Books for the Fall Running Season

A couple of great reads.

The Inner Runner by Dr. Jason Karp

First up, Dr. Jason Karp's The Inner Runner. Unlike most of the running books out there, Dr. Karp does not set up a training program or discuss the various workouts. For anyone who's read running books at all, those tropes are tired beyond belief. What Karp does is give you reasons to run, lots of them, told in a friendly style with the anecdotes woven into the science.

Take his example of the connectivity of running. The premise of his statement is deceptively simple: running is very connective. But then Karp plays with the idea of connectedness, tying it to nature, then people, to effort, and finally to souls. (Okay, that was a bad pun. Couldn't resist.) And, after leading us down into introspection, he lifts the story back up, to the sights and sounds of all the myriad places running can take us.

Even his chapter titles highlight the differences: Heathful Runs; Creative and Imaginative Runs: Productive Runs.

What The Inner Runner does, successfully, is to open the realms of the possible for all runners, by taking a look at facets beyond the optimal 5K program or the latest marathon tweak. It a worthy book for any runner to keep permanently on their shelf.

COMPETE Training Journal (Believe Training Journal) by Lauren Fleshman and Roisin McGettigan-Dumas

I didn't realize the newest version of Fleshman's and McGettigan-Dumas' Training Journal was available for pre-order until I caught a tweet from Sally Bergesen of Oiselle.  The authors approach the journal process a bit differently than most. While the basics are there, theyadd (based on last year's version) a heap of perspective and motivation to get you to your goals.

Now, I should back up here a touch - Fleshman and McGettigan-Dumas wrote this journal specifically for women. That does not mean it's soft - no one in their right mind considers Fleshman or McGettigan-Dumas soft. It doesn't mean that males can't use it, just be prepared for feminine pronouns in place of the traditional "he, him, his."

The response to last year's version was very positive from the users. It's unusual to get runners to almost unanimously agree on anything but this training journal (I'm basing my opinion on last year) seems pretty well beloved.  Personally, I liked the quality of the covers and pages. I'm not much for running logs since I'm not actively training any more, but the one I checked out as a gift was just plain welcoming to open and I could see my daughters using it with pleasure.

The Compete Training Journal is a nice tool for those that are looking for something that brings quite a bit more to the table than a spreadsheet. According to Amazon, the book will ship November 1st, in plenty of time for Christmas and the upcoming racing seasons.

The Occasional Diamond Thief by J. A. McLachlan

It's not a running book, I know. Still, it was a darn fun read. I picked up a copy of this novel while on my trip to Calgary (and Jane was kind enough to autograph it for me.) As I wrote in review on Amazon:

What an enjoyable read! J. A. McLachlan crafted an entertaining story centered on teenage Kia, a gifted linguist, and a family secret wrapped in guilt. The story moves with smooth pacing and engaging characters from the death of Kia's father to the planet Malem, with enough twists to keep things interesting and none of it forced. The interactions between Kia and the Select, Agathe, are warm and touching, lending a great deal of humanity to the story.

McLachlan managed a nice trick of building a wonderfully adventurous coming-of-age tale in a science fiction future that blends so seamlessly that she transports you with Kia and the Select Agathe to Malem. Definitely a novel to recommend.

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Disclaimer: I buy these books out of my own money - none have been given to me for review and the authors didn't know that I would be writing a review.

NCAA Virtue-Signals On Its Way to Irrelevance

On Monday, the NCAA, already embroiled in law suits that threaten its existence, took another definitive step toward irrelevance and eventual oblivion when it pulled seven championship events from North Carolina venues in response to HB2, the law that among a myriad of other things, prevents people with wangs from using the restrooms designated for those without.

This, to the NCAA, is the biggest problem that it faces in North Carolina, something so horrible that action must be taken.

Since no discussion is possible on transgender issues without declarative statements, let me make mine, right here, at the top. I. DON'T. CARE. If you are a transgendered person, do what you want, provided it does not impact or harm another person. That does not include using whatever restroom you want, though. You're not the only person in there.

Nine or fifteen year-old girls should not be required to have biologically-identifiable men share restroom facilities, regardless of orientation. Your right to self-identity does not supersede their right to privacy. If, however, you have had surgery and taken the drugs to erase the outward physical differences, I'm back to 'Who cares?'

Got a wang and don't want to use the men's room? In the text of HB2, it provides for single-occupancy bathrooms. Use them. If they are missing, demand they be built. That would be fair.

So great, that's out of the way.

Please note that the NCAA is being somewhat inconsistent. Their pulling seven events from public venues but leaving in place events where a North Carolina university is the host. It's one thing to posture - it's a wholly different thing to interfere with the flow of Benjamins.

In that same vein, at the University of North Carolina, a cheating scandal that encompassed the best part of two DECADES is ever-so-quietly getting swept under the rug. Considered by many to be the largest case of academic fraud in history, UNC established fake courses, initially to keep basketball and football players eligible, and got caught. The fraud was so pervasive that the accrediation body, SACS, said this: "The investigative report clearly refutes the institution’s claims that the academic fraud was relegated to the unethical actions of two people." In other words, it appears to be an institution-wide problem.

Brian C. Rosenberg, the president of Macalester College, went so far as to suggest in the Chronicle of Higher Education, that UNC should lose their accreditation. Silliness. UNC is in the 'too-big-to-fail' group for SACS to punish with anything more than a finger wag and a sternly worded missive.

Since getting busted, the university has been fighting tooth and nail to avoid any form of punishment. Rashad McCants, a star on the 2005 basketball squad, released his transcript and told ESPN that he made the Dean's List, despite never showing up for classes. He wasn't alone. McCants challenged his teammates to do likewise - to date, none of the other starters on the 2005 championship team have done so. The classes were arranged by the staff for the athletics department and included the direct knowledge of at least one department Dean. Lack of Institutional Control is one of the biggest charges that can be filed against a member university. Implicated in the cheating were men's and women's basketball, women's soccer, and football.

The initial notice of allegations also specifically noted the high use of the fake classes, some graded by a secretary, by basketball and football players. UNC had a ready response to this charge though - they included non-athletes, too. Yep, the defense is we didn't just defraud athletes of an education, we inflicted it on frat boys, too, so it's all good. The NCAA bobbed its head, practically apologized, and sent out an amended NOA removing the individual sports - except for women's basketball, which looks to be the designated scapegoat.

Rashada McCants, a star in her own right on the UNC women's team and sister of Rashad, disagreed with the assertion that a pretense of education is sufficient. She is suing the NCAA over her lack of education. The NCAA's response was that it has no legal responsibility to ensure the academic integrity of courses, despite its proclamations on its website. This is, of course, exactly opposite the claims it makes in the O'Bannon case, where former UCLA stand-out Ed O'Bannon is fighting to get the revenue shared with athletes. In that case, the NCAA has argued that the education the students-athletes (no snickering, UNC fans) get is compensation enough.

As mentioned, UNC has battled the NCAA, effectively denying that the governing body has any right to comment, much less punish them, for the paper classes. Quoting from News & Observer, "UNC isn’t saying it didn’t happen. It’s saying that the system of phony classes happened within the university’s academic side and involved athletes as well as non-athletes and therefore presents an issue beyond the NCAA’s scope." The rumblings from the NCAA suggest that, given the chance, they will cave. Penalizing UNC, after all, will hurt their cashflow.

As if hypocrisy is not enough, the UNC case points out a recurring problem in college athletics. Universities such as UNC prey on minorities. The larger portion of athletes in the fraudulent classes were African-American. Want to see institutional racism? Just head over to UNC and you can check out what it looks like in the modern era. (And based on the news breaking this morning, they will protect the athletes from scrutiny at the expense of women.)

So, into this quagmire of ugliness in North Carolina, the NCAA has decided that the single biggest issue deserving its attention is . . . bathrooms.

Not pervasive cheating. Not the inherent racism. Bathrooms.

These are the actions of a dying organization, seeking relevance. If it can't have that, well, virtue signalling will have to do.

Running in Greenville, South Carolina

Visiting family on the other side of the country for Labor Day. They have interesting spots to run here, too.

Saw a big heron. Too slow to get the picture. I keep stumbling on pretty places like this. Life is good.

No one in the booth to collect the toll, so on we roll.

About here is when I remembered the East Coast has a lot of poison ivy.

That is not good Georgia red clay . . . South Carolina has their own variety.

As evident by the lack of footprints, not too many people here leave the beaten path.