t-and-f: looking for elite milers
Dear Listers, The Wisconsin Track Club will be holding the Capitol Mile, a road mile with prizes of $500/$300/$100 in both the men's and women's races, on 20 July 2002 in sunny Madison, Wisconsin. The course is 1 3/4 laps around the state capitol; running surface is city streets. Some of the top local runners have already committed to run, but there's still some room, especially in the women's race (translation: only two elite women have committed so far). Entry standards are 4:15/mile for the men and 5:00/mile for the women, or comparably good times at any distance within reason. Some financial help with travel and lodging may be available (we'll also be happy to give you directions to Madison if you get lost going to USATF club nationals). David Ennis ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) is coordinating elite entries; you can also e-mail me off-list. Thanks! Jim Reardon Wisconsin Track Club http://www.witrackclub.org
t-and-f: Capitol Mile race report--Madison, WI 7/20/02
Do things like this happen in Europe? 20 minutes before the 4 pm start of the Capitol Mile, high winds and torrential rains--Madison's first rain in 24 days--fell upon Capitol Hill in Madison, WI as if to sweep it clean. Caught by the thunderstorm during their warm up, some athletes took refuge in the Capitol building, some in bus stops, some under the awnings of shop windows. When the storm had abated 30 minutes later, the course was wet and strewn with leaves, but after a quick discussion it was determined that The Race Must Go On. Former UW ace Henry Dennis led the men's race from the gun, passing the 400 in :58 and finishing, easing up, in 4:09. Nate Uselding came in 2nd two seconds later and there in 3rd was none other than Jared Cordes, running what was perhaps only his second-fastest mile of the day after going out hard with Meb Keflezighi in the Bix 7 8 hours earlier. In the women's race Madison native Jenelle Deatherage missed the course record by only 1 second, in 4:39, pushed hard most of the way by Villanove teammate alumnae Carmen Douma and Kristen Nicolini, three and four seconds back. The winners took home $500 in prize money apiece, with $300 for 2nd and $100 for 3rd. The athletes showed resilience and good humor in adverse conditions, as the Capitol Mile (brought back to life by the sponsorship of Rayovac) returned to Madison for the first time since 1998. Thanks to them, the race was a success! Jim Reardon Wisconsin Track Club [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: t-and-f: concrete vs. asphalt
I know enought physics to be dangerous, so here goes. [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > Even with cushioned shoes, there is a force that is reflected back into > the foot. This force is dependent upon the coefficient of restitution > between the two materials. Could you please explain this idea more clearly? Suppose we take a temporal Fourier transform of the force applied to the bottom of the foot at landing, and inspect the power invested in each frequency. The most damaging frequencies ought to be those which correspond to the normal modes of the bones in the leg, which I'm guessing should be those for which the leg bones are a quarter wavelength. Determining the ratio of frequency to wavelength requires knowing the effective speed of sound: in air it's 330 m/s, in water 1480 m/s, and in bone up to 4200 m/s (the web is a fantastic thing!). I don't know which to use; taking air as a lower limit and bone as an upper limit, then for a 40 cm tibia, the damaging frequencies would then be those between 200 Hz and 2600 Hz--which is roughly the audio range. Now, high frequency audio oscillations are easily damped while low frequency audio oscillations can only be damped by sufficiently massive objects. A running shoe can't possibly be massive enough to damp a 200 Hz oscillation (can it?). So, I would conclude that asphalt is a better running surface than concrete if it turns out that asphalt is better at damping oscillations in the low audio range of perhaps 200 Hz (and if your body is so constructed as to be susceptible to damage by such frequencies--I'll bet some are, some aren't). The question now becomes, can one learn anything about the low frequency damping abilities of a running surface by, say, dropping a golf ball on it? I suspect the answer is yes, though I certainly agree with Christopher that a better test would be whacking the running surface with a sledge-hammer. A light golf ball falling on a surface generates much less low-frequency oscillations that a heavy sledge-hammer. Dropping a golf ball on a running shoe is irrelevant because we know a priori the ability of the shoe to damp low frequencies is much worse that its ability to damp high frequencies, because it is so light. For a running surface, there's at least a chance that the damping coefficient is independent of frequency. I await word from the list supervisor that political rants are to be preferred to faux physics lectures, Jim Reardon [EMAIL PROTECTED]
t-and-f: thin sprinters
Listers, I am sorry to hear of Bob Hayes's death. Growing up in the 1970's I learned to think of Bob Hayes as the best sprinter ever, and his build (6', 190 lb, according to Justin Clouder's bio) the ideal sprinter's build. Now Tim Montgomery (5'10", 155 lbs, according to his USATF bio) has the world record, even though from his height and weight you might guess he was a distance runner. Does TM have an unusually slender physique for a world class 100-meter man, or am I merely the last to notice that sprinters are getting thinner? Jim Reardon [EMAIL PROTECTED]
t-and-f: The records of Ben Eastman
I'm sorry that I didn't learn about Ben Eastman's existence until after he was already dead. I would like to know more about his races. Did he simultaneously hold world records for the 400 m and 800 m? He apparently ran a world record 46.4 for the 400 m at Palo Alto on March 26, 1932 (although at least one wire service seems to be claiming this was actually 46.4 for the 440 yards), which wasn't bettered until the 400 m finals at the Los Angeles Olympics on August 5, 1932. He also apparently ran 1:50.0 for the 800 m at San Francisco on June 4, 1932 (finishing 880 yards in 1:50:9, from which I would infer that the 1:50.0 somehow represents a split taken at 800 m rather than a conversion, which ought to be 1:50.3. Oughtn't it?). This however was never ratified as a world record. What was wrong? Here's to 400/800 specialists, past and... Jim Reardon [EMAIL PROTECTED] PS Three cheers for Paula Radcliffe!
t-and-f: long jump with a flip
Someone who knows far more about track than I do wrote: > I seem to recall that long jump with a flip looked like a mechanical > improvement before it was banned. That must have been a truly revolutionary technique. Who was doing it, and when, and how far? Jim Reardon
t-and-f: looking for results of Dublin Invitational
I would be greatly obliged to anyone who can help me find the results of today's Dublin Invitational, particularly the 400 m hurdles. Thanks in advance, Jim Reardon [EMAIL PROTECTED]
t-and-f: Zatopek turns 78
Today is Emil Zatopek's birthday! Is there news how he is doing? --Jim Reardon
t-and-f: bodies, rest and motion
Listers, How do the electronic blocks calculate the 'reaction time'? I recall seeing curves of force as a function of time from a recent 400 m race (US Trials?) somewhere on the web. I believe they came from the electronic blocks everyone talks about. For none of the athletes did the quoted 'reaction time' pertain to a particular feature on the curve. For several of the athletes significant force was exerted on the blocks before the 'reaction time'. Are the blocks wired to detect a rapid change in force; are allowances made for the weight of the athlete; how is 'reaction time' defined in terms of force on the block, and what is the probable error in its measurement? How good is the quality control on the blocks? Jim Reardon (a body at rest will stay at rest and a body in motion at a constant speed and direction pursuant to marathon training will get bored and think of questions with which to vex the list, unless acted upon by a force)
t-and-f: Digital photography/OT Trials tickets for sale
Dear Listers, In the recent past I have acquired a digital camcorder and a laptop computer, and hey! presto, I can now do frame-by-frame running form analysis at 30 frames per second. I am looking for two pieces of software: 1. something that can de-interleave the scans to allow me to see 60 frames per second (I know this is possible with analog, though I'm not sure it's possible for digital) 2. something that will allow me to mark a feature in a frame (say, a dot placed on someone's greater trochanter) and follow it from one frame to the next. Anyone who knows about such stuff, please send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thanks! I also have two US Olympic Trials tix for sale for July 9, 10, 11, 12, and 15. They are in the "gold section", section 215. Face value $30/day, selling price a considerable discount. These dates include all competition in the steeplechase, the 400 hurdles, the 100 m, the 800 m, hammer throw, long jump, and heptathlon; and all competition in the women's TJ, Javelin, high jump, discus, and 5000 m; and also all competition in the men's shot put, pole vault, 1m, and 400 m. The full meet schedule is at http://www.usatf.org/events/2004/OlympicTrials-TF/schedule.asp. Please send e-mail to me, Jim Reardon, at [EMAIL PROTECTED] if you are interested. I'll be at the trials during the aforementioned days and can either mail you the tickets or hand you the tickets. The race I'm most interested in the men's 400m. The list of qualified (as opposed to provisional) entries has a lot of college guys (as opposed to post-collegiate guys), some of whom have been improving rapidly. There could be a lot of new names going to Athens. Jim Reardon Wisconsin Track Club, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
t-and-f: NBC coverage of men's Olympic 10K
Dear Listers, Wow! I really enjoyed watching the men's 10k on NBC--in its entirety, with no commercials, good commentators and excellent camera work. Can someone please advise me to whom at NBC I should send my compliments? Thanks! Jim Reardon [EMAIL PROTECTED] PS I'm on digest--I'm sorry if this repeats other recent posts.
t-and-f: Women's marathon--the bigger they are, the harder they cool
I very much enjoyed watching the women's marathon on NBC, from start to finish. In the midst of Larry Rawson's and Marty Liquori's generally knowledgable and enthusiastic commentary, I found one repeated comment somewhat surprising. Both (I think) commentators asserted or agreed that Paula Radcliffe would have a tougher time on the hills than her competitors, because she is larger. While this seems plausible, I know of no quantitative evidence that bigger runners are disadvantaged relative to smaller runners on hilly courses. On the other hand, I think there is solid evidence that bigger runners are disadvantaged relative to smaller runners in hot marathons. See Noakes, The Lore of Running (2003), and references therein; the basic physics is simple: the bigger they are, the harder they cool. Paula Radcliffe has had success in Cross country (gold medals in 2001 and 2002), which suggests she does well on hills. I don't know if she has ever run long races in conditions nearly as horrendous as those in Athens (35 C, 31% humidity). Her 30:45 in Puerto Rico in March, mentioned as evidence she runs well in heat, was done on a very windy day--heat retention may not have been much of an issue, and the race is less than 1/4 as long anyway. Based on Paula's success at cross-country, I have to conclude she knows her way around a hill, and that what did her in in Athens was the heat. For Paul Tergat's sake, I hope the weather is cool in Athens on Sunday. Jim Reardon [EMAIL PROTECTED]
t-and-f: cool running (was re: the bigger they are...)
Malmo, you're absolutely right--hills are a disadvantage to big athletes during hot races. The heavier the athlete, the greater the energy expenditure to get to the top. (Ipso facto, ergo erg). Assuming both big and small athletes have the same 4:1 ratio of heat generation: useful work, the big athlete will need to dissapate more heat to make it up the hill, indeed placing a greater demand on an already stressed cooling system. Cyclists in a lab study voluntarily limited their exercise when their core tempearature reached 104.2 F--104.4 F (Gonzalez--Alonso et al.). There's good evidence that the body temperatures of marathoners climb immediately when the run up hills (Christensen et al.). So I agree that bigger athletes will slow down on the hills during hot races before equally fit smaller athletes will. I do wonder whether people going for olympic medals can keep running at higher temperatures than the lab subjects. I'm not convinced that hills are a disadvantage to larger runners in the absence of heat stress. There's an argument (originally due to Galileo, who it's true never whent to high school), that no matter how big or small you are, if you're made of muscle and bone you should still be able to raise your center of gravity by one meter if you jump. It doesn't matter if you're a human, an elephant, or a mouse: smaller animals have tiny little muscles but they weight hardly anything, while ponderous pachyderms are thickly thewed, and it all cancels out. If I consider the ascent of a hill as a series of isolated jumps (I suppose this is rigorously true only for animals that have been drinking heavily), big and small should both be disadvantaged to roughly the same degree. The same argument would be equally true on the downhill. Now the difference between an olympic gold medal and a potato (as Emil Zatopek described finishing in fourth place) is often a lot less than 1 %, and armchair arguments like the above provide no guidance on who will win and who will weep. Athletes competing for medals probe the limits of physiology much more closely than scientists doing lab experiments. I look to the athletes for guidance... Jim Reardon Wisconsin Track Club [EMAIL PROTECTED] malmo wrote: > Again Jim, simple high school physics (I don't know why I'm doing this for a > guy with @physics.wisc.edu on his email address): > > Force (Newtons) = mass x acceleration of gravity > N = kg*m/s^2 > > Work (Joules) = Force x distance (height of climb) > J = N x h > J = (kg*m/s^2)*m, or kg*(m^2/S^2) > > Clearly, a heavier athlete requires more work to get to the top of the same > hill than does the lighter athlete. That work requires more energy from the > athlete, and with it, a greater demand on cooling - which by default, is > already overstressed. > > Moreover, going downhill after hitting the crest will not help the heavier > runner because the forces on the legs increase by the square of the speed, > doing damage on the quads and further exacerbating an already bad situation. > You've observed this phenomenon dozens of times at Boston - runners making > it to Cleveland Circle at world record pace, with nothing but screaming > downhills ahead, only to be humbled by the cruel effects of the final > descent. > > More energy required going uphill. More forces absorbed by the legs on the > descent. A toll both on both sides of the hill, plus additional stress on an > already overworked cooling system! > > That's why they say, "you can't teach small." > > malmo
