My Track Record

When I was younger I kept a notebook of observations from wedding ceremonies and receptions. My ostensible objective was to develop a list of DOs and DON'Ts to keep in mind at my own (hypothetical, presumably far-off) wedding. In conducting this exercise I became quite opinionated regarding others' decisions. Why were cranky infants allowed to scream their way through entire ceremonies? Why were nonreligious couples made to feel as though they were marrying God rather than each other? And why, out of all the danceable songs in the world, was "I Will Survive" played at receptions? Couldn't anyone find another tune that, in addition to having a good beat, is not about an abusive relationship?

I'm pleased to report that I found little to criticize at my sister's wedding last weekend. I didn't stay late enough to find out whether "I Will Survive" was played, but I did enjoy the live rendition of "La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin" ("The Girl with the Flaxen Hair"), a nod to the groom's French heritage, as well as Gershwin's "Summertime," an interesting recessional choice featuring a cool, jazzy harp part. Later on, the groom entertained us at the piano with variations on a theme by Mozart ("Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star").

The traditional marital vows were used -- the ones that conclude, "for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live." I agree with my sister that it's hard to improve upon these simple, powerful lines.

A number of toasts were offered. My father recited a "talking blues" that incorporated many favorite family sayings, including "This too shall pass" (from his mother), "When it comes to parenting, a bit of brutality is justified now and then" (from his father), "The opposite may be equally true" (from a former boyfriend of his sister), and "Be truthful, but don't overdo it" (premarital advice from him to me). The groom's three siblings delivered an amusing expose of their brother's supposed life as a secret agent (code-named "Goldfingers" in reference to his keyboard skills). They pointed out that his current job with Merrill Lynch is hardly a convincing cover for his covert activities: "Why should we believe that a pianist has been put in charge of millions of dollars' worth of obscure South American financial commodities?"

There were five lengthy toasts in all, so I felt no need to chime in with one of my own. If I had said something, it might have come out like this:

I knew Lauren was getting serious about Fred when, in the summer of 2005, she called to ask me for advice about him. Not relationship advice, exactly, but running advice. Fred had decided to run the New York City Marathon that fall but was training for it in an extremely casual manner. Lauren was worried that, if he put forth a heroic race-day effort without adequate preparation, he might permanently disable himself.

Clearly it was time for Wise Old Big Brother to step in and teach this naive suitor a thing or two. A marathon, like a serious romantic relationship, requires discipline and commitment. Fred couldn't just "wing it"; he needed a long-term plan. I provided such a plan -- a sensible regimen including a steady, gradual buildup in intensity.

Fred graciously thanked me for the tips, and in the months that followed, he proceeded to ignore them completely. He ran about once a week. On race day, though, he surprised us all by finishing in a respectable time of 3 hours and 49 minutes. The following year, he again signed up for the marathon and again disregarded my carefully constructed training program, continuing to run about once a week. He improved his time to 3 hours and 35 minutes.

In summary, I can say two things about Fred. First, he has willfully and repeatedly ignored my thoughtful advice. Second, this has not caused any trouble whatsoever for him or Lauren. I can only conclude that he knows what he's doing, or else is extremely lucky. Either way, he and my sister will be happy together.

Fred and Lauren, no training program could prepare you fully for the long journey ahead. Nevertheless, your many talents and your devotion to each other will serve you well. Rather than offering further unwanted and unnecessary advice, let me just say that I look forward to tracking your progress online and in person. Bon Voyage!

* * * * *

Here are some post-ceremony photos taken by family friend Kathy Perkins: Lauren with our dad; Lauren and Fred with the matron of honor, maid of honor, and best men; and Phil with Jane, his great grandmother.

Posted by crowther at 7:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Today I unexpectedly received the following letter via campus mail:

Craig Crowther
Research Scientist 3
Box 357185

Re: Merit Increase

Your current salary when compared to the market minimum was found to be below the minimum; therefore your new full-time salary, effective September 1, 2007, will be $X,XXX per month, to bring you up to the minimum level.

Congratulations and thank you for your outstanding contributions to the Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

My reactions, at the risk of sounding severely ungrateful:

(1) Assurances that you're a valued member of the department are less convincing if they don't know your name.

(2) If my contributions are indeed "outstanding," why am I being compensated at the "minimum level"? What would my pay be if my work were merely great?

(3) In what sense is this considered a "Merit Increase"? Does "merit" simply refer to a willingness to continue showing up for work despite low wages?

Posted by crowther at 11:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

While my wife and I were in Holland, little Phil was having a grand old time back in Seattle, as the following photo testifies.

The collaboration pictured here is between Phil and Bella, the older daughter of my wife's friend Sally. I use the word "collaboration" loosely, since one musician appears to be working hard while the other tries to skate by on his good looks.

Anyway, the point of this snapshot is that we were very lucky to have Sally and her family, and also my Seattle siblings-in-law, look after Phil while we were gone. Thanks, you guys.

Posted by crowther at 9:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Ready or Not...

On Thursday, I arrive in Holland to find that our small men's team (with only four members, instead of the usual six) has essentially gotten smaller: Bob Sweeney is suffering from a severe head cold acquired a couple days earlier. Chad Ricklefs, in contrast, is healthy and ready to go, much to everyone's surprise. This is the sixth 100K World Cup for which he has qualified but the first one that he's actually been able to attend. Chad's wife seems incredulous that, at age 40, he's finally participating, and we joke about possible last-minute pitfalls. "Maybe you should just stay in bed until race day," we tell him. "It would be a shame if you tripped on the sidewalk or something and couldn't make it to the starting line."

Perennial top-10 finisher Howard Nippert is also ready for action but admits to having the usual pre-race jitters. "I don't feel like eating or drinking anything, so it must be almost time to run," he says.

I myself am also quite anxious. Of my four previous road 100Ks, three have ended badly. Why should this one be any different? Finally I realize that, while I haven't had much pacing help in the previous 100Ks, I might be able to tuck in behind Howard for a large portion of this one. The thought seems reassuring, so I accept it unquestioningly for the moment just to keep my head from exploding.

The Parade

I'm not the type to criticize parades given in my honor, but the one in Japan two years ago suffered from a complete lack of music. Thankfully, there are no such omissions this year. To kick off the festivities, a mixed chorus accompanied by accordion performs "Take Me Home, Country Roads," a reasonably apt selection. A drum-and-xylophone band follows with "Copacabana," whose connection to the race is less obvious. I eventually decide that the song holds important lessons for us athletes; just as Tony and Rico became overzealous in competing for Lola's affection, with tragic consequences, runners who get carried away in their pursuit of fast times may likewise pay a high price for their impetuosity.

The Course

The challenge before us is to complete ten laps of a 10K loop through the streets of Winschoten and a neighboring town. The loop has numerous turns, which aren't always conducive to fast times, but in this case I find the regular changes of scenery a welcome diversion. Each street looks different thanks to the legions of townspeople who decorate the roads with archways and flagging or watch the race from their yards. Some of them even look us up in the race program so that they can cheer for us by name. "Go, Greg!!!" giggles a group of teenage girls, as if I'm a crush-worthy classmate. "We'll see you later," they add, possibly thinking of the next lap, or possibly thinking, "Shall we pick you up at 7?"

Tired Already?

At about 16K, I sense the first ever-so-faint whispers of fatigue in my quads. I have no choice but to ease up on the pace and hope for a long lag before the whispers turn into screams. Instead of following Howard, who's averaging about 39:40 per 10K, I begin following a pair of French guys who are running about a minute per 10K slower than that.

The next few laps pass fairly quickly and uneventfully. By the fifth lap, the French duo and I are overtaking some of the most overambitious runners, who are already fading. It's still far too early to feel smug about this, however. Past experience suggests that, if I'm going to fall apart irreversibly, it will start to happen between 60K and 80K. However, if I can reach 80K in reasonable condition, I may be able to "kick," or at least avoid further slowdowns, in the final 20K.

My 10K splits for the first five laps have been 40:00, 40:15, 41:00, 40:50, and 41:35. During the sixth lap (41:38), I creep ahead of the French guys for good. My seventh and eighth laps are slow but not horrible (41:49, 43:28). Now, after hours of patiently awaiting my execution, it's time to bust out. With a flurry of self-directed expletives, I hurl myself into the ninth lap, and my per-kilometer splits immediately drop from 4:25 to 4:00. I finally catch up to Chad, whose level of decrepitude appears about average among those I'm passing.

Shortly after completing the ninth lap (in 39:56), my bravado and momentum start to wane. I pass a Hungarian; he passes me back and pulls away. I lurch home with a final-lap split of 42:21 to bring my overall time to an 11th-place 6:52:52, and I collapse under a table on the floor of the Klinker, the building that houses the start/finish area.

Post-race Drama

I'm in too much pain to sit up, too dehydrated to swallow, and too tired to do anything about it other than whine, "I want my wife!" She finds me about 20 minutes later (after initially neglecting to look carefully under all the tables in the building) and helps me get some water and warm clothes.

We eventually reach a pub located along the course. Bob, it seems, has been there for hours after respiratory problems forced him to stop at 52K. "I could run, and I could breathe, but I couldn't do both at the same time," he explains. Still, solid finishes by Howard (6:49; 8th place), me, and Chad (7:01; 17th place) have put our team in a virtual tie for 3rd with France. We head to the awards ceremony wondering who will be called up to the podium, and when the United States is asked to join Russia and Japan onstage, I can't get up there fast enough. We've earned the bronze medal by less than two minutes: 20:43:33 to 20:45:14.

I'm especially pleased for Howard, who has led the US men at this event since 2002 but has gone medal-less during that time due to an inconsistent supporting cast. Based on his experience with the 2000 men's team -- the last one to earn a team medal -- Howard has often said that the view from the podium is much better than the view from the floor. You know what? He's absolutely right.

The American women have much to be proud of as well, placing 4th despite the absence of Anne Lundblad and Nikki Kimball. The final results show that Kami Semick was 9th individually in 7:51, Devon Crosby-Helms 15th in 8:06, Julie Udchachon 16th in 8:14, Connie Gardner 18th in 8:15, and Carolyn Smith 19th in 8:16. In all, six of our nine athletes are bringing home new personal records (PRs). Thanks are due to team managers Lin Gentling and Mike Spinnler, team physician Lion Caldwell, and all of the relatives and friends who helped us achieve these fine performances.

Posted by crowther at 12:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (18)

My 2007 racing season will reach its climax this Saturday at the IAU World Cup 100K, the closest thing there is to a true world championship of ultramarathoning. This year's race will be held in Winschoten, a small town in northeastern Holland that has previously hosted World Cup 100K races in 1995 (when Tom Johnson and Ann Trason set the still-standing American 100K records of 6:30 and 7:00, respectively), 1997, 2000, and 2004. The course is a completely flat 10K road loop that passes through a building known as De Klinker. This apparently is a cultural center of the town, although, based on the name, I prefer to imagine it as a giant prison for runners who fail their drug tests.

As noted previously, my summer training has been lackluster, so I've tried to set realistic individual goals: a top-10 finish with a time under 6 hours and 45 minutes. My track workouts have gotten somewhat better in the last week -- 3x1600m in 4:59 with 400m jogs in between, and 2x3200m in 10:10 with a 600m jog in between -- so I'm feeling a bit more optimistic than I was last month.

Team-wise, it would be great to bring home a bronze medal. However, the start list indicates that France, Italy, Japan, and Russia are all bringing men's teams with credentials superior to ours, so a top-5 finish might be a more reasonable team goal, especially considering that each team's top three finishers contribute to the team time and we'll only have four men in the race. (Patrick Russell, though included in the start list, is an alternate for us and won't be competing.) Interestingly, the same four countries seem to have an edge on our women's team (which will be without the services of Laura Bleakley and Nikki Kimball, despite what the start list says).

Almost-live coverage and/or results are likely to be posted to www.runwinschoten.nl, www.ultraned.org, and/or www.iau.org.tw.

Thank you in advance for your support.

Posted by crowther at 3:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)

My labmate Joe was trying to get his head around the concept of the USA's national 100K team and my status as a member of that team.

"So . . . you're sort of like the guys on the US basketball team?" he asked half-kiddingly.

"Um, yes -- I'm exactly like those guys," I said. "Except that, well, I have a vertical leap of about three inches. And my shorts are a lot shorter than theirs. And I work in a lab as a hobby. And my primary 'ride' is a used bicycle. And . . ."

"OK, I get the idea," he said. "But if you were part of the national hoops team, which player would you be? Who's your twin?"

"Geez, well, uh . . . Even within the tiny community of ultramarathoners, I'm not really a superstar, so I wouldn't be someone like Kobe Bryant or Lebron James. I don't know -- maybe some point guard who isn't that flashy but gets the job done?"

"You mean like Chris Paul or Kirk Hinrich?" he asked helpfully.

"Um, sure," I said, unsure of who they were. "But, you know, on second thought, I probably wouldn't be a point guard. As elite ultramarathoners go, I'm actually kind of tall and heavy. Not like a center, but maybe a power forward. Or a really big guard."

"How about Mike Miller?" he offered. He showed me some online information about Miller: 6'8", 218 pounds, 27 years old. A pure shooter with good three-point range. Not a bad athlete to claim as a doppelganger.

"His age is about right," I noted approvingly, "since I'm not especially young or old among 100K competitors. Mike and I both probably have a few peak years ahead of us before our talents start to wane. I guess I should call Mike up and tell him about the parallel lives we're leading."

Before I could get Mike on the line, though, I started to have second thoughts about my analogy. The US men's basketball team is a dominant, intimidating force in international competition. The US men's 100K team? Not so much. The US basketball team is like the 100K roster of Russia (1st at the 2006 IAU World Cup), France (2nd in 2005 and 2006), Japan (1st in 2005, 2nd in 2004), or Italy (1st in 2003 and 2004). The basketball equivalent of the US 100K team would be, say, Lithuania or Greece -- a good, solid squad, but not much of a gold-medal threat.

So I guess I have no idea who my basketball twin is after all. Anyone know of any Lithuanian hoopsters?

Posted by crowther at 12:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)