You Can Go Home Again: A Race Report

For 2011, things fell apart in the first yards of the mile portion of the Tuckahoe Challenge.

For 2012, things were well in hand in the final yards of the five-mile portion of the Tuckahoe Challenge.

The five-mile course itself is not quite as flat as I’ve long believed, with slight rolls, if only two decent, but short, hills. My goal: Easy for the one, relaxed for the five. Check and check. The former is an out-and-back. I took it easy, feeling solid throughout. Around 6. No problem.

I had concerns about the five. Easy as the one was, who knew how I’d handle five. Apart from a 6-lap tempo run on Labor Day, I’ve done no speed. But I finished strong at the Rockies a couple of weeks back.

Solid is how I’d describe the race. The leader, Bobby Asher, was long gone. Then there was Kevin Shelton-Smith (who’s 50+) and a younger guy. Someone passed me just past one and I passed someone else shortly after that so for almost the rest of the race I was alone save for a runner a bit ahead in a fluorescent yellow singlet. Using my Garmin my splits (with the race measuring 4.92) 6:18, 6:37, 6:34, 6:30, and 6:10 (pace for that final 0.92) for a 31:41/6:26 pace. With under a quarter to go, I suddenly heard someone approaching. I’d not had a whiff of anyone since just past one, but a glance to my left revealed the green singlet of Edinburgh University overhauling me pretty handily as Brenn went by. Although I cut a tangent that he did not, I couldn’t get close to him, nor to the guy ahead of him who had gradually opened up his lead over the final mile. So sixth it was to be.

Never stressed, beyond the normal “wouldn’t-it-be-nice-to-stop-here” thought. All about form and rhythm, without the equipment to go particularly fast. I am quite pleased and encouraged. No aches, no pains.

Stinking Baggage

NYRR has “capitulated”. Runners in the marathon will have the option, which must be exercised this month, to either bring a bag as before or go bagless and get a poncho, a t-shirt, and a quick exit from the Park. I don’t know the extent to which NYRR capitulated. It may be that it was the City that did. I give NYRR credit for understanding that the no-baggage approach did not make a lot of sense. While Brenn pointed out on the New York Running Show that there is something to be said for that approach — specifically that for many getting a poncho shortly after the finish is preferable to having to slog for who-knows-how-long to get their own bag — I think allowing baggage (for both the front- and the back-ends) is the way to go, and if the field is too large to allow  it because of congestion then the field should be shrunk.

NYRR does warrant severe criticism, though, in that it apparently knew the no-baggage policy was an option well before people had to enter yet said nothing. (It was, for example, reportedly the topic of a Club Council meeting.) By not saying that there was the possibility that there would be no-baggage before people entered although it knew of that possibility, NYRR was wrong. In stock-market terms, there was a failure to disclose a known risk factor, particularly since so far as I can tell NYRR has always had baggage-check for all of its races. Tell people there’s a chance; let them decide. This was deceptive by NYRR and it, especially its lawyer president, should have known better.

Second, NYRR’s refusal to allow refunds. Our policy is “NO REFUNDS”. Yet for many, the no-baggage policy was a material change in the terms pursuant to their agreeing to enter. If one agrees to buy a car with air conditioning and gets a call a week before the delivery that it has no air conditioning, the seller can’t say “NO REFUNDS”. I don’t want to get lawyerly here, but the statement of the policy and the manner in which it was said was wrong as well.

Who knows what’ll happen in 2013. People, at least, are warned. In all of the thanks-NYRR-for-listening noise, these additional things should be kept in mind.

On The Porch: September

I had a good run today. From home and after a mile and a quarter, I’m on the Nature Study Trail. Although there’s is construction where it connects with Twin Lakes Trail, the gates are open. Can’t go around the lake, which is among my favorite things, I could go to the northern reach of the trail on the west side and then turn and head back. (The photo at the top of the page is just past where the construction is being performed. The tree/shrub on the right side of the photo is now gone. The lake is now empty.)

I used my Garmin to slow it down. And it worked. Just over 8 miles — 8.15.

There was a slight, very slight, chance that’d I’d run into the BRC-group. I don’t run with it except at the Rockies because it’s a bit loose with road-etiquette and I don’t feel safe. I did enjoy those runs. And I did run into the three who were in this morning’s run, in Twin Lakes.

I’ve not raced in a while. Tuckahoe is next Sunday, so I plan on “doing” that. It’s where my knee went out in 2011. I plan on taking both the 1 and the 5 as “hard efforts”. Given my struggles in my last race, the Bronxville 2.5 on Memorial Day week-end, I’m not looking forward to covering the full five miles. A number of folks I know are doing it, so it’s a good place to pin a number on and go.

My lack of racing has been noticed at Warren Street. So I quit. Going forward, I’m likely to join VCTC. I know and like a number of its members, many of whom, unlike Warren Street, are up here in Westchester. It’s not that I’m aspiring to do anything spectacular racing-wise. But it makes more sense than the City-oriented WSSAC. A few years back I ran with them often on Saturday mornings, with Paul T. coming down from Peekskill. But they got too fast for me (or I got too slow for them), and I’ve been on the periphery for a while. One step at a time. I’m just hoping to get in some solid efforts in Westchester — Tuckahoe, Sleepy Hollow, Mamaroneck, Bronxville. Plus Steve’s Ekiden in December.

Love/Hate

Today was one of those reaffirming days, affirming why I run. Beautiful late August. Indeed the last Sunday in August which meant heading up to the Rockies. Of my little group, Bobby P was the only one to appear. The Sleepy Hollow HS parking lot, though was full and large groups headed out at 8, with Bobby and me starting shortly thereafter.

Now running with him meant there was no group-cover. He is kind, though, and takes it easy on me. But it was still a bit much. On the first climb I said “I don’t know how long I can handle this pace”, to which he replied (truthfully) “You’re setting the pace”. I push things (not “push” so much as retain a rhythm) on the uphills because I’m afraid that I’ll collapse otherwise, and this is often an issue running at the Rockies since I’m frequently running harder (albeit relaxedly) than I would on a flatter course.

It was sunny and warm but not crushingly so, and I elected the no-shirt approach given the amount of shade. And I hurt. But never was I in any danger. The thought of the upcoming route — we headed to Swan Lake but decided to head down after the Visitor’s Center to do 13-Bridges counterclockwise — was more of an issue than the route itself (although I was a bit stressed on the 13-Bridges uphill) and I covered the final mile in a pretty quick pace. The final mile, I should say, is a fairly flat if not slightly uphill stretch on the Old Croton Aqueduct, finishing at the high school. After what’s been left behind it’s a natural place to open up a bit to finish strong.

Bobby headed out for some more miles, seeing some guys he knew as we neared the end, and I hung on to finish (according to my Garmin) remarkably fast (I was trying, successfully, to catch a small group ahead).

I write about it, though, not to speak of the run itself but to note the communal aspect. With my recent ups-and-downs I’ve been up-and-down on the whole running thing. But it was the chatting with other runners of my acquaintance waiting for Bobby that brought me back. Drinking nice water on a clear summer day. And being a part of it.

Couple of Baggage Follow-Ups

Amy Shapiro posted something from Runner’s World On-Line on the Marathon’s Facebook page, which goes a long way in explaining the inexplicable:

“From RWOL: I have friends at NYRR. Every one there is p!ssed about this decision. Mary W. did not make it. She and everyone that works there know that runners all want their bags. The City of NY demanded that they get people out of Central Park faster or they would not renew their permits for the race. Runners suffer in the wall-to-wall crowding in the very slow walk of more than a mile in which a lot of runners walk for an hour or more to get baggage and leave the park. NYRR did not want to do this until next yera but they were forced. Now they are getting slammed everywhere as they knew they would be, posters saying they are getting money out of this. They were not paying UPS at all, UPS is a sponsor and gave their services free, and they are still a sponsor. Now NYRR had to buy 50 thousand ponchos and take all this heat. They hate it. City officials will verify that they forced this decision.”

Has the patina of truth. I then posted this:

From the information that it was the City and not NYRR that insisted on the change, we see that the race has gotten too big. It can’t handle as many people as it has — although I think some alternative should have been achievable. NYRR, though, is so tied in not to the marathon per se but to the 9+1 system that fills its races. But it has so many 9+1ers that it doesn’t have much space for anyone else. Hence it’s changing the auto-entry times, to lessen those. [Someone pointed out that the international contingent gets nearly half of the available spots.]

At a lower number, the race will be nothing but 9+1ers. So rather than doing the sensible thing of reducing the field size, which it did between the 2010 and 2011 NYC HMs because the field was too large (which was changed this year by altering the start/finish set-up), it has removed an important service to runners. There are those runners who say no-baggage is no big deal, but that’s not true for many others. Plus NYRR’s ponying up for the cost of the ponchos.

Because congestion is defined at some range of times, something north of 3:20 perhaps, it would make sense for NYRR to have X slots available to people at those paces (or people with no paces), divied up equitably. For those faster than those paces, who do not affect the congestion/density of baggage check, allow them all in. Baggage for all. The field size would not be as small as it would with a fixed number for everyone, but would be around one that would eliminate the congestion problem. Like an early-bird special at a busy restaurant. Oldsters eating at 5 have no effect on those with reservations for 7.

But even if things are not broken up that way, NYRR needs to cut down the field-size to restore the service (and allow those who don’t want to wait early exit, as many have suggested). I fear, though, that NYRR is so dependent on 9+1 for its revenue — someone needs to pay for its $13 million payroll — that it will never back down.

I don’t think it fair to criticize NYRR officials for the decision since it appears to have been made for them (although how it handled the decision leaves quite a bit to be desired) but how it reacts in the future will be the key.

Finally, I’ve no stake in this, having given up running marathons. Nor am a still a NYRR-member. I think everyone in the running community, though, has an interest in this.

A Life Without Baggage Is A Life Not Worth Living

In light of NYRR’s decision to impose a no-baggage policy (unless, apparently, you pay to run for Fred’s Team), I posted the following on Facebook. It seems an ill-considered decision, one of those that leaves one scratching her head to figure out the thinking, such as it was, behind it. I’m neither a member nor a participant in any of its 2012 races. By 1979, I was generally volunteering at those races I did not run and spent most of marathon week-end working parts of the race, graduating to the (now-extinct) post of head ropeman in 1982 (and first running the race in 1983). This was my first marathon experience:

1979 was my first year volunteering at the Marathon and, it so happens, I was on post-finish baggage duty. Runners had placed their bags on the City buses that had taken them out, each bus having a placard with the relevant number range. In those days, finishers would be directed into chutes that headed to the north, ending shortly before the traffic light by 72nd Street. At the end of the chutes, they were directed to the east, and the family-reunion area and baggage claim was near the mall/bandshell.

At some point, the buses arrived. There were maybe 4 or 5 of us assigned to each bus, and I got bus 1-1000, which meant the first finishers. These were old city-buses and you could swing open the windows at their tops so we threw the bags out. There were no required bags, so it was much like any other NYRRC race, with a small tag indicated the number. Many, however, chose the bag issued at the start so the only way to identify those were by that little tag.

We worked very hard to organize the bags into groups of 100 before the runners arrived. I think we did a pretty good job. As they came, we’d ask for a number and description and would dive into the stack to find it. I don’t think any runner waited more than a few minutes for us to get his (the numbers were solely for men) bag.

Now the race is three times as large now. But 1-1000 are still a thousand numbers.

In 2010 I did see chaos at the 1000-1999 truck. So there is greater depth, i.e., more folks with similar times coming through at the same time, but it seems to me that putting aside the no-baggage/I’ll wait option, I’m sure something can be done to make it work.

On the Porch

It has been a while. Lest people think me dead I figured I’d have to post something.

Up-and-down running-wise but I’ve had a nice few recent runs. Wearing my Garmin to keep things in check, I feel fairly relaxed. My plan is to run the Tuckahoe Challenge in early September. Thinking of that race, though, reminds me of last year. In August I strung together a series of high-quality track workouts — including a 10K tempo and a solid interval stuff — when my knew went out early in the Tuckahoe Mile. This memory saddens me. Since I can’t imagine duplicating it.

I can be on the cusp of just giving up on it. I must remind myself that running is part of who I am and use that as my motivation.

On the Olympics front, not much to say. I did not watch much, essentially just the distance stuff. I did get myself into a bit of a bother with NYRR. It had posted on Facebook that a number of its staff were in London. Someone criticized this as yet another junket. I posted on NYRR’s Facebook-page a query as to whether NYRR was paying for these staffers. After this was ignored I posted it again. I was told that one of them was paying his own way, from which I inferred that NYRR was paying for the others. The post was promptly deleted. Mysteriously, though, while I couldn’t see it, I got a couple of comments.

I’m no longer a member of NYRR so it’s not an issue for me. I don’t know why members should pay for Mary Wittenberg’s hotel room though.

Some people attempted recently to get NYRR to manage its Facebook page better, presumably not to include deleting uncomplimentary things (the posting of which does not violate the rules-of-use (I checked)), by stopping people from posting inane stuff, such as the guy who posts “Hello NYRR. How are you today? I ran 12 miles today?” everyday. NYRR, fearful of offending anyone, declined. The page, which could have been of use, has essentially died.

This raises the question of how to get an active board for sharing. LetsRun has managed to make it, but NYCRuns.com tried without success. Someone tried a New York Running Society page on Facebook but that died too. One would think that there is a desire to have such a communal board, including for hooking up for runs (I tried that for runs at the Rockies but got no response), but it doesn’t happen.

Which is one reason why I send a monthly email to people about the last-Sunday-of-the-month Rockies run. I fear that I’m pissing people off but I am just trying to inform.

Two non-running items

I’m old. David Weigel just complete a five-part series on Progressive Rock. As a 15 year-old, I saw Yes at Gaelic Park in the Bronx. I recall the year (1972) because I bought a George McGovern shirt there. I was one of the many described in the series, listening to WNEW-FM and playing “Fragile” until the grooves were threatened. There was lots of other music I listened to at the time; Bruce’s “Sandy” got frequent play in that era.

I’ve been exploring Blues recently. the series notes the distinction between those bands that looked to American Blues as a base of inspiration — at the White House earlier this year Mick Jagger spoke of early trips to Chicago and being told by a Blues musician, “Those English guys want to play the Blues bad and they play the Blues bad” — and those that looked to Europe and the classical tradition. The latter grew into the Prog Rock bands, Yes, ELP, King Crimson, etc. My friend Al Bixler put on a concert in Iona Prep’s gym, must have been 1974 or 1975, with Renaissance.

If you think back fondly of those days, it’s a very nice series. And the songs are available on YouTube. (Because I’ve just gotten a used Fender Jazz Bass, I’m aiming to play this.)

On a completely different front, I found myself in a political thread on someone’s Facebook page. I was taken aback by the level of hate for Obama. Several people exposed themselves as birthers — which I find either dishonest or ignorant — and there were comments that displayed a lack of sophistication or thought that I found frightening. Fortunately some of those who began by mouthing simplistic ad hominems against Obama stepped back when called on it and reverted to reasoned discourse, even if I disagreed. There was one guy, though, that was callous and bitter and, in the end, rather sad. I assume there are his kind on the left too. Encountering someone seemingly incapable of reason (with, as I say, a shocking callousness that called to mind Scrooge’s famous “Are there no prisons?” line and evoked a world described in many a Dickens novel, a world I didn’t think anyone would want to revive, right or left) was frighteningly telling. Including that those spewing vitriol are sad.

Speaking of Facebook, my old friend Pete Gambacinni, who works (I think) at Runner’s World and ran against me in the old days (he for CPTC) has been posting regular videos. It will go down as a classic. I can’t embed it, but worth the click.

Yonkers 2013

Steve Lastoe has lots of control over the Yonkers Marathon. Yonkers is the second-oldest marathon in the US — Boston is the oldest — but has long been treated as a second-class event, if that. Steve wonders what can be done to change that, and he asked for suggestions.

I spoke about this a few weeks back on the New York Running Show (audio).

As I see it, Yonkers is early (September) although it will likely move into October. More important, Yonkers is known as a “hilly marathon”. Those wanting to run a conventional race simply don’t think of it. So can we turn a “hilly marathon” into a “marathon with hills”? To me, that is crucial. But geography is the problem. You see there is a ridge that goes slap-dap between eastern and western Yonkers. To get from one side of the city to the other means a climb.

The climb, though, is not so steep to the south. Like a general planning an assault (although there was the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, one of the most important battles in North American/British/French history in which the key was not going around the hill), what about crossing to the south? Indeed, if we could get into the Bronx(which is Yonkers’s southern border) we would really be in business hill-wise, although even staying in Yonkers works to eliminate a monster hill.

When mapping some possibilities and visualizing them, I realized that you’d have a good mix of places to run through. No real industrial stretch but communities and stores and such. A run through the campus of Sarah Lawrence (which is in Yonkers) and some residential neighborhoods. It would not be, could not be, a “flat course” although there would be flattish stretches. The hills, though, are manageable and the course rolling.

So for 2013, this could be a very nice addition to the running calendar.

I don’t want to diminish the current, two-lap course. The 2011 edition got very good reviews. It was, though, something of a curiosity. With the demand for a fall marathon, evidenced by the big-city races filling almost immediately, Steve’s logistical wizardry with a well-designed course would be half the battle of a solid option. At that point, the issue because getting the word out.

It’s a topic to be re-visited.

On the Porch

It has been awhile since I posted so here goes. (I am again on the DL for an injury that, as you’ll see, is completely unrelated to running.)

Last week-end wasn’t so great. On Friday night, backing out of my sister’s driveway I did not see a tree. In my defense it was dusk and the tree melded into the background. In any case, “boom” and a nice dent and shattered rear light. Ouch.

But on Friday I had a nice tempo run — 8 laps in just under 13 — and felt good. Saturday saw me getting ready to go out for a run in the heat when I slipped in my socks on the stairs. “Boom” and while my bad arm was unaffected, as was my butt, I somehow did something to my upper right arm and haven’t been able to run since, although I tried on Sunday morning with the group. I stopped when I couldn’t handle the ice-pick I felt hitting one spot on the arm with each step. After a few days of limited mobility with it, it finally seems to have turned the corner to betterness. I hoped it would be good enough for something on Saturday, but that that was not to be. A few strides in and the stabbing resumed. I’ve no choice other than to give it more time.

In the meantime, and after TalkShoe wouldn’t work for Sunday’s New York Running Show podcast, I hosted an episode of RunnersRoundTable. RRT was a weekly but after the founders backed off, Mark Ulrich has been valiently trying to keep it going, and there are monthly shows now. I chose the topic: Training for a Marathon. I had fun doing it, with Pete Larson and Craig MacFarlane. I doubted we could go for half-an-hour, but we clocked in at over 70 minutes.

Speaking of non-running, I bought myself a new guitar. A month-or-so ago I went into a house having a tag sale with my wife in Connecticut. I came upon a Gibson Les Paul 1960 reproduction for $1,700. Gibson has “re-issued” the Les Paul periodically, and this one had not been played often. I fiddled with it a bit but did not plug it into the amp.

It got me thinking. I’ve long had a Cort electric (as well as an acoustic and a couple of others, including a 12-string acoustic I bought in college and had forgotten about until I came upon it up in the attic; new set of strings and as good as new)), but hadn’t played them much in a while. When I got home, I plugged the Cort into my little amp and just played with it. Things have so changed in recent years. You can get virtually any song on YouTube and you can get the music — in the form of chord-charts and tablature (a graphic of a guitar’s six strings with numbers representing a note’s fret (such as a “5″ on the A-string (which is a D))). Then for tuning, there’s a device you put on the guitar that tells you the pitch of each string, with a dial that moves until you’ve got the correct note, making tuning a snap.

This of course sent me on a course of thinking of a newer, better guitar. The Cort is a Fender Stratocaster knock-off, so I was thinking of something different and looked into hollow bodies and semi-hollow bodies. After a few visits to music stores, where you get to sit down with an amp and a bunch of guitars and hammer away, I went with an Epiphone semi-hollow body Sheraton II.

Several runners I know have performed (and are performing) professionally. I’m content with working through stuff — particularly on Blues stuff — and trying to figure out how to use a pick. With a piano, vamping on a jazz or blues piece is fun, but when I’ve tried it with rock it’s really boring. You can only play a C-chord in so many ways and given that rock is built around chords without a lot of alteration, I at least got stuck in a rut.

The guitar, though, is built for rock. That pedestrian C-chord can be played in all sorts of ways. It’s fun.

Yeah, but not as much as I’d like

I was preparing to write how I’d rid myself of my stupor and was setting my eyes on a target race, which was to be the Tuckahoe Challenge 5-Miler in September. And then I got yet another in this series of “minor setbacks” to which I’ve become heir recently. A bit of speed (tempo) on the track last Friday, and a nice easy run on Saturday. I was cruising along in the latter, wearing my Garmin for the first time in many months (one of our dogs (Teddy) had eaten part of the strap and it took a while for me to get it replaced) as a speed control. I felt relaxed and easy. Out for 4, back for 4. Only at about 6.5 I had a sudden pain in the left quad, which would not leave and forced me to stop. Fuck. Sunday it hit at 1.5 miles. Fuck Fuck. A week off. So I ran again today. Nice and easy. No problem in just under 20 minutes. Who knows?

The thing is that I keep having different things go wrong. There’s neither rhyme nor reason to it. Knee. Quad. Did my switch to a low-drop shoe cause the problem? I’ve not had any of the symptoms one expects from such a change, such as calve and lower-leg strain. I’ve been wearing them for many months. Frustrating.

Not nearly so much I admit as for Flo, who’s been experienced a season, or at least half, of “House” with her maladies. But her most-recent entry includes this gem: “Racing will always be secondary to the activity itself, I love running much more than I love testing myself, but it’ll be a little strange for once to plan ahead for not planning.” Which says as well as anything what this sport is all about. And it’s why TK has been having such trouble with a no-run injury. I’ve been there, years ago, so the best I could do was offer the hope, not the promise, of enjoying “the activity itself” again.

Meanwhile, the Mary Cain saga continues. She was the 31st of 32 qualifiers in the Olympic Trials 800 and was in Heat 1 last night. Four Heats. Top 3 plus 4 fastest made it to the semis. She was fifth in her heat, and did not make it through. Quite a fine performance. She’s been focusing on the 1500 this year, but is probably too far down the list to be among the 30 who qualify for that event. So it’s off to the World Juniors.

It seems that I’ve become something of a poster-boy for the anti-Cain camp, and it seems that there are those who think there is an anti-Cain camp. I’ve seen anonymous comments on LetsRun about her that appear to be from people with some knowledge of things. (I’ve no idea who they are but I am curious.) Some are nasty. Except for one comment in the fall (which simply noted the presence of “tension” on the girls’ cross team), I’ve always used my own name. I’m the kid too stupid to flee when the cops raid the party and so I’m the one whose parents are called. And because I’m friends with someone else, she gets in trouble too.

I heard that the problem was my posts. I looked them up. There aren’t many. And I think them sympathetic to Mary Cain. This is because I am sympathetic. (I do know enough to know that the personality-issues are not black-and-white.) If anything I tried to say that it must be difficult to be a high-school runner without a team. I was a star in a team with many, but none a superstar, although some were closer than I was. My most treasured high-school memories concern my relay duties and my cross events.  The van to and from meets. Warming up in school sweats on the Van Cortlandt flats, looking askance at the kids from the powers that we were going to show a thing or two. Hanging out in the stands after a race.

All that little stuff that one sees hundreds and hundreds of teams experience and that is the fiber for high-school track and cross. In Bronxville seeing members of the teams on long runs along the Bronx River Parkway. Even now, running mostly alone, I relish the times I get to run with a group. So I feel sad for her. Her fault or someone else’s, I feel sad for her. If I had any hope for any usefulness in my posts, it was to get that message across to those involved.

Apparently I failed. So why the bad feelings toward me? Apparently I went “public” with internal issues. Utter nonsense. Turns out that when I commented on Charlie Cain’s statement to a local newspaper/newssite that Mary Cain changed coaches because “said Charles Cain, Mary’s father. ‘She was at a level, I think, where she just really needed that individualized attention.’” and said that this was (a) an insult to her former coach, Jim Mitchell, and (b) a display of arrogance that I didn’t think was appropriate for a school, it was me who made things “public” when I wrote on this barely-on-anyone’s-radar blog.

I received a comment there, as I have elsewhere, from Jerome Kopf, who has insightful things to say about Mary Cain (although I was right and he was wrong about the effect on Mary Cain of a heat on USATF Juniors). Not a peep (including an email), though, from anyone else telling me I didn’t know what I was talking about. I admit, though, that I do not know whether Charlie Cain was reprimanded by anyone for his injudicious statement.

It is said that speaking about her outside the four corners of her performances is out-of-bounds. I write about those performances as a fan of the sport, as people write about Jenny B or Galen Rupp, with the caveat that she’s 16 and has just finished her sophomore year in high school. Things get dicey, though, when others speak about her outside the four corners of her performance. I wrote about her father after he did that. As judges are wont to say, “You opened that door counselor”.

[edited to add: My friend HD sent me a link to a Times article on Cain that I missed.]