A Few Historical Fibers

I finished James McPherson's "Battle Cry of Freedom" earlier this week (the same day, coincidentally, that Gov. Mark Sanford announced that he was continuing the long South Carolinian tradition of seceding from unions).

Commuting in D.C. is very compatible with listening to audiobooks, and at just under 40 hours, Battle Cry had been my faithful companion for around two months. Though focusing a little more singly on military history than I was expecting after David Walker Howe's What Hath God Wrought (the preceding volume, covering 1815-1848, in the still not-yet-completed Oxford History of the United States series), Battle Cry was especially readable in D.C., given its helpful ability to breathe life into the area's statues and placenames. (I will now forever think of Farragut North as the "Damn the Torpedos!"-Metro Stop, for instance. "Full speed ahead!")

Double-bonus, the book also contained some pretty solid explanatory trivia--it's 1861 and the North needs thousands of new military uniforms; you're in the textiles business, but you're short on wool. What do you do?

To fill contracts for hundreds of thousands of uniforms, textile manufacturers compressed fibers of recycled woolen goods into a material called "shoddy." This noun soon became an adjective to describe uniforms that ripped after a few weeks of wear, shoes that fell apart, blankets that disintegrated, and poor workmanship in general[.]" (p. 324)

And just like that, a new word is born.

Beautiful.

Boot Camp: Day 1

Four months to go, the training begins today.

Three years after running the Mayor's Marathon in Anchorage, I'm ready for round two: I've signed up for October's Marine Corps Marathon in D.C.


As I did the first time around, I'll be following the "Casual" training schedule posted on the New York Marathon's website. It's an 18 week program, and today is Day Zero: Tuesday of Week One.

Since I've been running a fair amount since moving to D.C., my plan is to take advantage of the early weeks' shorter mileages to see if I can push myself to run faster. McMillan offers a handy "equivalent performance" calculator that motivated me pretty well three years ago, and it's one-for-one in 2009 already: if I want to run a full marathon in 3:45, McMillan says I need to be able to run 3 miles at a 7:25 pace; so, this morning I ran 3.1 miles at 7:24.

I'm not sure yet what my goal for this go-round is going to be, but I'm toying with 3 hours 40 minutes, or a marathon of 8:24-minute miles. Could be a tall order, but I think it's doable.

Sea to Shining Sea

I'm back from a long weekend in Alaska, where I was far too distracted by the weather and fun to take any pictures.

I did take a quick video panorama before heading out to bike the Hope road, though. It works as a kind of visual metaphor for the weekend: gorgeous, dizzying, and brief.

Go Card! (Updated)

I've been playing on Stanford's alumni softball team since moving to D.C., in the (slightly intense) Capital Alumni Network league. (Seriously, there are something like 64 teams in the league, and the season ends with a huge double-elimination tournament.)

After a brutal 0-4 start, with punishing losses to perennial powerhouses Maryland, Penn State and Emory (and a foolish loss to Johns Hopkins), something miraculous happened in this weekend's PAC-10 Alumni tournament: we went 3-0, sweeping Cal, Arizona and Arizona State.

PAC-10 Champions! Go Card!

(Now if I could just stop hitting pop-ups . . . )