Piece of Cake 10K

(Don and Erica showing their early season form)





I joined the Montgomery Road Runners Club this year, something I've procrastinated doing since Lisa and I moved to Maryland in 2003. Lisa has also started running for the first time and will likely join as well. This race was one of their club series races to commemorate the MCRRC birthday. It was held on a crisp morning in late March, on a rolling course in Seneca Creek State Park, MD. Although I had run several marathons over the last couple of years, my 'minimal training' program left me hobbled with my first chronic injury that, like the spirits that haunted Ebeneezer Scrooge, warned me of the horrible toll that age would take on my body if I kept up the abuse. When I was finally able to start running again in February, I swore I would change my evil ways.

This was my first 10K in 2 years;as my legs screamed for more oxygen, I couldn't help but wonder ab0ut how narrow my coronary arteries had shrunk after 30+ years of McBurger abuse. I finished with a respectable time, but more importantly my heart didn't explode. I would live to run another day.

Milan-San Remo, 2006 Edition

Photo by professional photographer Graham Watson, taken from www.velonews.com.


March 18, 2006: The 2006 professional cycling season is in full swing, heralded in by the first of the traditional one day spring classic races, Milan-San Remo (MSR). This race is nearly one hundred years old, and it's not just the name that drips off the tongue. It is steeped in romantic history as well. The longest of the European Spring Classics at 300 km (180 miles), MSR delivers the riders on a journey from Milan west to the Ligurian coast to San Remo, on the Italian Riviera. Early in its history, winners have included the legendary Eddy Merckx, as well as Fausto Coppi, Tom Simpson, and Lauren Fignon. All these riders also made their mark on the longer stage races, including the Tour de France. However, in recent years, as the fitness of the riders as a whole has increased, the days of finding a rider capable of excelling in one day racing and stage racing at the same time are likely long since gone.

MSR is known as the sprinters classic... it is long and flat with little opportunity for break aways to escape from the watchful eye of the teams of the top sprinters. These teams work for the sole purpose of keeping the race together til the final straightaway, at which point they hopefully have left their top sprinter in position to challenge for the victory. This year was suppose to be a collision of the two best sprinters in the world, Tom Boonen (Belgium, team Quick Step) and Alexandro Petacchi (Italy, team Milram). These riders for the most part have somehow missed racing each other in the big races of 2005. Although MSR is a demonstration of early season fitness, the winner would certainly take the opportunity to lay claim to the title of "World's Best Sprinter." Needless to say, the spotlight was stolen from both of them Filippo Pozatto, a Quick Step teammate of Boonen, escaped in the closing kilometers. Pozatto made an improbable break from the peloton over the winding hill known as the Poggio. The Poggio is a speed bump, really. Although it was specifically incorporated into the course just for the purpose of giving riders the opportunity to make breaks from the pack, few in recent years have succeeded. This year was a notable exception. Pozatto's lead at its largerst was only seconds; the peloton rapidly closed in on him at the finish, but it was enough for him to steal the win.

The photo above says it all: Pozzato crosses the finish line with his arms raised in exaltation; behind him in the light blue jersey is Petacchi, disgusted at missing a possible win by less than a second; and Pozzato's teammate Boonen, in the rainbow jersey, arms raised while cheering his teammate's victory. The dynamics of a professional bike race is one of the hardest things for someone who doesn't follow this sport to understand: Boonen was a strong favorite to win this race, and Pozzato's job was simply to help him do it. However, the opportunity for Pozzato presented itself and he took it. Boonen was more than happy to take a backseat on this day and allow his teammate a rare moment to share the spotlight.

National Gallery of Art, Washington DC: Cezanne and Dada exhibits

Lisa and I checked out two exhibits currently in temporary residence at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC include "Cezanne in Provence" and "Dada."

The Cezanne exhibit included many paintings on loan from various museums. Although Paul Cezanne was born in Provence in 1839, he moved to Paris where he learned to paint. Ultimately he returned to southern France for good in the 1880s, where his paintings captured the landscape, people, and objects that represented his life in Provence.

The Dada exhibit provided a sharp contrast to the sensually appealling nature of the Cezanne paintings. The coldness and impersonal nature of the exhibit (sound as well as visual) is apparently exactly what the founders of this "anti-Art" movement wished to convey with their work. Dada was a movement spawned in Europe in protest to the immorality of World War I, and ultimately gave rise to surrealism.

Although the Cezanne exhibit was dominated by his landscapes, my two favorite paintings were actually portraits (shown below). The first is of his father, a stern businessman who never really gave outward approval to his son's decision to become a painter. Perhaps it was this approval from the figure captured in the painting that Paul Cezanne desperately wished to have. The second portrait was of his gardener, apparently the last work he completed before his death in 1906. You can almost imagine this weary gardener is a representation of Cezanne himself, reflecting on a life well lived.

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