First Road Half Marathon

Today Rob and I (and one of Melinda's grad students and his girlfriend) ran the 30th edition of the Topeka to Auburn (a small town/McMansion suburb of Topeka) half marathon. Despite an initial 10-day forecast of a high of 64, the race-time temperature was about 23, but the lack of wind made it manageable. This is billed as a hilly race, but without seeing the hills beyond photos, I wasn't sure if I should adopt a cocky you-want-real-hills-try-Utah attitude or in fact expect the worst.

Here was my logic going in: according to the dorky online calculator, my peak-fitness 5K in October (the day after which my months-long ankle injury began) indicated that I should be able to run a half marathon in 1:23. Hah! That was a downhill 5K, and I don't put in nearly enough mileage even when not injured for anything like that kind of half. Adding 30 seconds to that 5K projected to a half marathon of 1:25, or about 6:30 per mile pace. So I added :30 per mile to that for the injury and lost training, :30 for the hills, and :15 because I am working on just racing for fun (hey, today I even started without having told my watch to locate satellites ...). That brought me to 7:45 miles or 1:41 for the half. But then I thought about how, last year, 1:35 was good enough for a third-place age-group medal ... and, in the parking lot, Rob doubted I could break 1:40 (thanks Rob for getting my competitive juices flowing!). So I set my watch for 7:35 (or 1:39). In brief, it was a fun day.Training/schraining. The run felt good, I moved ahead of pace steadily, and the hills looked worse than they were. Really I thought I was even smiling at this point:

I ended up coming in at 1:32 and change, or just under 7 minutes a mile (and, for the record, the official race distance was a .15th of a mile over regulation length because they moved the finish area at the last moment due to a funeral). Last year my time would have been good enough for age-group 2nd. This year — a big fat 6th (damn growing race; then again, I would have medaled in either twenty-something category). Rob and Bart and Carrie also had good races and beat goal times. The pancake feed was even decent, and normally I can't stand small-town pancake feeds.  

Non-running post to come soon.

Breaking the Silence (aka After the Book, part II)

Hi folks. Don't fear — I don't intend to become one of those people who starts a blog with a burst of fanfare only to see it dissipate in a cloud of good intentions, increasingly infrequent postings, indifferent followers, and poor writing. True, based on the my initial reviews I have been chary of using this space as a mere diary, which prevented me from offering the odd paragraph from time to time during the past couple months, but really the main reason for my silence is simply that I just put to bed what I hope will be — frankly, what must be — the most intense period of work I'll ever endure. You know it was dire when I didn't even blog about the Jayhawks show that Brent and I saw in KC ...

In early December, my co-author John and I submitted the final (well, goes-to-copy editing) version of our little book on Minnesota's 1933 mortgage foreclosure moratorium and the resulting 1934 Supreme Court decision that upheld this moratorium — and subsequently weakened the US Constitution's Contract Clause. [This is just a tease to keep you waiting for the pre-order e-mail.] Then just a few weeks later — after my last all-nighter ever? — I submitted the final post-copy edit changes to the granddaddy of them all, my forthcoming book on the history of US population debates. Of course this task should not have been very time consuming, but, needless to say for those who know me well, I had way more changes than I should have. Then during the next ten days my incredibly kindhearted copy editor and I went back and forth until we finally got the book ready to go to "page proofs" — which, in this day and age, is essentially the point at which the press charges you for changes. (By the way, the book still won't exist in paper and glue until the fall.) Actually, I should write an entire entry on the experience of having a copy editor. In some ways copy editors are like therapists ... they see intimate nooks and crannies of one's life — in my case, footnotes dating back to my dissertation that no human being had ever read.

Jeanine and I spent DC in Christmas. No need to write much here. It was wonderful to see all of our families, Mom and I even enjoyed the very rare mother-son movie and musuem visit, and Owen and Milo continue to be the smartest nephews in the world. But just for the record, we are suing these folks because they made a movie about us without compensation:



We're back in Salt Lake. Jeanine had an action-packed New Year's, culminating by standing outside a police station at 2 a.m. in the distant suburbs of Paris unable to hail a cab. On New Year's eve I got in my first XC ski of the year and my first race — at the same time, due to Utah's horrible snow drought. (I don't advise this race strategy; I was slower than molasses and getting slower). Mercifully I have one more week in Salt Lake before my semester starts. Unmercifully, Jeanine's already has.

On the Web

Jeanine, Cedar, and I have an ongoing discussion about the relative virtues of paper and the internet. Although I spend a lot of time online and relish its revolutionary aspects as much as the next guy—I now have a blog, and I couldn't live without gchat, to say nothing of fasterskier.com or streaming cross country skiing races—I tend to argue the Luddites' position most of the time: the internet is full of cranks; it's ruined all of our attention spans and contributed to the crisis in reading and writing skills on campus (the Atlantic Monthly reported that even professors now admit to having trouble finishing whole books); it's exacerbated the trend of Americans seeking solace only in their particular political communities, which has further polarized our politics; and it's led people to expect good writing and content for free and thus put quality newspapers and magazines on life support. But actually, my main beef against the online, as Janine's mom (not Jeanine's mom) calls it, is strictly personal: I find reading paper much more relaxing than reading online, especially when the latter involves cluttered screens with lots of ads, etc., which my brain equates with watching an action movie. Yes, I know the Ipad and Kindle complicate this debate, but books still smell better and magazines are still easier to read in bed.

So all this said, last night, grumpy that I got some sort of ankle bone bruise racing hard last weekend, and therefore deprived of the exercise-induced chemicals to which my body is addicted, and not especially thrilled with the prospect of editing my Minnesota-in-the-1930s book, grading, or writing more letters of recommendation, I yielded to an old-fashioned start-clicking-and-see-where-it-takes-you session. After brushing up on Lithuania's and China's prospects for the upcoming world cup (at least the Americans can still beat the Chinese at XC), I began with Cedar's blog: check it out whenever you want interesting discussion about science, the history of science, and teaching science. And for that matter, turn to Rachel's blog for everything education and education policy. Cedar's always plugging givemesomethingtoread, which led me to a great article on the personalities of octopuses. But of course, inevitably, the economic historian in me came out, and before long I was reading about one of the mother of all questions facing our democracy: the incredible growth in inequality in the United States since the 1970s. We are all swimming in data on this question (liberals suffer sometimes from actually believing in and seeking out data), but I found an amazing primer by a sociologist on the economics of the "1 percent" we are hearing so much about. This article also reviews the amazing data on Americans asked to guess the wealth distribution in the United States—and to propose their ideal wealth distribution (the latter findings must give conservative activists the cold sweats). Somehow this article led to me a column by Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post that contains a wonderful few sentences. President Obama could do a lot worse than restating these words by Robinson over and over during 2012:

"We’re not characters in one of those lumbering, interminable, nonsensical Ayn Rand novels. We believe in individual initiative and the free market, but we also believe that nationhood necessarily involves a commitment to our fellow citizens, an acknowledgment that we’re engaged in a common enterprise. We believe that opportunity should be more than just an empty word."

Yet Robinson also makes a mistake with which I'm obsessed. He offers two main reasons for why we should reduce inequality: 1) the system is rigged in favor of the wealthy, who have too much power; and 2) "the real issue is what kind of nation we want to be." Yup. But exhortations about fairness and the American Dream only go so far when 90 percent plus consider themselves middle class and don't want taxes on the rich because of the "lottery effect"—they assume that one day they will reap a windfall. Missing from Robinson's analysis is a simple, Keynesian-inspired, and accurate point that Democrats have completely abandoned in the past generation: because the lower and middle classes spends a higher percentage of their income than the upper classes, reduced inequality is good for all of us, and the rich will almost make back in higher profits what they give up from higher taxes. It's about the macroeconomy, stupid, not fairness. People shop. For God's sake, would someone important on K street please get this simple idea through his or her thick skull?

By way of an Oktoberfest update, the powers that be replied to my complaints. They wrote (with my comments in brackets):

I regret that we cannot offer refunds for the event. I would like to comment that the service was quite good from the waitresses, and did not begin to expand their services until it became clear they were being badgered by our guests to serve them, with or without VIP wristbands. [Um, my friends and I don't badger. Not my fault.] We will correct this for next year, allowing waitress service only within a dedicated VIP section. As far as your other concerns, we decided against a strictly VIP section so that a community feeling would be had by all. Hence no designated area. [1) If we wanted community with the masses, we would not have signed up for VIP tickets. 2) The webpage clearly promised us a "VIP tent." This last bit is grounds for a lawsuit ...] I will admit, the bathroom situation was not being handled correctly by out volunteers. However, this was never pointed out to me at the event or i would have handled it directly then. As for a $17 refund, the mugs alone cost the event nearly $10 each. [Might want to seek out a new glass vendor, dude.] We have donated all of our remaining proceeds from the event to charity, and are currently not giving refunds. I'm sorry for the inconvenience. Thank you.

Losing $5 a Second

Ok I've had it with the new running boom. Sure, I'm part of it, but I wish everyone else would just go home and watch TV. Today at the annual Homecoming 5K race (one of the bigger races here in Manhattan), I shaved 40 seconds off my 5K PR, and broke 18 minutes for the first time — my watch measured the course a tad shorter than 3.1 miles, but pretty darn close at 3.07 — but finished a spot lower in the non-student category than last year. This year I came in 4th, a mere 5 seconds out of the money ($25 for third place). Argh. The Olympian I mentioned in my last entry ran and didn't even win! I mean c'mon, this is getting ridiculous. Sam says I'm not allowed to use "double ifs," but if the Olympian sticks to the Diamond League professional races in Europe, and I manage to catch the guy in front of me (not that I knew who in front of me was non-student; a hundred frat guys sprint as fast as they can at the beginning of this race, so it's never possible to know where you stand) then I win second place and $50. I disagree with Sam on this one. This is a legitimate use of the double if.

But even if losing money to Olympians makes me a little grumpy, it was a great day. (What say you legions of blog followers: should Olympians run in local races?) The temperature was 50 degrees (just about optimal according to the research), and the course was undoubtedly fast (mostly downhill after the first uphill mile to the rec center). Sam, Rob, and Brent all had good races, too — Sam in particular threw down the hammer out of nowhere — and Melinda's, in her words, was "respectable given the preceding 4-week sedentary stint in the grant-writing chair" — and then afterwards we snuck in a fantastic beer at Houlihan's before lunch at Radina's with all racers and their kids. New additions to my list of fun activities: a Guinness directly after a morning race, and hanging out at a bar with Nate (Aaron and Tara's central-casting-cute 2-year-old).

Remember everyone, running makes you fat and injured and decreases life expectancy.

Perspective ...

Manhattan's Oktoberfest 2.0 sucked. (More proof that Jeanine is almost always right). The idea of VIP status (which cost us all an extra $20 on top of an already outrageous $30 base charge, considering food was extra) was either truly spurious or merely poorly executed, but either way, we got robbed blind and received nothing for our $20 other than a real glass mug as opposed to a plastic one. I expected a separate VIP area (perhaps with pretzels on the tables), but in fact no such area existed, which was all the worse because we were subjected to an excessively annoying, loud, and hyperpatriotic MC who would not shut up. The location on the highway paled in comparison to City Park. The table service promised may have existed briefly at the beginning but quickly evaporated. Nobody checked VIP status at the nicer bathrooms, which meant that anyone could use them. Basically, I ended up paying $25 per liter, received little extra, and wish I had listened to Brent's initial concerns and followed through on an idea I had soon after we all paid for our tickets: if the ten of us or so had pooled our money, we could have thrown ourselves a lovely catered party complete with the exotic keg of our choice.


At the same time, I realize that Oktoberfest does not actually mattter (and that any night drinking beer with Jeanine and my friends is a good night). Last night's KSU Lou Douglas Lecture — a tiny and underfunded lecture series at KSU that addresses important topics like international development, poverty, and women's rights and tries to balance the heavy-hitting, right-leaning, and presidentially attended Landon Lecture Series — was on domestic minor sex trafficking in the U.S. The talk, while excellent, could not have been more depressing. Apparently over a million minors in the U.S. are involved in the illicit sex trade in some form (the vast majority against their will). I knew many homeless youth were victims of sex crimes, of course, but I had no idea of the extent of the problem in the U.S. I guess I associated sex trafficking with desperately poor countries like Moldova ever since I read a great New Yorker article on the topic. In theory, at least, combating this problem should unite feminists and social conservatives, so how about a $50 tax per millionaire to fund street outreach programs and shelters? What politician could oppose that? More on tax policy to come ...

Jeanine's Annual Visit ... and Running With Olympians

Jeanine's been here for the past week on what my friends call "her annual visit." When in Manhattan, we prefer lunch here:

The place has only gotten better because the lines are down from about 2 hours when it opened to only about 15 minutes today (zero at the bar). We walked there, despite the fact that our Olive Garden is in Manhattan's horrendous new "downtown redevelopment" area — which, when I moved here, I stupidly thought meant a combination of shops, restaurants and condos that at least suggested a downtown (within certain corporate constraints) but in fact meant a bunch of suburban-style big boxes including Petco. I wonder what percantage of Olive Garden patrons walk to their meal?

Now a few words from Jeanine: Anyway, today's culinary exerience was quite different than the one our wonderful friends Aaron and Tara treated us to last night. They took us to the RowHouse in Topeka, KS. I'm quite sure the row of adorable houses that included the restaurant are the only ones of their kind left in Topeka. We estimated that ~5 people live in the houses, which is roughly 0.0004% of the 125,000 inhabitants of the capitol city. However, the restaurant was fantastic, serving local ingredients and allowing you to sample each of the 3 entrees on the menu as part of a prix fixe. To top it off, they pour a very generous port. When in Topeka, you know where to go. Hopefully the economy will have recovered and the lawyer who served us will be making enough lawyering not to moonlight.

Other highlights during the week included Canadian Thanksgiving at Bonnie and Jim's (do they even celebrate this holiday on Corner Gas?), fantastic home-smoked ribs and bone marrow brushetta at Sam's, visting Bonnie and Jim's horses (well ok Bonnie's; Jim was out of town and she couldn't convince his horse to come back to the stables with her), and a great trail run at the Konza Prairie.

Last weekend I set a 5K PR. By more than 3 minutes. Of course, that second part might tell you that something was amiss (as would my time of 15:32). My watch measured the course at 2.58 miles, or more than a full half mile short. If I wrote awhile ago that I like small-town racing because I can actually win sometimes, I don't like the fact that some races can't even manage to measure a proper course with a Garmin. I mean c'mon, even Google Maps would come a lot closer than that. But the good news is that I was on track for a real PR, and indeed I had more in the tank — I didn't even get to sprint to the finish because it sort of sprang up on me. I managed a 3rd-place plaque ... which, I think it's safe to say, would have been higher if a bona fide Olympian had not decided to run the race (really, this guy, a KSU grad, ran the 800 meters for the USA at the 2008 games; we're not talking Olympic trials here).

Off to the Little Apple's Oktoberfest.

Jeanine's First Half Marathon

Today Jeanine ran her first half marathon ever ... in Park City ... in these conditions: 

In a nutshell, she crushed it, snow be-damned. Congrats J! When asked to guest blog about it, she said: "All I would write is — 'it was cold.'" Congrats as well to Kristin, Sarah, Sheila, Monica, and Monisha. Next year — Vegas half.