When I hear a reference to '26 miles', I am always remined of the old Four
Preps pop song 26 Miles, ca. 1958. The song starts off as:
'Twenty six miles across the sea
Santa Catalina is awating for me
Santa Catalina, the island of romance....etc etc.
In that song, about two thirds of the way through, there is a verse as follows:
'Forty kilo-meters in a leaky old boat
Any old thing which will stay afloat
When we arrive we'll promote...etc etc.
The US was using metric over 50 years ago, even in pop songs. Not much
progress since, it seems.
John F-L
----- Original Message -----
From: John M. Steele
To: U.S. Metric Association
Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 2010 3:16 PM
Subject: [USMA:48823] RE: Missed opportunity
My only suggestion is to tease them about coming up 6 rods short of a real
marathon.
Math follows:
By English measure, a marathon is 26 mile 385 yd. 0.2 miles is only 352 yd.
Hence, they are 33 yd short of completion, but I chose to deliberately convert
to a less well known unit (or 1 chain 50 links)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Remek Kocz <rek...@gmail.com>
To: U.S. Metric Association <usma@colostate.edu>
Sent: Tue, November 9, 2010 3:37:51 PM
Subject: [USMA:48814] RE: Missed opportunity
Speaking of marathons, what's more frustrating than the coverage, is the
ubiquitous presence of the "26.2" oval stickers on cars whose owners want to
show off their running prowess. The fact that this goes on, shows the bizarre
mixture of units that the running world puts up with. On one hand there are
the 5 or 10 "K" runs, and then there is the marathon at 26.2 miles or the
100-yard dashes in elementary or middle schools (we do have to protect our
children from the evils of metric don't we?).
Sent: 08 November 2010 04:30
To: U.S. Metric Association
Subject: [USMA:48806] Missed opportunity
In today's New York Marathon, what a golden and missed opportunity to plug
the metric system! Several of the on-the-course commentators on NBC described
the positions of various runners in meters ("...so and so has fallen about 50
meters behind...."), but the main voice always spoke in terms of miles, the
signs the New York Roadrunners Club had placed along the course were in miles,
and toward the end there were even signs saying "500 yards [!] to finish."
All this in a race that is dominated by foreign runners and where foreign
competition is made such a big deal. It is rather discouraging. No mention,
ever, of the actual distance of 42.2 (exactly 42.195) km distance.
HARRY WYETH
