Women running in Marathons

Jane Galt mentions that she's not running marathons for a variety of reasons. The blog that Jane was mentioning is Art De Vany's Top Ten Reasons not to Run Marathons (where I've added my two cents).

I haven't run a marathon. Not yet, because it's too hard. I will be running my first one next year.

I want to run a marathon. And the granddaddy of all marathons is Boston. I was reading about the Boston Marathon the other night (not that I'm ever going to be able to qualify for Boston) and read something about the history of women running in the Boston Marathon.

After reading it, I was shocked. So I asked Little Michigander 1 when he thought women were allowed to run there, given that the event started in 1897 and it didn't allow women then. He guessed they opened it up with women's sufferage. Reasonable guess, but the answer is 1972.

A woman, Roberta Gibb, ran in 1966 through 68 as a "bandit" runner. She didn't enter, so she didn't have a bib number, just hid near the start and jumped in. Another woman, Katherine Switzer, entered as "K.V. Switzer" and had a bib number in 1967. She trained at Syracuse with the men's cross country team and entered the race with her coach and also her boy friend, a hammer thrower for the Syracuse track team. A race official saw that a woman (gasp!) was running and tried to physically remove her from the race at the 4-mile mark, even though there was nothing in the written rules prohibiting women from running in the event.

(A helpful hint: don't try to physically remove a woman when her hammer-throwing boyfriend is present.)

The boyfriend body-slammed the race official.

You can read Katherine Switzer's story here.

It's an amazing story. For one, she ran the mile for Lynchburg and got hate mail, telling her that God would strike her dead. I was reminded of the Austin Lounge Lizards singing "Jesus loves me, but he can't stand you."

From Katherine's story, here's a couple of nice pictures of the hammer-thrower and the race director in the Boston Marathon.

http://www.katherineswitzer.com/ks_bos_1.html
http://www.katherineswitzer.com/ks_bos_2.html

Conservative turning in his credentials?

Nolan Finley of the Detroit News had an interesting column on Sep 11. He starts by writing:

It was suggested last week that I turn in my conservative credentials because I thought Michael Brown ought to be fired for the way he bungled the initial response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

If hanging on to those credentials means I have to blindly defend everything President Bush does, then, fine, I'll give them up. That's a bigger job than I want.

If being conservative means I have to turn a blind eye to government mismanagement and incompetence just because a Republican is running the show, then I'll take a hike.

It's about time. The Republicans have marched in lock-step, afraid of any possible dissent within the party. "Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys" has been the attitude for a long time. Or as Finley puts it:

But the conservative movement's principles have given way to partisanship. The words "conservative" and "Republican" are now interchangeable, and it's more important to protect the party than to hew to core values.

I've been amazed at how Republicans have been willing to toss out core values for party partisanship. It's time to defend core values, such competency instead of nepotism. Michael Brown was hired as the FEMA director, not because of any qualifications for the job, but because he was the college roommate of Joe Allbaugh, Bush's former campaign director.

Nolan Finley may soon be ostracized by the Republicans for speaking the truth. Or maybe the party will start to follow its own philosophies. Let's see what happens.

-- Michigander

Katrina: Sorrow and Rage

Following Katrina and the ensuing man-made disaster, I go from rage at the authorities to sorrow for the people. Intellectually, I know it happened but emotionally, I still find myself in denial. Perhaps starting this blog will help me deal with the emotions.

I've tried to donate money to the Red Cross, 4 times now, and their servers were too busy (a good sign!) to take my money. Let me go try it again.

....well, that didn't work. I couldn't connect to work via VPN. It's important to make my donation in the correct manner so it qualifies for my employer's generous 2-to-1 match.

Made it. Okay, I feel a litttle better. That's $250 from me, $750 after my employer's match is added in there.

-- Michigander