,000 Houston families during the pandemic. But when it comes to their profession, they seem entitled. Which makes it hard for any partnership to work.”
Monday Required Reading
- Three cheers for my ‘oh so woke’ sport.
- Props to this brave, young French woman for agitating for a more frank approach to sexism and gender violence.
- File this under “increasingly relevant”. A new study has found being angry increases your vulnerability to misinformation.
- Leah Sotille’s podcast Bundyville is state-of-the-art audio journalism. Along with Kathleen Belew, she’s my go to source on all things domestic terrorism. File her most recent writing, “All Bets Are Off”, under “increasingly relevant”.
Challenging Myself In 2021
Are you thinking what I’m thinking? What physical challenges might be motivating to train for and fun to attempt in 2021?
I’m early in the decision-making process, but so far, I’ve narrowed it down to two. The first is a Claire Law inspired 300 mile bike ride with 16,000′ of elevation gain. In under 40 hours, as per her and the Rapha 500k Brevet guidelines. Probs not in the dead of winter though since I’m afraid of the dark. And rain. And cold.
Thanks to my brother for finding the second one, which he instinctively knew, is much more in my wheelhouse.
This is good to know:
“One popular method of doughnut-eating is flattening three or four doughnuts on top of each other to form one pastry. ‘You can trick your mind into thinking that you’re only having three doughnuts when you’re really having more.'”
‘Getting Along With Others in a Pluralistic Society’ Rule #1
Which woulda been okay if McFarland hadn’t tied the player’s problems to African American football players more generally. Predictably, that’s when the shit hit the fan.
The (dis)United States is a wonderfully diverse conglomerate of 331 million individual identities. Does that mean we can never generalize, no, positive generalizations are fine. For example, if I say, “Elementary school teachers do amazing work and deserve, as much, or more respect, than any other group of educators.” I’m not going to get any blowback. It’s sweeping negative assumptions that everyone rightfully resists. No one ever wants to be “guilty by association”.
So here’s Getting Along With Others in a Pluralistic Society Rule #1, refrain from making negative generalizations about any group, even ones of which you are a member. Ask Cosby or McFarland, your insider status will not provide any sort of “benefit of the doubt”.
Andrew Hawkins, NFL alum, takes McFarland to school, literally. Hawkins Wikipedia “personal life” entry includes this sentence, “Hawkins graduated from Columbia University in 2017 with a master’s degree in sports management from the School of Professional Studies with a 4.0 GPA.” No surprise. This is a 4.0 return of serve.
Monday Required Reading
1A. These are the best (and most surprising) places to get a draft in a bike race. Important research to know before your next race.
1B. How to keep the bike boom from fizzling out. In Pete Buttigieg we trust.
“The need for the bike boom to roll on beyond the pandemic is about more than the love of cycling. . . . You’ll literally breathe easier when you start replacing more car trips with bicycles. We’re talking less carbon emissions, less traffic congestion, and a healthier population — the essential ingredients that make people happier and less stressed out. In the World Happiness Report 2020, countries with high bicycle use tend to be among the happiest overall, like the Netherlands (ranked sixth; daily bike use: 43 percent), Denmark (ranked second; daily bike use: 30 percent), and Finland (ranked first; daily bike use: 28 percent).”
2. What to wear to Christmas parties this year.
3. Perhaps he has written more hit songs than anyone else.
4. New data shows residents fleeing California in near record numbers. Substantive reporting from the Sac Bee. Good to know some local papers are still alive and kicking.
5A. COVID-19 and the Failure of Swedish Exceptionalism.
“Whereas American exceptionalism is about America’s unique place in the world, Swedish exceptionalism is about being immune to any disasters that may happen in the rest of the world.”
5B. Younger People Get Vaccines First in Indonesia’s Unusual Rollout.
“There are no good choices, there is only the least-bad choice.”
Live Wireless Or Die
It’s easy to forget what life was like before global position satellites revolutionized sports technology. I remember rolling my front bike wheel next to a wooden yardstick in my parent’s garage in a desperate attempt to calibrate my sensor that was attached to a couple of spokes. And then using electrical tape to align the wire that ran to the head unit along the fork and head tube. Cumbersome is putting it mildly. And what did I get for all my efforts, a precarious, only mildly accurate set up that constantly needed attention.
Fast forward several decades. Bluetooth, wireless GPS, and (almost always) automatic syncing which results in extremely accurate data recording with a tenth of the effort. Check out what my wrist computer generated during this morning’s run.
When I first returned to rehab running from my hamstring injury, my average stride length was only 1.16m as opposed to the normal 1.2m. How cool is it that satellites in Outer Space confirm that not only do I feel better, but I am better.
A question for the nerds (used affectionately of course). Why is there a net gain of 35 feet when I started and stopped in my driveway?
The more important question is why do we fret about whether life is improving when we don’t have to wrestle with rulers, electrical tape and wires anymore?
Maradona Counterpoint
Argentina’s Juan Manuel Rótulo sees things differently than Australia’s Will Swanton.
Diego Maradona, Argentina’s Hero, and Mine.
Who wants to design an interdisciplinary curriculum tentatively titled “Contrasting Perspectives on Maradona’s Legacy” with me? Touch points. . . The Falklands War, the Argentine economic crisis, the sociology of soccer, the 1986 World Cup, Maradona’s off-field demons, Latin American politics, and maybe some southern Italy organized crime for good measure.
Or maybe a novel. Then a Hollywood bidding war for the film rights.
Pressing Pause 