The Day Before

Today was the day before the day when the weather gets crummy. Today was still a mix of green, peak colors and some bare spots. But after the next two days of rain and wind, the trees will be stripped bare and the parks will look bereft until the spring. The morning was 48, pure sunshine, blinding reflection from the lake, and a light breeze. So I pulled out the new overly bright yellow Pearl Izumis and my first set of gloves for the fall. I made time for a 7 miler (in a crisp 59 minutes) and then headed into the office for a long day of editing a practice mid-term, a faculty committee report, and a one page book notice for an obscure European competition journal. Hope springs eternal but it looks like rain for tomorrow and most of the rest of the week. The outdoor running season is no means over but the window is closing and January approaches all too quick.

Tying

We just covered tying today in antitrust class -- the "old tying," with Microsoft and related cases coming up next week. With regard to tying, is it me, or is there an extraordinary glut of academic writing on this topic in recent years? It's as if tying is the new predatory pricing -- there is a gold rush afoot. Commentators may well sense that the window for suggesting things to do with the awkward per se rule is fast closing.

The "Library"

I spent last weekend organizing my home "library." We have a small room that is good for little but bookshelves, and I have needed to unpack several boxes of books for some time now. Most of them are up. Here's the challenge: how does one organize a home library, when (1) there is enough diversity of reading that simply alphabetizing may be confusing; (2) there are few enough books that categorizing by topic becomes a little silly; (3) space is sufficiently limited that I need a shelf or two just for small paperbacks (to limit unused "air space" above books); (4) I like to keep bookshelves in various places so a book is always handy; and various other limitations that aren't jumping at me right now.

I have categorized thusly:

Politics, history and biography
Philosophy and religion
Novels and literature
Drama and poetry
Sports, games and hobbies
Running, cycling and triathlon
Climbing
Paddling and whitewater
Travel and language
Law
Economics and finance

There are obvious overlaps, but because each of the three sporting sub-categories can claim more than a shelf, I decided to separate them out. It nonetheless seems a little silly to section the home library 11 different ways for 500 or so volumes.

The need to shelve books together by height makes it hard to alphabetize within a category. The Novels and Literature category is something of a mess.

What do you do with, for example, "Never Turn Back," the biography of Walt Blackadar, one of the great whitewater kayaking pioneers? (Blackadar was the first to run the Turnback Canyon on the Alsac -- solo -- and the first to run Devil's Canyon of the Susitna, which are perhaps the two fiercest expedition whitewater runs in the U.S.) Biography or whitewater?

How do others organize theirs?

Neal Stephenson

I love a good science fiction novel. For some reason, I have previously resisted reading Neal Stephenson, a contemporary of William Gibson in the cyberpunk movement. Mostly, I didn't want to invest in a 1000 page book which was merely the first of three similarly sized volumes of a trilogy. Then I discovered Snow Crash. It was published in 1992, normal sized, completely thrilling, and quite prescient about things like computer viruses, the internet, virtual reality, and even something that seems a dead ringer for Google Earth. Now I want more particularly since William Gibson's recent work has wandered off in a more idiosyncratic and less satisfying vein.

Fall Races and AALS

I entered 2010 with a new year's resolution not to run any marathons. So far, I have kept that vow. The problem is that I have done very few races at all, just a 10 miler in May and the Chicago half Marathon in September. In fact, I was a bit demoralized as injuries lingered and my finishing times crept upwards.

But pacing a friend in the Chicago Marathon brought me a new outlook for the fall. He was shooting for a 3:40 so I hung with him for about 10K at a even slightly faster pace and then dropped to run my own pace before I left the course and took the el home. When I got home I did the math and realized that if that 10K had been a separate race it would have been right around my pr for that distance. That and my general love of fall outdoor running got back in the race game at the middle distances. So I signed up for a Halloween 10K, an early November 15K, and the annual Turkey Trot 8K which has the other advantage of starting four blocks from my home.

Which brings me to my final point. How about the first RRR Bloggers 10K/10M San Francisco AALS race? We can design a course, a tee shirt, and a goody bag and skip the 8:30 sessions (as if we would be there anyway) for our first in person editors meeting and run since the blog went live. It can also be a recruiting session for future guest and permanent bloggers? What works better Thursday or Friday?

Pre-race

Coach always pencils in a day off before a race, but I tighten up if I don't run, so I headed out today. Tomorrow's not a big race in any event. More important races are one week, two weeks and five weeks away. With those in mind, I need more speed work, so I headed to the track. Wilson High School had a soccer contest of some sort. American University had a game between AU and Navy, which tied 0-0 after two overtimes. I know because I arrived just in time to see the last-minute AU scoring attempt get called off due to a foul. I left before they could clear the track, because by that time I had quite happily resigned myself to a comfortable cruise.

I headed back east on Mass. Ave and northeast on Nebraska, then west on Van Ness. I picked up 46th going north. Now I was running in my old haunts, where I ran when I lived in AU Park, in a group house, three years out of law school. I tell those stories to my students during the semester-ly "it's not all German cars and silk suits" speech. On Fessenden Street, with Jim, Christophe and whoever else we could find to fill the remaining two bedrooms, I spent two years with a home-made climbing wall in the living room. Back then I scrimped on lunch during the week for weekend beer money. I didn't run much in those days, at least in the later 18 months -- six months after I moved in I set what remains my marathon PR, and then more or less quit running for the next several years. So after too many days of watching TV and drinking beer I'd stumble out for a few miles to overcome the feeling of lethargy. Then I'd huff and puff west on Fessenden to River, River to Little Falls, Little Falls up into Bethesda and back home on Wisconsin. Or something like that.

Today I joined that route at 46th and River. But this time I felt strong, enjoying the fall breeze and the leaves starting to swirl in the air and the non-polluter's privilege. No iPod so all senses were engaged. I caught the Capital Crescent Trail from Little Falls road, descended a staircase to Bradley Blvd. and took it east to Connecticut. Headed back south toward the DC line and home. Almost home, I couldn't resist dropping downhill on the block north of mine and sprinting back uphill on my street to finish.

Tomorrow is the Somerset Elementary 8K, the last real mid-course race of the year. It starts at the oh-so-civil hour of 9 a.m. It's a hilly course. The weather looks magnificent. I figure I'll jog there, see what I can do, and be home in time for brunch.

A Fall Fowliage Haiku

Purple Martens swirl overhead,
Canadian Geese Never Leave,
Why are they so Mean?