“But the privations, or rather the hardships, of Lowood lessened. Spring drew on: she was indeed already come; the frosts of winter had ceased; its snows were melted, its cutting winds ameliorated. My wretched feet, flayed and swollen to lameness by the sharp air of January, began to heal and subside under the gentler breathings of April; the nights and mornings no longer by their Canadian temperature froze the very blood in our veins; we could now endure the play-hour passed in the garden: sometimes on a sunny day it began even to be pleasant and genial, and a greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps. Flowers peeped out amongst the leaves; snow-drops, crocuses, purple auriculas, and golden-eyed pansies. On Thursday afternoons (half-holidays) we now took walks, and found still sweeter flowers opening by the wayside, under the hedges.
“I discovered, too, that a great pleasure, an enjoyment which the horizon only bounded, lay all outside the high and spike-guarded walls of our garden: this pleasure consisted in prospect of noble summits girdling a great hill-hollow, rich in verdure and shadow; in a bright beck, full of dark stones and sparkling eddies. How different had this scene looked when I viewed it laid out beneath the iron sky of winter, stiffened in frost, shrouded with snow!–when mists as chill as death wandered to the impulse of east winds along those purple peaks, and rolled down “ing” and holm till they blended with the frozen fog of the beck! That beck itself was then a torrent, turbid and curbless: it tore asunder the wood, and sent a raving sound through the air, often thickened with wild rain or whirling sleet; and for the forest on its banks, that showed only ranks of skeletons.”*
I’ve gone through my pre-WordPress blog and put the entries in chron order. I see that sometimes they were an almost daily log and other times there were long stretches between entries. I’ve included straight links to a number of race reports I did at the time on my Races page (link above).
When I started the blog, I was running for the Central Park Track Club and focusing on track racing, on the theory that I had the raw speed and big-body build that made shorter races more appropriate for me. A few major injuries, however, led me to doubt that strategy and when I decided to do Reach-the-Beach with a new club, Sound Shore, I naturally moved to the other extreme, i.e., the marathon.
Alison Wade, EliteRunning.com
So there are then posts at the time about the transition and the doubts I had about making it work. I forgot that during the Grete HM I went from being convinced that I could never finish NY to thinking I could actually do pretty well. What a confidence booster that race turned out to be.
I came upon the above picture. I think it may (I really don’t remember much of what was happening at the time) capture the utter exhaustion I felt in the final mile of the marathon. It’s the vacant look of someone struggling (not dying, just struggling) with under one mile to go. (This was taken as I went by the zoo just before the “One Mile To Go” sign.) I post it here as an object lesson.
I also came upon a few cool videos I posted over the years. Here are a couple of them.
This morning saw me driving into Manhattan and going into Central Park as I’ve often done on Saturdays this past month-and-a-half. But in this case it was not to run but to take the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam, a requirement for admission to the Connecticut Bar, at 94th Street. The test tests one’s knowledge of the rules of professional responsibility, things like how one handles client money and client confidences (very carefully in both cases), what a judge can and cannot do off the bench, how to address client conflicts and a witness who is likely to be testifying falsely, and such. They actually set out realistic situations in which a lawyer might find herself. Sixty multiple-choice questions.
We’ll see how I did. I had thought of going for a run in the Park afterward, but my left IT Band has been acting up over the last several days, so that wasn’t going to happen. It was no problem on Thursday’s run but hurt yesterday — no run — and less so today. Because this happened to me recently, I think I have a handle on how to deal with it, and confess to have gotten lazy about the preventative exercises. So it’s a minor set-back, not of great concern.
While I was walking back to my car and in the Park, the temperature had reached the shorts range and the smell of Spring was in the air. Solo runners and small groups were passing on the Park Drive, and I regretted being unable to join them. Soon I hope, and I’m very pleased about discovering how easy it is for me to get into the City for the Club Saturday morning run.
Tomorrow is the year’s first Club race, the Coogan’s 5K in Fort Washington. A straight up-and-back run with a steep downhill right before the turn-around — and an up immediately on the way back. I’ve done it once. But I did not enter this year.
I am further down the depth chart on the Club’s roster, although when Jim S. turns 50 in a few months WSSAC will have a competitive 50+ team, and then I can’t duck any of these races.
Each week I receive an email from Paul Thompson. Paul, to whom I’ve referred many times before, was named the other day as the runner-of-the-year by NYRR in his age group. He is now the men’s co-captain. (Our women’s captain, Jean Chodnicki-Stemm, was a co-winner in the 50-54.) Paul’s email includes workouts for the week. It also includes as a weekly “reminder” the list of the year’s Club races, which, after tomorrow, consists of:
Apr 3 Scotland Run 10K
May 15 Healthy Kidney 10K
Jun 12 NY Mini 10K (women only)
Jun 20 Father’s Day 5M (men scoring only)
Jul 17 Run for Central Park 4M
Aug 7 Club Team Championship 5M (double points)
Sept 11 Fitness 4M
Oct 2 Grete’s Half Marathon
Nov 7 NYC Marathon
Dec 5 JoeK 10K
. . . to join a club
Paul lives in Peekskill. All that need be said about that is that it is way the hell up in Westchester. Yet virtually every Saturday he takes the 7:19 train to 125th Street, does 20 or 22 miles, often with me aboard for a portion, and then heads to Grand Central for the hour-plus ride home. Often, the time and latitude change means that it’s nearly 15 degrees warmer when he gets off the train than when he got on board.
His wife’s a saint.
This comes to mind in the context of the special characteristics of clubs. All happy clubs, as it were, are happy in their own way. But at its core, each has several runners who are beyond passionate, who make dedicated folks like me feel like laggards but who cause us to be a bit less laggardy, and who pull us along, to run a wee bit harder, a wee bit faster, a wee bit longer, a wee bit better.
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times. Runners should join clubs.
NYC Marathon Update. Speaking of which, I see that the deadline for registering for NY is the Ides of March. That gives me nine days to decide whether to do it. Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock.
Olympic Trials; Houston? We have a problem. Also, I was off LetsRun for a few days (amazing how little I missed) and when I came back I saw that the men’s and women’s OT will be held in Houston in January 2012. I had thought NY would get the women’s race — hoping to meet at least one person likely to qualify — but I was misinformed. USATF awarded the races to Houston unanimously. They’ll start the day before the Houston Marathon, using separate starts, as New York and Boston now do. But I don’t know how big the gap will be.
Viscerally it seems a step backwards. Perhaps I exaggerate the significance of New York, but sending it to Houston seems like relegation. From the racers’ perspective, though, it makes sense (albeit screwing up Spring 2012 race schedules). Gives plenty of time for recovery, more than the gap between Boston and London and the Olympics. I had fun in 2007 for the men’s race. I would have enjoyed 2012’s women’s.
Fool that I am, when Toni Harvey was searching for someone to host a RunnersRoundeTable with author Renée Chambliss I volunteered. Too late, I began to wonder what the book could be about. Then I saw that it began with a woman imprisoned in California. Great, “The Jericho Mile” for chicks. She’ll be running around “The Yard,” taunted by fellow cons with a mixture of envy and resentment, striving through weather hot and cold, wet and dry, hoping for “The Big Chance,” to be out on furlough for one shot of glory, one shot at a four lap journey of revelation and redemption.
Let’s face it, running fiction often leads to such a moment. “Once A Runner.” (See also “The Longest Yard.)
The book arrived, a freebie, but one encumbered by the obligation to read it. And it was big. 554-page big. And not large-print and wide-margins. Joycean. It sat on my bookshelf as I put it off, favoring Bar Exam prep. I dropped Renee a line assuring her that I had the book but was delayed by the Bar Exam. She assured me that it was an “easy read.” 550 pages an “easy read.”
I picked it up this past Saturday. I finished it at 12:15 this morning.
My dilemma. How to review a book that has a plot device without mentioning said plot device. I was compelled to read the book with no idea of what was to come, and this, I think, enhanced the experience. So I’m not going to reveal the plot device.
Renée Chambliss
Instead I’ll try to characterize the book in the short-hand of the blurb-writer. We have our narrator, twenty-five year old, 5′ 2″ Lindsay Paulson who is in the California Women’s Correctional Facility, CWCF, doing a ten-year stretch for drug-running. She’s five years in and spends much of her time in a room with five other inmates. She runs on the treadmill now and then, to the amazement of her roommates.
This treadmill reference is in the second paragraph. There won’t be another running reference for some 81 pages and then another 243 pages pass before we get another. Our heroine’s running background will prove useful in, even integral to, our story, but it is not patronizing. It simply proves to be a useful skill. Who knew?
As a first-person narrative, we can only get glimpses of other characters, and we get enough about the major ones to feel we know them but would like to know them — not to have a cup of coffee with them but to understand them — a bit more. Which is part of what makes this a good read. What else will we learn?
The plot itself is another part. Very little was predictable. While there are a lot of moving parts, the ball is never dropped.
The final part is the writing itself. The images are remarkable in their detail.
The crown of the hill was bald, covered only by an ankle-high scrubby sagebrush and the sycamores cascaded down on all sides like a fuzzy green skirt. The lake spread around us in a deep, smoky blue arc; its small wavelets simmering on the surface, glinting with golden flashes in the sun. Shining between the walls of the canyon, the swath of sky overhead was a brighter blue, almost turquoise, and a series of huge, white fluffy clouds glided regally across it like a procession of billowy yachts. The willows and rushes lining the shore of the lake were bottle green, as bright as if they’d been dipped in paint ten minutes before. But all that vividness paled in comparison to the brilliant red of the rock which overshadowed it all, providing the backdrop for the green of the bushes and trees, coating the rocky shore of the lake and the surface of each of the three islands in the lake’s center, then dominating and overwhelming everything in the walls of the gorge, which stretched up hundreds of feet toward the sky.
The book’s images are fantastically drawn.
So we have good characters, a good plot, and good writing. And a fast read indeed.
You needn’t take my word for it. Like a good running store, Chambliss allows you to take the first three chapters out for a test run. Hell, she’s even putting the whole thing up as an audio file.
So, there we have it. Chambliss will be on RunnersRoundTable with Toni and me on April 7.
Getting The Book
“Dreaming of Deliverance” is available for tastings. The first three chapters are on-line.
The entire novel is being put into audio files for downloading.
That’s not to say that conventional can’t be enjoyable if well-executed. I’ve not seen it since it was on TV some thirty years ago, when running shorts were shorter and hair styles were longer, but for those yearning for a more conventional tale, these from the classic prison runner (that’s Peter Strauss), “The Jericho Mile“:
And the Man having decided he wasn’t good enough (he was fast enough) to go the the trials, he does it himself:
Every once in a while a thread will appear on LetsRun on the issue of the best place to run in the US. Now putting aside the reality of home and family and job, the usual suspects appear, usually led by Eugene, Oregon. Westchester, though (by which I mean southern Westchester, i.e., south of 287, which is the part with which I am most familiar), never appears. It should.
Today was one reason why. We had over twenty inches of snow on Friday. I’ll grant you that yesterday was more hazardous than I hoped and I suffered some stops-and-starts before I found a stretch of road that was clear and on which I ran up-and-down several times. Word was that Central Park was clear, and I’ve had many reports of folks enjoying that spot.
Today, however, was worlds apart. It’s been warm and so there’s been some melting. Most important, there’s been melting on the roads. So given a broad network of roads of varying amounts of traffic, one pretty much gets free reign once the ice is gone. This morning had me going, in shorts, from Mount Vernon to Bronxville to Tuckahoe to Eastchester to New Rochelle to Eastchester to Mount Vernon. A nice, big 11-mile loop, with a couple of miles added to get the time I wanted. Apart from a tense moment on a busy Wilmot Road (shortly after passing my alma mater, Iona Prep), it was delightful running. (In weather like today’s, I’ll often where a reflective vest even if I wear a white shirt, as I did today, and as a rule I wave thankfully to those who give me plenty of leeway.) I do try to stay off of major roads as much as possible, and the availability of paralleling side roads in southern Westchester makes this pretty easy to do.
Today’s run completed what was a down week given the Bar Exam and the weather. I had three runs on a treadmill, including one at the Waterbury Holiday Inn, and three outside, including yesterday’s adventure. Total for the week: about 39, a third of it today. But that I could get today’s run in outside, priceless.
Addendum, March 1:
I headed out at lunchtime and following JT’s comments about running a certain stretch in Scarsdale I elected to do it. Lo and behold, I saw JT both going and coming. I also saw that most of the sidewalks in Scarsdale were not shoveled. In a huff/snit/fury I set down to write a letter to Scarsdale’s Mayor. She calmly replied that because of the paucity of sidewalks in Scarsdale there is no requirement that homeowners shovel those abutting their properties. Instead, the Village takes care of that, but its been tied up clearing roads and wires and such. It will, I was assured, be taking care of it shortly. I should note that the road we were on (Walworth) is pretty wide and lightly-traveled and so it’s not a problem running in the street itself, with care and attention.
Now I know. Instead of huffing and puffing about it, I can relax.
With a few feet of snow, and nasty stuff yesterday, I’ve spent the past two days on my treadmill. I’m not a fan. But if it must be it must be.
Yesterday had me listening to Slate’s Hang-Up-And-Listen podcast, which is a weekly sports-oriented program, and today I put on the World Half-Marathon Championships from Birmingham, UK from last year. I generally don’t watch TV on the treadmill because it’s an awkward view, at about 2 o’clock were I at the center of a clock.
John Gichigi/Getty Images
I was in the mood for something inspirational though (I entered the NYC HM in three weeks), so that’s what I had on.
The pace was not particularly fast on either day, but I find it stressful, perhaps more mentally than physically and, indeed, I used the HRM yesterday and it had me in the low 120 range at a pace considerably slower than last week’s 17 miler. I was not interested in making it faster.
Today, after a four-minute stretch early on at 4% elevation, I settled into a straight-forward run. It occurred to me that this is quite a useful mechanism for half-marathon training. Unlike shorter races, I find HMs consist of running hard but smoothly and consistently over an extended period, like a metronome under stress.
The same type of rhythm takes place on the treadmill. Under stress, consistent stride. Metronomic. Perhaps that’s why I enjoy running parts of my runs on the track. Even with its turns, I relish the simplicity and rhythm of 20 lap stretches.
I am smart enough not to refer to the treadmill as the “dreadmill” and I hope to be outside tomorrow, even if it means frequent passes on small loops (they’re pretty good around where I am to plow and clear quiet, little-traveled streets so my thought is to head up near Tuckahoe HS in the morning). I think it useful, though, to ascribe a special benefit to the treadmill, even if I am not on it for so long as many of my friend.
Speaking of those friends, Herb put up a nice video on his Law-of-Inertia blog. My reaction was not to put it up; its message is to encouraging exercise and diet as ways to minimize if not eliminate coronary heart disease. It’s an open-letter to Bill Clinton from Monte Ladner, M.D. of the Science2Health blog and quite articulate, but it struck me that most of the readers here are the choir and don’t need to be told this. I thought, however, that one or two of these readers might know one or two people who could take advantage of the message. So here it is:
One thing about the Web generally and Twitter specifically is the ability to quickly disseminate real-time information of use. One would be running conditions.
I have a limited Twitter presence, with an account RunWestchester. I only use it for posting general information about meetings and such in the County. It could also be used — and if someone else wants to do it, fine, and if someone else already does it, please let me know — to post current (or recent) conditions on trails and paths.
So here’s the deal. If you run on, say, the Rockies, DM or email me with the conditions. That’s it. I’ll post. You can either subscribe on Twitter to RunWestchester or use the #runwestchester search term. If you subscribe, you won’t be inundated with my workouts and such, just with specifics of races, meet-ups (and let me know of them, such as the recent OCA Adventure I), and conditions. Rockies, Bronx River Parkway, County Trailways, any place where you’ve run and think others might like to know about.
I can’t say it’ll be comprehensive. But it might prove of use.
After some two days and three hours, I have returned from Waterbury, Connecticut where, for the past two days, I took the Connecticut Bar Exam. My universe consisted of the Holiday Inn in Waterbury, where I stayed and where the test was held.
It was quite a while since I’ve taken any exam. 18 1/2 years, which is when I took the New York Bar Exam. Having passed that and practiced for many years since, I decided to expand my options down the road by applying for the Connecticut Bar.
To be admitted to the Bar, one must pass an exam and meet various criteria that reflect on one’s character and fitness to practice law. Each state, as far as I know, has a two-day exam. One day dedicated to essays, the other for a 200-question multi-state, multiple-choice exam on six subjects (Criminal Law, Evidence, Property, U.S. Constitution, Torts, and Contracts). So one can transfer the multi-state results to any other state, within a certain period. Alas, that period does not go back 28 years so I had to take that part. That was today.
Things might have been different is this was a make-or-break proposition. Good money is made by companies that have people spend months preparing. I spent some good money for prep materials, but not a crazy sum, but I figured that I would not go overboard. The reality was somewhere between just winging it — I’ve been practicing for a while so I should be able to display some threshold of competence — and immersing myself. The pressure, thus, wasn’t that great.
One lesson I learned in law school was that each of us is individual in how we best prepare for tests, so I tried to do it the way that was comfortable to me and that had proved successful in law school. As an aside, except for an accounting exam, every one of my law school exams was open-book. The Bar Exam is not. It ends up to some extent testing memorization. Generally, lawyers don’t necessarily know the law’s minutia but they know where to look for it and what to look for.
Day One, the essays, affords some opportunity to do what lawyers do, i.e., analyze a fact pattern — A was driving his car when B ran a red light and hit A while B was driving a delivery van for E but was taking a detour to hook-up with her girlfriend and A sues E; will A win and why? — and reach a conclusion as to how the law would apply to the facts. Fortunately, although many of these essays ask you to recall a specific legal standard, you can still do OK if you can’t remember the precise rule provided you adequately analyze. (This type of thing, by the way, is what one does in law-school exams.)
I think I did OK on the 12 essays, but one never knows.
Today was the Multi-State. I’d done lots of sample questions and not been particularly impressed by the results. The test itself, however, did not seem as difficult as the samples. But who knows?
I feared that I would be the sole old guy in the room. Granted, most of the takers were in their twenties. (The exam is given twice a year, in July and February. As a rule, a fair chunk of those taking the February exam failed the July one.) But there was a bunch of folks like me. The woman next to me passed the California Bar in 1982 and the guy next to her New York in 1983.
Why, you ask, does someone who’s practiced for over two decades have to take a test to get admitted by another jurisdiction? Money. Connecticut offers reciprocity, i.e., if you’re admitted in a state that will recognize and admit without an exam people admitted in Connecticut, Connecticut will admit you. Pennsylvania, for example. But New York does not allow reciprocity. Nor does Florida or California.
So I’ll get the results in a few months.
On the other hand, this immersion in the particulars of real property law helps in understanding Jane Austen, especially the Bennet girls. [Back]
On a related note, this, a wonderful scene from the recent “Emma”:
Fine weather this morning, almost warm enough for shorts, but tights and a thin long-sleeve top would have to do. With no trouble driving in or parking, I met Paul as he came off the train and away we went. We picked up Jim just as we entered the Park and Fabio on the west side. There was the Race for Haiti this morning, so we coordinated, taking the 72nd Street cut-off to pick up potential mates at 90th at 9, figuring that if we cut across 102nd the leaders of the race should catch us shortly after the 3-mile mark.
Alas, it was not to be, as the race must have started a bit late. So we doubled back up the westside and picked up the leader at about 79th and turning back south at 85th. We had picked up Simon at 90th and Stephane nearby before losing Jim, who’s been suffering from a fall he took a few weeks back.
I wore my Garmin this time, and we eventually were going at a pretty decent pace, a bit north of 7 flat. My objective became simple: 2 hours. It sounds easy when you look at the week ahead and write it out or when you say “I need more miles.” I’m at the point where it’s reachable but still suspect. I think of all the folks I know who do it. It’s down to me and Paul.
My mind is trying to calculate: what course to take for 2? It seemed far, far away but as Paul and I passed 97th on the east side, I put myself on the line. “I’m going around the Harlem Hills,” I said, “and will cut back before heading out of the Park.” This would, my addled brain told me, get me to 2, albeit with a trip up the Harlem Hill.
Now I couldn’t back down. Now I had a plan and could stop worrying. Just do what you said and you’ll be fine. We’re cutting in-and-out of the back markers for the Haiti run — these would be walkers — but they turn at 102nd and we’re clear down the hill. It’s a steep hill and to the right you hear the sounds of hockey leagues at the Lasker Rink. My eyes are getting a bit unfocused. I’m tired but feel fine. We’re now in 6:45 territory. Although I don’t race Paul — he’s far faster — I do tend to pick it up when I’m at the front with him. He seems somewhat ambivalent about it, chatting away easily while I must muster the strength to respond, although I am able to respond. (I don’t want to give his rivals undue information, but he’s in pretty good shape and ran a fine HM a couple of weeks back.)
Up the Harlem Hill. As we headed down, I told Paul I was turning at 102nd, hoping he would continue south so I could get a respite. Alas, he kept me company as I completed the loop and headed down toward the Lasker Rink, finally leaving me to do 20 or so as I headed out of the Park at Lenox Avenue.
I was at 1:50 or so, and figured I would just add on to get to 2. And that’s what I did, not worrying about whether this white-guy-in-tights would fit in and heading up until I had to turn at 116th towards 5th and them up to Marcus Garvery Park. Four seconds after my Garmin read 2:00:00, I stopped. It said 17.01. When I loaded the data into the computer, it read 16.92, but I’ll stick with the 17.
Good, solid effort. This was a workout that will, I think, put me in good stead for the Spring. It’s about as long as I want to go, 2 hours. Thanks to the Club, I was able to get it done, and much as I hurt late, the final miles were the fastest, which is a good sign.
This, then, a real confidence boost. I was concerned about having overdone it yesterday, but while I was a bit tired, I was never in distress. I’m happy. Tired. But happy.
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