Running at the Mouth

Knock Me Over With a Feather

Back in August, the French tabloid L'Equipe accused Lance Armstrong of EPO use during his 1999 Tour de France victory.  It was bullshit then, and we all knew it.  Today, Lance was fully exonerated by an independent investigator.  Even sweeter, WADA (led by fire-breathing, witch-hunting, unfortunately-named Dick Pound) and the French were found to have had it out for the seven-time champion.

Notice also, that it isn't as though Armstrong is cleared for "technical" reasons or harmless errors; he is "exonerated completely with respect to the alleged use" of EPO.

UPDATE (June 1, 2006) -- The NYT, believe it or not, has a pretty thorough piece explaining the situation.  Again, note that the chief investigator found that the testing procedures were so fundamentally flawed (as I, a non-science guy, noted in the post linked above) that a positive result could not possibly be credible.

The fact is, the French and Dick Pound have all of the motivation to smear Lance.  On the one hand, you have the Dutch investigator, who was for 10 years the head of the Dutch anti-doping agency.  On the other, you have Dick Pound and WADA, which -- despite some obvious failures -- have always insisted that the EPO test is a valid means of detecting synthetic EPO and have been using it for years to condemn athletes.  You tell me which side has a dog in this fight.

Tremendous Bob Kennedy Interview

Rogue Running has a terrific interview of Bob Kennedy up.  Kennedy began his 15 years of dominance of the American running scene at the time when I first became interested in running, so as long as I've been following running, I've been following Kennedy.  In this interview, Kennedy speaks on everything from retirement, to training with the Kenyans, to the USATF, to what it's like to run as a full-time job.  Do read it all, but my favorite bits follow.

On training and breaking through mental barriers:

One of the things I learned was levels of intensity. Our minds--we sometimes subconsciously set barriers in our mind about what is hard and what’s not hard, and I found very quickly that what I thought was hard was actually a whole other level than what I was capable of doing. That’s a personal thing, meaning that you have to find your own barriers and your own limitations, and that’s what I think all of this is all about: honestly seeking out what your limitations are.

No matter your level, what Kennedy is saying here is absolutely true.  Whether you're a 5-hour marathoner or a 2:45 marathoner.

Kennedy is also a union agitator, which, to my mind, is the only chink in his armor (I kid; what he's saying is probably a good idea at this point):

Now, [shoe companies] feel that it is good business to support track and field, and it is, along with distance running and marathoning, but it is not the shoe companies’ responsibility to do that. I think it is the responsibility of the sport. And when I say that I mean it is the responsibility of the athletes to band together. If you want to call it a union, call it a union; who cares? But athletes need to organize as a group and develop more power as a group. People make money out of this sport. The shoe companies benefit because there is more brand awareness, so they sell more product; there are meets out there, and TV.

You know. USATF, they’re making money; it was published last week in the local paper that Craig Masback (CEO of USATF) is making $400,000+ a year.  [Holy shit! -- ed.]  That’s fine; he’s actually done a great job for that organization, but it shows that there is money out there. And, like the player’s unions of the NFL and the NBA, their power is to see that it is distributed on a fair basis. The problem we have in our sport is that it is either feast or famine. If you are one of the better athletes in the world, you’re doing very, very well. If you are the kind of athlete who has a chance but you’re not quite there yet, maybe finishing 8th in the trials or 6th in the trails, then you are struggling, you’re scraping by. There is no equality there. And that support needs to come from, in my opinion, organization within the system.

On what he's learned as a result of distance running (and, consequently, what everyone can learn from distance running):

And that’s what I’d like to communicate to others, the benefits of (number one) running in general and then (number two) the process of being successful. And I really look at it as a process or, as Billy Mills refers to it, as a journey. That, to me, is the most important lesson from all this, and that lesson can then be translated to anything…to business, school, whatever. It is just a process of thought--vision, goal setting, planning, education--developed to establish the best plan and then the discipline needed to execute. That is what it takes to be a great runner, and that’s the lesson I’d love to share from my running career.

On running as a job:

It really is more than a full time job. I’ve described it to people in the past and you know it really is a 24 hour a day job, 7 days a week, 12 months a year. Everything that you do (or don’t do) has some effect, positive or negative, on your training and as a result your competition. It is not just showing up to practice in high school or college or to your training sessions after that and doing the work out and then being done. There’s food; there’s sleep; there’s massage, ice baths; there’s core strength and flexibility. All that, and that’s 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, Thanksgiving Day, Saturday, Sunday…it never ends. It is a huge, huge commitment if you are going to train at that highest level.

Bob is, and always has been, as fine a representative of American track & field as we could ask for.

Albert Belle is Nice. And Trim!

It's nice to know that Albert Belle hasn't changed since leaving baseball:

Albert Belle was arrested on a new stalking charge for allegedly making phone calls to a woman he already was charged with harassing.

I'm pleased that ESPN chose to run a photo of Albert in an Orioles cap.  Here's his mugshot; I think it's fair to say that Albert has let himself go a little bit:

If the camera adds 10 pounds, how many cameras are on him?

Shocka! Ill-Conceived, Overpriced Mobile ESPN Hemorrhaging Money

ESPN has lost $25 million so far on its laughably overpriced, astonishingly useless and pain-in-the-ass-to-get Mobile ESPN, reports Sports Business Daily.  Thinking about it, what's surprising is not that no one is buying the product, but that ESPN spent $30 million on those monumentally stupid commercials with the greasy-haired sportsdork loitering outside of ESPN headquarters.  What keen advertiser hatched this campaign, anyway?  Who thought it would be a good idea to portray the people who want this product as unwashed, jobless, fast-food-physique-having, couldn't-pick-a-vagina-out-of-a-police-lineup douchenozzles?

I'm just not sure what niche ESPN is trying to fill.  As one of the Deadspin commenters pointed out, how many people have no access whatsoever to sports news for more than a few minutes a day, such that sports to your phone becomes a necessity?  Degenerate gamblers, maybe?

I have to stop now.  I've reached my rhetorical question quota for the post.

There Was a Good Reason George Burns Loved Altoona

Because people in Altoona can be pretty frickin' funny:  Altoona Curve to Hold Frivolous Lawsuit Night.  [Link via Deadspin.]

This is, of course, in response to the dickbag out in L.A. who is suing the Angels because he -- he! -- didn't get a free pink tote bag during the Angels' Mother's Day promotion at the park.  [Link via Bud Norton.]

Nature, Red in Tooth and Claw -- Even in European Zoos

You know what the thing about Europe is?  It's the little differences.  They got the same shit over there that we have over here, but there it's just a little different.  Example:  in Europe, zoo animals are apparently allowed to hunt and kill one another:  Bears Eat Monkey in Front of Zoo Visitors.

The zoo released a statement saying that the bears and Barbary macaques had coexisted peacefully for a long time before today.  You would think that the so-called "experts" would know that bears are a proud race, and the macaques would someday have to pay for their intrusion.

The statement also says that the animals "almost never" kill one another.  Oh, well fine, then.  I feel so much better.

The NYT: Your Source for 20 Year-Old Science

The Grey Lady has just gotten around to noticing that it is not lactic acid that causes muscle fatigue, contrary to the common shorthand.  This is nothing new; coaches and exercise physiologists have known that for a long, long time.  As a bonus, not only is the material dated by at least two decades, the NYT's Gina Kolata woefully misrepresents and misinterprets it as well, which I'm sure comes as a complete shock to anyone familiar with the NYT's sterling reputation for honest, balanced reporting.

Kolata attempts to prove two conclusions:  (1) that the presence of lactic acid in the muscles has nothing to do with fatigue; and (2) lactic acid is actually good, since muscles can use it for fuel.  She fails miserably on both accounts. 

Coaches and personal trainers tell athletes and exercisers that they have to learn to work out at just below their "lactic threshold," that point of diminishing returns when lactic acid starts to accumulate. Some athletes even have blood tests to find their personal lactic thresholds.

But that, it turns out, is all wrong.

Actually, it isn't.  The presence of lactic acid in the muscles has very much to do with muscle fatigue.  Granted, lactice acid isn't the cause of muscle fatigue, but it is so strongly correllated with muscle fatigue as to be the best measure of the proper training pace.  We can easily measure lactic acid build-up.  It's not the cause -- some scientists hypothesize that the build-up of hydrogen ions or calcium during exercise causes fatigue, but we don't know.  What we know for certain is that lactic acid builds up, and we get tired.  Lactic acid is simply a convenient, easily measured marker for a process that we really don't know much about.

The understanding now is that muscle cells convert glucose or glycogen to lactic acid. The lactic acid is taken up and used as a fuel by mitochondria, the energy factories in muscle cells.

Mitochondria even have a special transporter protein to move the substance into them, Dr. Brooks found. Intense training makes a difference, he said, because it can make double the mitochondrial mass.

It is clear that the old lactic acid theory cannot explain what is happening to muscles, Dr. Brooks and others said.

Yes, it can.  And it does, at least in a shorthand way.

As for the idea that lactic acid is fuel, it is.  It's just not very good fuel.  This piece doesn't get at the relative usefulness of lactic acid as fuel v. glucose.  I am fairly sure that muscles will burn lactate in the absence of glucose, but muscles are much more efficient when burning glucose.  That's why training at the lactate threshold is so useful -- beyond stimulating increase in mitochondria, it teaches the body to operate more efficiently at higher speeds.

Gina Kolata is an ignoramus who needs to stay on the society page and away from all forms of science, which she clearly cannot get her tiny pea-brain around.

What's the Definition of "Bitchmade?"

It's what Cornelius Bennett does to Steve Beuerlein on this play:

[Link via EDSBS, where one of the commenters claims that Beuerlein has admitted to returning to the huddle after this play (it wasn't a fumble) and calling plays from his high school days.]

Runner Killed by Alligator

You know that old joke about the two hunters, where the one says that he doesn't have to be able to outrun the bear, he just has to be able to outrun his buddy?  That's true, apparently, with alligators, too, so always run with someone slightly slower than yourself:

MIAMI, Florida (Reuters) -- An alligator grabbed and killed a Florida woman who disappeared while jogging near a canal, a medical examiner determined Thursday.

Construction workers found the woman's dismembered body floating Wednesday in a canal in Sunrise, a northwest suburb of Fort Lauderdale.

An autopsy showed she died of bleeding and shock from alligator bites.

It doesn't look like she was just running along and the alligator came after her:

Perper said the woman, 28-year-old Yovy Suarez Jimenez, had been very close to the canal's edge when the alligator bit her, because her body showed no signs of having been dragged.

Relatives said the victim had gone jogging on Tuesday evening along a bicycle path near the canal. Wildlife officers said no one saw the attack.

"The way it happened, we just don't know," said Dani Moschella, a spokeswoman for the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Ms. Moschella must not be a runner, because I think I know how it went down:  the unfortunate Ms. Jimenez stepped off the path to relieve herself, and the gator got her.  It's a grim way to go in any event, and my sympathies to her family.

Wildlife officers and commercial trappers were still trying to find the alligator, which was estimated to be 8 to 10 feet long, based on the woman's injuries. If captured, it will be killed, they said.

What I don't understand is why they're trying to hunt down the alligator and kill it.  Will alligator capital punishment somehow deter other 'gators from eating people?  "I want to eat that guy, but damned if I want them to do to me what they did to Ralph."  Whatever the reasons, rest assured an alligator is going to die for this, even if it's the wrong one.  Animal profiling is what it is.

That Sound You Hear is the Baby Jesus Crying

Someone uploaded this 2004 video from to YouTube, of some University of Notre Dame MBA students "tailgating":

If you don't have sound on your computer, don't worry about it.  The visual is horrifying enough.  By the end, it will either have you rolling on the floor in tears of laughter, or in tears praying for the sweet release that only death can bring.  For the record, it was the latter for me.

These people embody every whitebread stereotype ever:  crappy suburban junior high dance-style music mix?  Check.  At least one guy in a replica football jersey?  Check.  Awful breakdancing, including but not limited to the Worm and the Robot?  Check.  Jorts?  Check.  Middle-aged guy trying to dance with girl half his age?  Check.  Cringeworthy poetry?  Check.  Finally, pitiful excuse for a beer bong?  Check.  (One other note:  the only thing that should be hooked to a generator at a tailgate is a TV.  Preferably with a satellite hookup.  Dorks.)

Honestly, these people are like your racist uncle.  Part of you feels obligated to try and defend them because they're family, but you can't because you know in your heart that their conduct is indefensible.  Basically, the people in the video have made me embarrassed to be:

1. a Notre Dame alumnus;
2. a Notre Dame fan;
3. Catholic;
4. a caucasian; and
5. a mammal.

This video is kind of like Flight 93 (writ very, very small, of course) -- everyone should see it, if only to make the point that this can never be allowed to happen again.

[Link via just about everybody who blogs and either loves or hates Notre Dame.]

On the other hand, these guys know how to tailgate at ND (and are an inspiration to boot).