Why Ultrarunning is Banned from Standardized Tests

In meandering around the net, via Boing Boing--always a great read--we see a list of some 50 words that the New York City Department of Education wants to avoid on standardized tests.

The criteria for exclusion?  If "the topic is controversial among the adult population and might not be acceptable in a state-mandated testing situation; the topic has been overused in standardized tests or textbooks and is thus overly familiar and/or boring to students; the topic appears biased against (or toward) some group of people."

I have bolded the reasons that the sport of Ultrarunning will never be on a standardized test in the Big Apple: 

Abuse (physical, sexual, emotional, or psychological), Alcohol (beer and liquor), tobacco, or drugs, Birthday celebrations (and birthdays), Bodily functions, Cancer (and other diseases), Catastrophes/disasters (tsunamis and hurricanes), Celebrities, Children dealing with serious issues, Cigarettes (and other smoking paraphernalia), Computers in the home (acceptable in a school or library setting), Crime, Death and disease, Divorce, Evolution, Expensive gifts, vacations, and prizes, Gambling involving money, Halloween, Homelessness, Homes with swimming pools, Hunting, Junk food, In-depth discussions of sports that require prior knowledge, Loss of employment, Nuclear weapons, Occult topics (i.e. fortune-telling), Parapsychology, Politics, Pornography, Poverty, Rap Music, Religion, Religious holidays and festivals (including but not limited to Christmas, Yom Kippur, and Ramadan), Rock-and-Roll music, Running away, Sex, Slavery, Terrorism, Television and video games (excessive use), Traumatic material (including material that may be particularly upsetting such as animal shelters), Vermin (rats and roaches), Violence, War and bloodshed, Weapons (guns, knives, etc.), Witchcraft, sorcery, etc.

You may have other triggers in your personal Ultra experience.

 

Sexual Assault Safety Tips Ignore the Real Issue

Forget Ultrarunning, forget politics, forget love for the natural world, forget the usual stuff I blog about here. 

I just ran across a great post that you really need to see, by Erica Andrist, about "safety tips" and avoiding sexual assault.  Go read the whole post, but this excerpt really nails it.  It's not about the victim of sexual assault doing things right or doing things wrong.  It's about the role of the perp, away from whom most public discourse over the years has somehow shifted responsibility:

This is why “safety tips” are a sham. Safety tips get trotted out as an example of how people who are assaulted deserved it or did it to themselves. Safety tips are used to justify sexual assault, as though the appropriate punishment for having too much to drink is getting raped. Safety tips get held up as a kind of rape life preserver when we want to believe it won’t happen to us. Every day of spring break, there will be people who do everything “wrong” and are still not assaulted. Every day of spring break, there will be people who do everything “right” and are still assaulted. Except when we rely on “safety tips” and are assaulted anyway, there is always something that we could have, should have, and should have not done to have prevented it.

When we rely on “safety tips,” it is impossible to do everything right. So, my spring break safety guide consists of this: Don’t fucking rape people. If you have sex with a chick who is too drunk to say no, you are not “scoring,” you are not “getting lucky”: you are a rapist. If you use alcohol in order to get people to do things you think they might not do if they were sober, you are not cool or slick or clever: You are a rapist. If you don’t bother to get consent, but you figure this person would “totally want it anyway” because you are hot or an athlete or in law school or whatever, then you’re a rapist. And you suck.

 

Wet Feet Training

My perimeter road running buddies think I’m nuts, but for me it is totally unremarkable during a road run to deliberately run thru a stream—when there is a perfectly good bridge RIGHT THERE—as a means of Ultra training.

Case in point: yesterday’s run over what I call my Frederick’s Mill Road 10 mile route.  About 2/3 of the way thru when I run clockwise is a crossing of the Conococheague Creek west of the village of Marion, PA.  This run is a 100% road run over little-used rural roads.  But to at least give me the semblance of Ultra training, I often ford the creek at the bridge crossing.  The Conococheague here is wide but shallow (not over knee-deep at this particular point) so to wade across is no big deal.

In the summer this crossing is quite refreshing; yesterday it was a bit cool, to say the least!

This crossing gave me 3+ miles of wet-footed running which I think helps when I encounter stream crossings in an Ultra situation.  The Capon Valley 50K (Yellow Springs, WV) is coming up in May.  Although I’m not quite certain of entering this year, I am cognizant of the fact that this is typically a wet course, with both stream crossings and standing water.

 

Eastern Redbuds...and Ultrarunning

Here in south central PA, the Eastern Redbuds have been in bloom for a week now.  This is my absolute favorite tree, probably because it's the tree that in this area is the first to put out a showy flower in the spring.

Here are some tree shots I just took, increasingly closer up:

This spring of 2012 in the northeast is the earliest one I can remember.  In the nearly three decades that my redbuds have graced my front yard, they never have flowered in March. Not one time.  And this year it was a full week prior to the end of the month.

The link to Ultrarunning is that trees are a major factor in our running.  You get to know tree habits and preferences.  The Eastern Redbud is a smallish tree, more of an edge species than the deep woods.  So while I might see some on, say, an Appalachian Trail run, it's not really a common species in the ridge top habitat.

You may want to check out my previous redbud posts here and here.  It's pretty obvious that I am smitten with this tree.

 

Flaming Boxer Shorts Used to Start Fire...and Ultrarunning

From the local paper last week on 18 March, the Chambersburg Public Opinion, we have another stupid fire story, entitled Flaming Boxer Shorts Used to Start Fire; 3 Arrested.  No, the story itself is well done; it's the crime described that is stupid.  I previously blogged about another stupid fire here, where some local dummies tried to blow up a car with flaming tampons.

In this latest stupid fire incident, 3 stooges set a couple cars afire with flaming boxer shorts:

Armstrong allegedly told police that he and the brothers had taken part in setting the vehicles on fire. He said they were "looking at scrap" when they approached the Talon and Joshua Jones pulled a pair of "boxer style" briefs out of the truck.

"Armstrong indicated that he used his lighter to ignite the briefs, which were thrown back into the trunk area of the vehicle by Joshua Jones," the affidavit states. He added that Jason Jones poured a liquid into the vehicle before the flaming underwear were thrown in.

Jason and Joshua Jones told police that they met at Armstrong's home to go to the salvage yard. They said Jason Jones had poured "tire shine" onto some clothing inside the car and they left the scene when the fire spread to the second vehicle.

All three men are charged with third-degree felony arson. They are also charged with misdemeanors including reckless endangerment, criminal trespass and criminal mischief.

This fire behavior seems like it may be a regular occurrence locally, and so may become a regular feature here at Mister Tristan (the blog, not the 4-year-old human being).  I will continue to scan the paper and keep you all informed.

Oh, and the link to Ultrarunning?  There seemingly are a lot of hillbillies around here, and sometimes I do think about encountering some of them on the trail.  The good news is that such "hoofties," as a friend calls them, only go into the woods to party and then only close by a trailhead.

So the chances are excellent of never seeing a hooftie in the backcountry, and if you do, you have a secret weapon: the ability to run.

The Cryptones...and Ultrarunning

I have a pet memorial business on the side (I'll get around to posting about it sometime soon), and am a member of the Pet Loss Professionals Alliance (PLPA) segment of the International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association (ICCFA).

Seems that the ICCFA offers continuing education training for its members.  At a one-week session to be held at the University of Memphis this summer, I see this note in the schedule of workshops and seminars:

The Cryptones: Back by Popular Demand

The hardest-rocking band in funeral service is back for one show only, July 23 at 7:30 PM in the Holiday Inn ballroom.

Mark your calendars!


The link to Ultrarunning?  I get gallows humor, and engage in it whenever I possibly can.  I am not appalled by this 8-person band, I think it's great!  On the Ultra scene, I recall one year at the JFK 50 miler where I just could not seem to remain vertical.  I fell several times and finished somewhat bloodied and embarrassed.  I had been trying to better a previous time on the course and was seriously disappointed that my time was way slower than I expected. 

At the finish, my running buddy's only comment was, "You probably would have finished higher if you hadn't lost the cat fight."

We had a good laugh.

 

 

Cats in Art: Two Girls Dressing a Kitten by Candlelight (Wright)

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art. I am using some ideas from the coffee table book, The Cat in Art, by Stefano Zuffi.

Image credit ABC Gallery (click to enlarge), Two Girls Dressing a Kitten by Candlelight, Joseph Wright of Derby, 1768-1770, oil on canvas, 31" x 24", held by Kenwood House, London, England.

Zuffi comments:

Joseph Wright of Derby, one of the most fascinating painters of the English Enlightenment, particularly enjoyed nighttime effects, with artificial light and deep shadows...In this painting, the two girls have decided to dress a sweet, sad-looking kitten in the clothes of a doll, which lies discarded to one side.  The painting is charming, a small wonder of virtuosity in its handling of light and subtle psychological insight.

I know why the kitten is bummed out.  The doll's dress is obviously out of style and not all smart-looking.  A cat has to look sharp, you know.

I LOVE the lighting in this painting.  As I idly paged thru Zuffi's book I was immediately arrested by this striking image and stopped to eagerly read the entire description.  I must check out Wright's other works now.

 

The Conococheague Aquaduct

From the conclusion of my C+O Canal run on 1 March. 

This stonework carried the canal over a tributary stream, the Conococheague Creek (just past my feet), immediately before that stream empties into the Potomac River.  Note that the upstream side wall is missing from when a canal boat struck it wrong.

This shot shows the other (downstream) side of the 3-arch aqueduct.  This side is obviously in better shape and shows well the magnificent stonework arching over the Conococheague Creek:

NOTE: If you are having trouble following the engineering here, just imagine a deep water-filled ditch (the canal).  It's calm and placid and a pair of mules could easily tow a very large canal boat.

OK so far, but now your water-filled ditch comes to the Conococheague Creek, whose average water level is quite a ways below the ditch.  Basically, you just build a bridge to carry your ditch over the stream.  The waters do not mix or touch.

After the upstream wall of this aqueduct collapsed, it was temporarily replaced by a wooden wall, as canal operations ceased shortly thereafter.  The stones of the aqueduct wall that fell into the Conococheague were later rescued and laid out in the canal bed adjacent to the aqueduct.  Presumably the National Park Service has a plan to someday--if $$ permits--restore the Conococheague Aqueduct to its original condition.

Here's a couple of views of these large cut stones patiently waiting reuse, with my hat for scale in the 2nd shot: