Tag Archives: Pittsburgh

Your Civic Duty ‘n’at

Leave a reply

State and local elections are this Tuesday: there are two open seats in the State Supreme Court and four in the Superior Court, so please don’t blow off voting this Tuesday! The LifePac of Southwest PA list of recommended candidates is here.

There is also a vote to retain Thomas Saylor who I’d recommend you vote for, as he was the lone dissenter when the Supreme Court allowed the Legislature to vote itself an unconstitutional raise in 2005. Superior Court retention candidate Joan O. Melvin also distinguished herself in giving back her raise to the state, so there’s another reason to vote for her.

Good News from Magee

1 Reply

Magee-Womens Hospital has opened a umbilical cord blood bank for either public clinical use or research. This a great boon for raising awareness of a rich, ethically acceptable source of stem cells. Kudos to Magee and Carol Berger for spearheading this, and if you know people expecting to have a baby at Magee, encourage them to make use of this.

National Geographic has a nice little article on umbilical cord blood stem cells here.

2007 IKEA Half Marathon

2 Replies

Yesterday morning I ran the IKEA Half Marathon. It was very humid, which was less than ideal, but between the light drizzle and the temperature being about 20° cooler than last year, the conditions were pretty good. Things got off to a bad start for me, though, because the organizers banned iPods this year. That really pissed me off. Consequently, I may boycott this and any other race that bans iPods.

Anyhow, I’d hoped to finish under 2 hours, but I’m not disappointed with my 2:03:07 (9:24 pace). I wonder how the use of an iPod would have affected my time. Also, I had to pee at about 4.5 miles, which cost me at least a minute. Damn you, enlarged prostate!.

2007 Gatorade Steelers 5K

Leave a reply

On September 1, I ran the Gatorade Steelers 5K. I finished in a reasonable 25:27 (8:12 pace). I want to break 25:00, so I guess I’ll have to do it at Run Shadyside.

The race started at least 15 minutes late because we had to listen to umpteen introductions of honored guests (yawn) and wait for late-comers to register. The course was incredibly boring. If I thought looping around a parking lot was exciting I’d watch NASCAR. The biggest disappointment, though was that the mayor beat me with a time of 24:34. He’s running the Great Race, and I will not let him beat me again.

It’s on, Mayor Opie, and you’re going down.

2007 Run Around the Square 5K

Leave a reply

On August 25, I ran the Run Around the Square 5K. Since I’d run about 9 miles the day before (in preparation for the IKEA Half Marathon), I treated the race as a tempo run. I finished in 27:59 (9:01 pace), which isn’t great (and is actually kinda slow for a tempo run), but at least I beat the mayor, who finished in 29:18. 😉