Political Theater At Its Worst

While trying to move as little as possible as I recover from the marathon, I've been listening to almost non-stop radio coverage of the nomination of Samuel A. Alito to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. I don't know if I've ever heard such a farce. On the left pundits are saying “There's going to be a huge fight; he's a right wing wacko.” On the right, pundits are saying “I don't think there's going to be much opposition; once people get to know him they'll see he's a great guy and they will support him.” I don't believe either side is saying what they think is true. Instead, both sides are taking extreme positions in an effort to shape public opinion. I guess this is how politics works these days: You never hear real opinions and rarely hear many facts; instead, you hear spin. This isn't new; it's just rare that you see it so clearly.

That said, the spin is revealing in itself. The left is arguing from the facts of Alito's long record that he's an extreme Right nominee, while the Right is arguing from nothing more than “he's a really good guy” that he should be unobjectionable. If you had the choice, would you pick a judge based on a concrete record, or would you pick based on whether you thought he was a good guy?

Oh, the Right is also arguing that Alito is “just like Roberts” because Roberts supposedly set such a high standard and everyone loved him. Of course, Alito might turn out to be just like Roberts in terms of how the two would rule in any given case, but we can't know that because we still don't really know how Roberts is going to rule. Roberts turned out to be unobjectionable because he had such a thin record; that's not the case with Alito.

What is certain is that Alito will add nothing to the diversity of the court in terms of background, gender, race, ethnicity, philosophy, experience, etc.

Happy Halloween, everybody. Are you scared enough yet?

Posted 04:08 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | law general

Pain Is Weakness Leaving the Body

Ahh. It's over. I “ran” a marathon. The 2005 Marine Corps Marathon was yesterday and I finished 26.2 miles in 5 hours, 15 minutes, and 48 seconds (5:15:48). The top man finished in 2:22 and the top woman finished in 2:47 so I was pretty *cough* close.

I was really hoping for a 5-hour-or-less time, but, well, when you train slower, it's kind of hard to run faster. I hurt today (I'm hobbling around like an old man) but you know what? It was a blast! Yesterday was really a great day and I thank everyone who helped make it happen—all the incredibly generous contributors to my fundraising effort (which will continue until January, if you'd still like to help!), and especially my girlfriend, her sister, and my family, all of whom have been very supportive in every possible way. L. gets the most special thanks for being there through the whole thing, following my split times through her cell phone, racing all over the course to cheer me on, and then being there at the end w/a smile and open arms which was really all I needed to cap off such an amazing experience. Thank you L, and thank you all!

I learned several things running my first marathon. First, even though I hadn't planned on it, it's fun to have a camera with you. I took several photos, some of which I've turned into an MCM Photo Set on Flickr. However, I wish I had taken more photos—especially since I wasn't ever going to set any speed records, I should have taken more time to savor the whole thing a bit more. That said, there were points yesterday where my right arm and shoulder hurt so much I thought I was going to have to quit the race. I've never felt that before and I wonder if it was from reaching around to grab my camera off my hip and raising it to take pics while running and walking. It sounds like these are small things, but every little movement can add up over 26.2 miles.

The other things I learned is that you shouldn't start too fast! My AIDS Marathon coaches told us this repeatedly, but I foolishly didn't listen. I feel badly because I started out as the ringleader in the first few miles pushing the group I was with to keep a 5-hour pace. One of the five of our group went on to finish in 4:58, another in 5:01, and another in 5:12, so the starting out fast didn't hurt them too much. However, I certainly started feeling it and had to slow down, as did my running partner; at about mile 17 (in the middle of the Haynes Point Psychout) we hit a big wall. We got a bit of a second wind after slowing down for a few miles, but we never really returned to our earlier pace. So the lesson is to try to start slower, and maintain a steadier pace. Of course, I wonder if maybe we had just pushed through that wall and tried to keep going, would we have gotten our second wind, anyway? Or would we have pushed ourselves to the point of breakdown and been unable to finish? We'll never know. That's what makes a marathon so tough; it's a mind and balance game, trying to judge what kind of pain you can push though, and what kind of pain is really going to bring you crashing to a halt.

Anyway, for the record, here's what we did: We started at a 4:1 run/walk ratio—running four minutes, walking one. At the 10-mile mark we turned it up to a 5:1 ratio, and at mile 18 or 19 we turned back to the 4:1. For the last 2.2 miles (from the 24 mile mark) I ran through all walk breaks—very slowly, obviously. Here are our mile splits:
1—12:46
2—13:10
3—11:53
4—12:23
5—11:28
6—11:22
7—11:36
8—11:19
9— (missed it)
10—21:53 (/2=10:57)
11—10:50
12—11:02
13—11:19
14—11:15
15—11:56
16—11:39
17—11:58 (we crashed)
18—16:08
19—12:06
20—(missed it)
21—25:37 (/2=12:49)
22—14:00 (we walked an entire 4-minute run period during this mile)
23—12:12
24—13:45 (we again walked an entire 4-minute run period during this mile)
25—11:10
26—13:01

Best mile: 10:50
Avg time: 13:09 (that's about a minute off b/c of the two splits I missed; the real average was 12:02, according to the official results).

I sadly placed 13,403rd out of 19,112 marathon runners—not even middle of the pack. (There were supposed to be 30,000 runners, but the results site says only 19k were “marathon runners.” I have no idea where the rest of them were.) I was the 8,711th man to finish out of 11,294 male marathon runners, and number 1,406 out of 1,714 in my age group. Yeah, that's sad.

Posted 10:14 AM | Comments (13) | TrackBack | marathon