The Finish Line

Did you beat Lance?

Everyone asks this. Alas, the answer is No. If only.

Lance I know you are training hard. So I need to start training hard too. (Ready Coach?)
Lance you will be my rabbit -- I am going to chase you like a greyhound in NYC. And I pledge to do everything I can to return the favor next spring in Boston.
LIVESTRONG indeed.

[Caption: This is my body. And I can do whatever I want to it. I can push it. Study it. Tweak it. Listen to it. Everybody wants to know what I am on. What am I on? I am on my bike busting my ass six hours a day. What are you on?]

Free Press

Given that the Bluestocking Runner is a celebrity, I probably should not be surprised that our bet landed in Publishers Weekly. Only embarrassed that Nixon demolished me.

Arbeit Loves Austen

So who knew? Pride & Prejudice is amazing. Full report forthcoming. Gentlemen, try this line the next time you see a cute girl at a bar:

I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow.

Well said, Darcy, well said.

The Running Bet

The winner (with a guess of 2:52:00) is an old friend of mine and a serious athlete. We played soccer together for years, and attended the same high school and college. He is an accomplished swimmer (a Barracuda, a Tiger, and a Bear). And in college he raced one of my favorite Olympic events: the 1500m freestyle.

Congratulations my friend. Thank you everyone who donated -- you helped me raise over $5000! -- and thank you everyone who bet I would run faster than I did!

Arbeit Reads Austen

The Bluestocking Runner did not just win our bet -- she crushed me. I barely ran ten minutes faster than she did, let alone thirty. (Did I ever mention she won the BAA Half Marathon in 2001 and 2002? She is a rockstar. She said the Women's Marathon Olympic Trials inspired her.) See the results for the 112th Boston Marathon here.

I will begin Pride & Prejudice tomorrow, and I promise to read Emma, Persuasion, and Sense & Sensibility as well. (Mansfield Park too? Fine, I will read them all this summer. The BR and I race again on November 2 in NYC. New race, new bet, new author.) I look forward to many hours of delightful Victorian romance this summer. Could be worse.

Nixon: 3:05:25
Arbeit: 2:52:24

Classic Inspiration XIX

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let it pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit
To his full height! On, on, you noblest English!
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof;
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought,
And sheath’d their swords for lack of argument.
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call’d fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeomen,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot:
Follow your spirit; and, upon this charge
Cry "God for Harry! England and Saint George!"

William Shakespeare
King Henry, in The Life of King Henry V, act 3, sc. 1.