One morning Phil and his friend Bear were playing on the porch. Phil tried to look down at the yard, but he couldn't see anything over the porch fence except for a few really tall blackberry bushes.

"Bear," Phil said, "I want to know what's down there! If I throw you over the porch fence, will you explore the yard and then come back and tell me about it?"

"I guess so," said Bear thoughtfully. "Good!" said Phil. He grabbed Bear and threw him off of the porch.

A second later, there was a strange howling sound from below. "I hope Bear is OK," thought Phil.

Phil waited and waited for Bear to return. Finally, at the end of the afternoon, Bear appeared. His fur had caught on the thorns of a blackberry bush, and the rapidly growing bush had lifted him up to the porch.

Phil pulled Bear out of the bush and onto the porch. "How was your day, Bear?" he asked.

"Oh, it was bearable," said Bear. "There are lots of blackberry bushes down there, and their thorns are very sharp. But the berries are tasty, and I got a nice view of the neighborhood as I was being lifted up to the porch. Also, I found an old toy of yours," he added, holding up a fire truck that hadn't been seen in weeks.

"Wow -- that sounds fun!" Phil exclaimed. "Tomorrow you should throw me down into the yard!"

Bear did not think this was a good idea, but Phil had made up his mind. The next morning, Bear launched him over the fence just as he had requested.

Phil landed on an especially thorny bush. "Oooowwww!" he howled. "That hurt!"

As Phil looked around, he saw several toys that had been missing for some time. There was a soccer ball, a xylophone, a giraffe, and many other colorful objects. He tried to grab them, but they were all out of reach -- he was stuck in the bush! There was nothing he could do but wait for the bush to lift him back up to the porch.

"At least there are plenty of berries on this bush for me to eat," Phil thought. But whenever he tried to pick a berry, he was pricked by a thorn.

Then it began to rain, and Phil became wet and cold. The rain was so thick that, even as he was lifted into the air, he couldn't see anything beyond his own yard.

By the end of the afternoon, Phil's bush had grown high enough for Bear to pull him onto the porch.

"How was your day?" asked Bear. "It was miserable!" Phil sputtered. "I'm cold and wet and hungry, and I have scratches all over my body!"

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Bear. "Tomorrow we can just play on the porch as we usually do," he added wisely.

"No!" said Phil. "We must go back to the yard! All of my missing toys are down there! We have to rescue them!"

Bear did not think this was a good idea, but Phil had made up his mind. The next morning, Phil threw Bear over the fence. Then he climbed onto the fence and jumped off.

He landed on top of something large and furry. "Oooowwww!" howled the something. It was Bear.

"Sorry, Bear," said Phil. "Was your landing OK?" "It was bearable," said Bear.

Phil and Bear got up from the ground and started collecting Phil's toys. Before long they had found an airplane, a jack-in-the-box, a puzzle, and many other colorful objects. They put each toy in a large bag they had brought with them. Then they climbed onto a bush that would lift them back up to the porch.

Phil was hungry, so Bear picked some berries from their bush for them to eat. "Are the thorns hurting you?" asked Phil. "They're bearable," said Bear with a sigh.

Soon after they ate the berries, it began to rain. Phil crawled into the bag of toys to stay warm and dry. Bear held onto the bag so that it didn't fall out of the bush.

"How's the rain out there?" Phil asked from inside the bag. Bear was silent for a moment. "It's bearable," he said finally.

By the end of the afternoon, the bush had lifted Phil and Bear up to the porch. Phil's mother was there waiting for them.

"I've been worried about you two!" she said as she pulled them out of the bush. "Did you have a good day?"

"It was bearable," Phil said cheerfully. "The blackberry bushes gave us some scratches, but we got all of my toys back! Right, Bear?"

Bear nodded slowly. "Yes, it was bearable," he said in a soft, weary voice. "Barely."

Here's the report I submitted for the official race archives:

June 9: Warren Cornwall, Greg Crowther, and Will Kemper gathered at the Franklin High School track on an evening where local wind gusts reached 35-45 mph. Cornwall nonetheless logged 14,940 meters, a one-lap improvement over his 2007 tally of 14,540m, whereas Kemper (14,240m) failed to match last year's mark (14,840m) despite maintaining an impressively high heart rate above 170 bpm for the entire hour. Crowther ran alongside the others, saving his energy for a more serious attempt later in the month. The black cherry soda was likewise held in reserve.

June 28: Crowther and Kemper returned to the Franklin track on a warm but calm Seattle morning while Cornwall competed in the Lake Padden Triathlon in Bellingham. Kemper was slowed by a respiratory infection and fell 200m short of his June 9th total. Crowther quickly ascertained that his 2006 performance (18,115m) was out of reach and instead focused on beating his 2001 result (17,360m), which he did -- barely -- by "kicking" at 5:20-per-mile pace for the final 10 minutes. Crowther found the Hansen's Diet Black Cherry Soda purchased by Kemper's wife to his liking, yet he was only able to drain a single 12-ounce can. Kemper, perhaps concentrating on fluid consumption for the sake of his cold, imbibed a full 24 ounces -- possibly a new post-race drinking record among the Seattle runners.

Here is a summary of this year's results by race co-directors Andy Roth and Mike Persick:

Congratulations to all 46 participants who made the tenth annual TVR Classic remarkable. This was far and away the largest group in the event's history. (TVR has averaged about two dozen participants, each of the past four years.) Over 10 years, TVR participants have amassed 2,307 kilometers in distance (~1,434 miles), but notably nearly a quarter of that total (539 kilometers) is from this year's run. At least four blogs now feature TVR . . . but participation seems to remain spurred primarily by word-of-mouth.

TVR 2008 featured not only large numbers of participants, but also top quality performances. Two runners exceeded 17-kilometers, with Greg Crowther (WA) just edging first-time TVR competitor Trevor Palmer (OR) for the men's title. One the women's side, the 2002 champion, Sarah Brooks (WA) returned to the victor's podium. Bob Julian (OR) established a new TVR masters record for men (16,495m).

TVR continues to be a truly international event: This year, Haverford alum Walsh McGuire ran in Taiwan, and Phil Smith, who has a British passport, joined the competition.

On 12 June, Dire Tune (Ethiopia) ran 18,517m, but she failed to send in her results, so TVR officials determined not to count her performance. We also suspect that she neglected to drink black cherry soda afterwards, but we commend her on a fine performance anyhow.

Finally, here's what some other blogs had to say about this event:

runningcardinals08.blogspot.com
backcountryrunners.com

1. Modern biology labs are full of plastic 1.5-mL microcentrifuge tubes commonly known as Eppendorf tubes. Somewhat less ubiquitous are similar but smaller tubes that only hold 0.5 mL. Lots of researchers refer to these as mini-Eppendorfs, 0.5-mL Eppendorfs, or PCR tubes ... but Dr. Chris Damman, who worked in our lab this past January, has come up with a much better term: Eppendwarves!

2. Slate.com, my favorite news website, has spent the last several months dutifully cataloging the "Obamafication" of the English language. For instance, a Baracktogenarian is "an Obama supporter over the age of 20"; an Obamaton is "a mechanical Obama supporter constructed to act as if by its own motivation." Now Slate offers a new Obamaism every day. All of this seems a bit silly to me, and yet I couldn't resist submitting my own Obamaism, which was published today:

Nirbama (ner-BAH-muh). n. A state of bliss and peace gained by breaking the cycle of reincarnation of Bushes and Clintons running for president. Example: After seeing the political soul of George H.W. Bush reappear in the form of his son George and that of Bill Clinton re-emerge as his wife Hillary, many voters experienced feelings of Nirbama when Barack Obama won the nomination.

A. The suspended 4th, hands down.

This chord is kind of a guilty pleasure -- one that may identifiy me as being overly sentimental and not in possession of the most sophisticated taste. So be it. With a CD collection dominated by artists like Billy Joel and Carole King, it's not as though I'm fooling lots of people anyway.

The suspended 4th is ubiquitous in popular music as well as less popular music. As an example of the latter, Alex Stemm-Wolf has written a beautiful song (from the album Lisa Colorado) called New Mall which features suspended 4ths at the end of almost every line (coinciding with the words that rhyme with "mall," among others). Just listen to that blend of piano and vocals -- how it keeps you hanging on, waiting for the chord to resolve into its major-chord cousin....

The naughty nautical motif. I've noted previously that my trail running form resembles that of a drunken sailor. For thematic consistency, I've also started cursing like a sailor when trouble arises on the trail. Today there were ample opportunities for foul language: in addition to my 41-minute detour, I fell five times.

Family rivalry. My son is normally the champ of the family when it comes to the daily accumulation of dirt and bruises. Today I easily defeated him in those categories, yet my five falls were probably an order of magnitude shy of his daily trip index.

Flora's revenge. Our back yard is overrun by pricker bushes (blackberries, specifically), which we mostly ignore. However, the aforementioned wrong turn took me down a very narrow trail that, wouldn't you know it, was overgrown with pricker bushes (blackberries? nettles?), which gave my legs a bunch of small but itchy cuts. It was as if their little thorns were taunting me: "You can run, but you can't hide..."

I suppose they're right, but, to me, doing yardwork is even more unnatural than trail running.

We're thinking of selling a "Runners for Obama" t-shirt featuring this design or something similar. The cartoon would be silk-screened onto a white or light-colored "technical-fiber" shirt with short sleeves. The price would likely cover the cost of materials and shipping plus an additional fee to be donated to the Obama campaign.

At this point, a couple of questions are on our minds:

(1) Would runners who support Obama (or who just like the cartoon) buy this shirt?

(2) Would large numbers of non-runners (or McCain supporters) be upset by this shirt?

Regarding #2, I'm confident that any reasonable person who understands the shirt would find it harmless, if not downright funny. Nevertheless, if the shirt caused more resentment among people who don't get the joke than laughter among people who do, it wouldn't be serving its purpose.

Your comments are appreciated. Thanks in advance!

The error in pedagogy that governs the essay is built on the sanctity of the thesis statement and the insistence that formula will produce quality writing. Teachers ask students to find a thesis statement first and to organize the content of their writing around that thesis statement. Most students encounter this set of rules in the general category of the five-paragraph essay, a form that students know exactly how to produce by the time they leave middle school.

I once was one of those students. Like many others, I mastered the five-paragraph essay in middle school. So why did my peers and I spend most of high school writing more and more essays in this same general format? Weren't we ready for some new challenges? Didn't we deserve a bit more artistic freedom?

Alec suggests that writing is taught this way in part because it makes grading easy. "The assessment of most thesis-first writing assignments," he says, "is accomplished by checking the introduction for a three-part thesis statement, counting the number of examples, checking for topic sentences, and noting the repetition of the three-part thesis statement in the concluding paragraph." But if the assignments don't serve a useful pedagogical purpose, why bother?

There are appealing and effective alternatives to the thesis-centric mindset. At a summer camp I attended when I was 13, I penned many dissimilar types of essays: a personal narrative, a compare-and-contrast piece, an extended definition of a commonly misunderstood word, a satire, a movie review, and so on. I received thoughtful feedback that focused on important rhetorical issues, such as my relationship to my audience, rather than my ability to adhere to a rigid template. I learned lessons that have stayed with me to this day, some obvious in retrospect (don't satirize Miami Vice unless you've actually seen it) and others less so (think of a review not as a list of likes and dislikes, but as an evaluation of the creative choices made by the artists).

By the time I finished high school, however, I was so immersed in the "support a single overarching thesis with a slew of examples" mode of writing that I found it awkward to do anything else. Even worse, this thesis-driven writing style started to affect my reading style. I approached each piece of literature with the goal of discovering its "one true meaning," and I tended to ignore aspects that couldn't be packaged into a tidy, concise interpretation. Once I reached college, my English 101 professor had to spend an entire semester convincing me that sometimes authors meant to be ambiguous and that I should reflect upon this ambiguity rather than ignoring it.

Alec concludes:

For students to learn the art of writing, certain conditions must be met within the classroom. Teachers must be ready to respond to the writing their students produce. To do this, teachers must be willing to write themselves, to risk the making of meaning with their writing, to provide a probing response to the writing their students produce, to engage student writing in a conversational manner, and to qualify -- not quantify -- the work they receive from students. The students themselves must be allowed to begin with a question on a topic or book, to seek its answer, to write themselves into a position of strength, to weigh and question the meanings they find in books, and to begin a piece of writing without knowing where it will end.

I hope that teachers around the world -- including those at my old high school, who are outstanding in many respects -- will take these words to heart.

Yesterday he took his hydrophilicity to a new level. He went to the aquarium for the first time.

There were lots of attractions there: jellyfish, whales, coral reefs, and many more. But I think Phil liked the water best of all.

Thanks to his chaperone, Sally, for this photo.

May 10th: Ran "Seattle's Favorite Loop" (counterclockwise) at Tiger Mountain in 2:12 -- a disappointing time, since last year I did the same loop in 2:20 and kept going for two more loops. Even worse, I felt quite spent after the quad-crushing descent from West Tiger peak #3.

May 17th: Won the Cougar Mountain 5-Miler, as mentioned previously. It's hard to say what the time (31:19) means, but I was pretty smooth on most of the trails and held my own on the downhills. That's what the runner-up told me afterward, anyway. He turned out to have the surprisingly apt name of Pantilat ("pant-a-lot"), which among mountain/trail runners must be an appellation high point. (Get it? Appalachian high point?)

May 24th: Ran the standard SRC Cougar Mountain loop twice with Uli, with a 13-minute break in between. The times were decent: 1:52:44 and 1:53:43, respectively. Also uplifting was the fact that I dropped Uli on the second loop. (Sorry, Uli! A more gracious training partner wouldn't mention that. The temporary illusion of superiority was wonderful, though.)

May 28th: Ran up Mount Si (from the water spout near the parking area up to the rocky clearing at about the 4-mile mark -- NOT all the way to the stone bench or Haystack) and back down. My ascent time was 41:24, much slower than last year's best of 40:11; the descent of 28:15 was a huge improvement over my previous best of 30:54 but trashed my quads just as thoroughly as always. So it was kind of a bad news / good news / bad news workout.

May 31st: Did a modified "Twelve Peaks" run (roughly 33 miles) at Tiger Mountain with Susannah Beck and Brian Morrison. Not a time trial, just a fun, challenging run in good company. Quads felt OK. Brian zoomed away from me on the trickier descents, but, unlike some people, he's too nice to brag about it on his blog, so I'll just give him credit for it here.

This coming weekend I will take a break from the technical trail stuff in favor of the Fremont 5K.

Having nothing better to do with my copious free time, I decided to enter. But it was hard to figure how where to begin. How exactly does one sum up a school of 43,000 students, 28,000 faculty and staff, and over 150,000 living alumni? I'm used to writing songs about much narrower topics, like my mother and my favorite metabolic pathway.

I eventually decided that, whatever the message of this song might be, it had to be delivered forcefully, confidently, and succinctly. In other words, the chorus of the song should be a call to arms -- a command of some sort directed at the school's personnel and supporters. Something like "Kill Wazzu!", except not specific to sports and not conveying hostility toward another school. Something bold, yet wholesome.

I sat down with a piece of paper and successfully generated a bunch of lame ideas. "Study hard"? "Bark if you're a Husky"? "Make new friends but keep the old; some are purple and the others gold"? Ick, ick, and ick.

Still, focusing on the school colors seemed like a step in the right direction. How about ... "Wear purple!"? It sounds kind of audacious without actually being offensive, and it might help the University sell more of its officially licensed apparel. Yes -- I had a winner! Maybe not an actual contest winner, but a hook around which I could build a set of lyrics, at least. I added a marvelous line about wearing one's heart on one's sleeve, sprinkled in some standard imagery (cheering crowds, raised glasses), and -- voila! -- I had an instant song.

Just add music.

The rest of its appeal stems from its quality and variety. The diversity of recipes is perhaps unsurprising, but there is also an impressive range of elite athletes represented: half-milers and marathoners, Americans and foreigners, rising stars and legends of yesteryear. And you'll feel a bit closer to these champions after reading their contributions. The soups -- from the quiet purposefulness of Bob Kempainen's Corn Chowder to the relentless amiability of Amby Burfoot's Pumpkin Peanut Butter Soup -- are especially revealing.

If a second edition of the book is published someday, perhaps a token ultramarathoner or two could be included. I'm thinking specifically of the people who participate in events lasting 24 hours or longer. These athletes consume "real food" during competition in addition to gels and sports drinks, so it would be interesting to see some of the recipes that keep them well-fueled all night long.

Maybe they've even found some foods that facilitate juggling in the dark.

It all starts with my sister's birthday on Cinco de Mayo. Then come Mother's Day, my birthday, my mom's birthday, and my parents' anniversary. We make lots of phone calls during this time, most of which conclude with, "OK, talk to you again soon...."

Because these occasions arrive in such rapid succession, I don't always give each one the full attention it deserves. Last year, for example, I dutifully called my mom on Mother's Day but neglected to do anything for my wife.

I invoked the classic defense of insensitive husbands everywhere: "Well, you're not MY mother..." But I probably should have known that seven-month-old Phil would need some help in procuring a present.

This year I did somewhat better: I bought my wife The Runner's Cookbook. To my credit, I didn't follow the gift-giving with a declaration of my hunger and a request that she start using the book immediately; on the contrary, I let her pick out some recipes that I would make. First up in the queue: Sloppy Joes and Baked Sweet Potato Fries, as contributed by Carrie Messner Vickers.

As for my birthday, I celebrated with a victory at the Cougar Mountain 5-Mile Trail Race and, later, dinner at the Old Country Buffet. My wife was surprised that I didn't choose a fancier restaurant -- you know, one with waiters and cloth napkins and such. But, as a picky eater, I'm tired of trying to tweak standard entrees to suit my tastes, like Meg Ryan's character in When Harry Met Sally. I'd much rather walk up to a spread of food, find what I want, and grab it!

For many others, though, that situation would essentially be Hell on Earth. Based on my reading of a few fellow ultramarathoners' blogs, here's how they might spend their ideal day of training....

Matt Hart: a few hours of running followed by a few hours of mountain biking, a few hours of skiing, and then perhaps a few hours of kayaking. With a few dozen Clif Shots for sustenance.

Andy Jones-Wilkins: a long run on the Western States course, accompanied by chatty Oregonians. (Has anyone else noticed that 10 of his last 12 posts have mentioned Western States? The man is truly obsessed!)

Anton Krupicka: 30 miles in the morning, at altitude, with lots of climbing, accompanied by Kyle Skaggs (about the only guy who can keep up right now). A quart of ice cream for lunch. And then another mountainous 30-miler in the afternoon.

Brian Morrison: a long run on Chuckanut Mountain followed by several hours of isometric upright posture exercises -- i.e., standing around -- at a Pearl Jam concert.

If anyone else out there wants to describe his/her own unique formula for achieving a "runner's high," please go ahead!

I'm primarily a road guy not just because of my "drunken sailor" biomechanics on the trails, but also because I'm one of those people who has to time everything. For a given workout or race, I like to know my mile splits, how they stack up against my (and my competitors') previous times, and on and on.

Getting this level of quantitative feedback is harder when running on trails of variable terrain and uncertain distance. But I'm here to say that, with enough research and planning, a trail run can be nearly as regimented and stressful as an equivalent road workout.

(Some would say that I should just loosen up. But if I weren't obsessed with split times I wouldn't be me.)

This week I decided to do the Seattle Running Company's standard 14-mile loop at Cougar Mountain. But how would I judge the quality of the workout? To what would I compare my time?

Fortunately for me, I'm not the only one who keeps careful training records. Uli Steidl's online training logs (2005-2008) list over 20 visits to the Cougar loop, with times ranging from 1:43:38 to 2:16. Even better, he recorded splits for a couple of his fastest runs: 0:12 to Clay Pit Road, 0:31-0:32 to Mine Shaft Trail, 0:42 to the start of the Wilderness loop, 1:04 to the end of the Wilderness loop, and 1:23-1:24 to DeLeo Wall Trail.

So I was off to test myself against Uli (or, to be completely fair, against Uli running at some unknown fraction of his capacity). I matched his splits to the start of Wilderness and then lost about a minute to him on each of the last three sections. I finished in 1:46:42, which seemed respectable.

Perhaps next week I'll see how close I can get to Uli's best two-loop time.

It has been argued that this decision is silly because the Indiana law targets a type of voting fraud that, as far as we know, is attempted by about one person every 100 years or so. Personally, I'm sympathetic to the justices' reasoning. As the father of a creatively destructive toddler, I'm an occasional witness to acts that, while extremely unusual, must be actively discouraged.

Today's example came at breakfast. Before I knew what had happened, I heard myself saying, "Phil! Do NOT drive your race car through the oatmeal!"

Until today, I never would have suspected the need for a ban on the commingling of high-performance automobiles and oat-based cereals. But apparently there is one.