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SHOULD WE TRUST DRUG TESTING?

I'm a "process guy." When you belong to a system, whether it's democracy, your neighborhood homeowners association, or the world of Olympic sports, you're bound by the process. And rightly so. If you don't want to be bound by the system, don't sign up. Do something else. Live somewhere else.

That's not, however, the end of the story. There are proper processes that, when husbanded, give us a basis for the faith in that system. In other words, democracy is great "on paper." What makes it also great "in practice" is when election processes are fairly-conceived and are carried out with diligence.

I've been researching and covering drug testing, specifically its intersection with triathlon. What prompted my investigation was the unearthing of the unfortunate

MOTORIST SPEAKS OUT

I, Dan Empfield, motorist, am constrained to plead: Can't we just all get along? In my mind's eye, triathlon governance now resembles a Busby Berkeley musical. "Hey, my grandpa's got a barn, my cousin's got a chain link fence, all we need is some folding chairs and the ITU and WTC can ultimate fight."

In 1914 Gavrilo Princip, a Serb, assassinated Archduke Ferdinand, an Austro-Hungarian. As a result, 15 million people died. Fast forward about 90 years and WTC wants age-group stand-downs and USAT doesn't. As a result, it's a triathlon world war (the ITU has just declared a worldwide ban on Ironman sanctioning by its daughter federations). How many races, how much money, how much energy and inertia, will bleed out from triathlon?

One assumes that all parties understand the following: triathlon is the size it is, and no bigger. There are plenty of other things for triathlon to compete against. Hence I invoke my fellow (Rodney King) motorist's plea to "get along."

Okay, enough whining by me. Here is where we tactically stand.

What no one knows yet is whether, and with what vigor, the ITU intends to enforce this ban. There is no mention of this congress resolution on ITU's website. Were this considered especially newsworthy, it is likely that such news would be there. So, did USAT ask Les McDonald, "Where's the [world governing body] love?" Is this resolution Les' answer? But with the proviso whispered in USAT's ear: "We gave you the resolution you asked for; don't push us any farther."

Fifty-fifty this is how it went down, because of the revenues involved. Several of the fifteen affected federations—organizations in which an M-dot race takes place—get a large amount of their money from sanctioning an Ironman or two. Triathlon Australia is a case in point. Take away its Ironman revenue and an already bleeding federation has its plight made logarithmically tougher. To what degree would federations in Europe miss Ironman's cash influx? It would vary, of course, but M-dot is a big client to lose.

Yes, a country might lose its Ironman race, but it would likely just be replaced by an M-dot in another country. If France or Germany decides not to sanction its Ironman, and if the permits require a sanction, well, registration will open for Ironman Norway.

But this is not Ironman's best play, because it ought not to marginalize itself any more that it has to. Frankly, it probably doesn't have the muscle to create a rival sanctioning organization worldwide. There is no clear knowledge what havoc, and in how many countries, the non-sanction would create. The ITU does have the authority to decertify any national governing body, should such body sanction an Ironman, and that's a bigger stick than any the Ironman wields.

The smart move would be for WTC to scale back the GTG's charter, having it serve as a backstop for its licensees that can't get needed services from an NGB.

WTC ought, frankly, to recast the GTG's posture. It can make a case for global rules, and that the ITU has fallen down in its duty to provide these. It can point out Triathlon Australia's insurance fiasco, where two Ironman races were essentially uninsured, though moneys were provided by Ironman race directors for precisely that product.

Ironman can also rightly claim that there's a flip side to federations' righteous, bloated chest claims that they are not driven by the evil profit motive. As they are not-for-profit bureaucracies, these federations lack an important motivation making them responsive to their customers.

Yes, the Ironman people have bona-fide complaints. But they also aren't going to necessarily win in the Court for Arbitration in Sport, or in any other court, including that of public opinion, if they're viewed as turning their backs on the worldwide non-M-dot sport of triathlon. the GTG's mission ought to be to provide NGB-like services only in such case as the NGB isn't able or willing to provide such services.

Likewise, USAT needs to turn down the volume on its rhetoric. Its press release says of WTC, "...their profit-driven motives will ultimately destroy the developmental pipeline that triathlon and all sports need to remain in the Olympic program."

Each phrase in that line is false on its face. WTC's motive for setting up the GTG was not profit-driven. In point of fact, it's much cheaper for WTC to just give in and sanction.

Nor has anything WTC done endanger triathlon's Olympic pipeline. Ironman racing is not remotely connected to Olympic development, except to provide ex-ITU-style racers a platform for continuing their careers post-ITU.

Both parties have righteous grievances. Both have employed rhetoric and a posture that is antithetical to any eventual rapprochement. Both need to take a deep breath. Even World War I eventually came to a close. Let us hope this war does as well, and sooner. Swim, bike and run races—Ironman, ITU, and everything in between—are good for all parties. If our sport is lucky, these folks who may or may not any longer engage in competitive triathlon will soon cease making life more precarious for those who do.

CORE VALUES

A man's got to stand for things. Everyone agrees on that, except when such agreement is inconvenient. With that as a backdrop, let's talk about Rafael Palmeiro for a minute.

This future Hall of Fame baseballer testified before Congress this past March, saying forcefully and unequivocally, while pointing his finger, that he never took performance enhancing drugs. This testimony contradicted former major leaguer Jose Canseco, who wrote in his book that he personally, though many years ago, injected Palmeiro with steroids.

Now, however, Palmeiro is found to have tested positive for some form of performance enhancer, the description of which we do not know because neither baseball nor Palmeiro is divulging. Palmeiro’s re-tuned statement now reads, "I have never intentionally used steroids."

What about this rises to the level of newsworthiness for triathletes? Good question, and normally this wouldn't warrant a mention. What makes this cogent is our president's breathtakingly naive response to this. "Rafael Palmeiro is a friend," he is widely reported as saying. "He testified in public and I believe him."

Indeed, Palmeiro is a friend of the president, and the former Texas Ranger (when Mr. Bush part-owned the team) received a call from the Oval Office fewer than three weeks ago, upon achieving his 3000th hit. "He's the kind of person that's going to stand up in front of the klieg lights and say he didn't use steroids,” the president continued, “and I believe him. Still do."

You might argue that President Bush is no expert in the war against PEDs, and that a mature and knowledgeable answer ought not be our reasonable expectation. Fair point. A president can’t be assumed to have a grasp on every arcane subject. But this is an area of some expertise for him. At least I would hope so, because Bush had this to say in his State of the Union speech only a year and some months ago:

"...Some in professional sports are not setting much of an example. The use of performance-enhancing drugs like steroids in baseball, football, and other sports is dangerous, and it sends the wrong message -- that there are shortcuts to accomplishment, and that performance is more important than character. So tonight I call on team owners, union representatives, coaches, and players to take the lead, to send the right signal, to get tough, and to get rid of steroids now."

My assumption is that flip and offhand asides don't make it into the State of the Union, hence my hope then -- and my guess now -- that the president had some coherent roadmap for the proper national posture toward the issue of performance enhancers in sport.

Any appropriate posture would take into consideration that Palmeiro's union accepted the current watered-down drug policy only because Congress threatened to slap atop baseball's head an appropriately tougher one. Any rightful comment should at least honor the policy now in place, though it is much more lax than the WADA policy our own sport must conform to.

With that as a backdrop, what ought our president to have said? The answer is, precisely what he said about another beleaguered friend of his. "This is a serious investigation," Bush offered about his chief of staff, Karl Rove, referencing another thorny issue. "I will be more than happy to comment on this matter once this investigation is complete."

Let us just pretend for a minute that Palmeiro's positive was for nandrolone. Personally, I'm very suspicious about many of these positives, have been so for 5 or 6 years, and have been public about this suspicion. It is my guess that a lot of the threshold-area “positives” are false (and now science appears to be catching up to this). I would have no problem with President Bush adding as an addendum his own raised eyebrow toward a nandrolone positive. But we don't know about this, because as opposed to what happens in most of the rest of sport, we aren't privy to what Palmeiro's positive is for.

Accordingly, as far as America's generation of young athletes is concerned, Bush does stand for something. A personal friendship outweighs one's other stated commitments, regardless how far reaching, or vaunted, or important, those commitments are. This places Bush's core values, at least on this issue, on a par with those of Don Corleone.

Performance enhancing drugs are prevalent in sport. Somebody in our government should get serious about this. I'm still waiting for that leader to step up. To once again quote from that State of the Union: “...send the right signal... get tough... get rid of steroids now."

I HAD A DREAM

Not the Martin Luther King kind of dream. An actual dream, the kind you have when you're asleep. In fact, I had two of them, within 12 hours of each other.

The first featured Dave Scott. He was riding a yellow Schwinn Varsity, vintage 1968 or so, kind of beat up, yellow, with the handlebars flipped up, hooks high, handlebars chrome-shiny, most of the white tape was gone. You won't know what this looks like unless you were alive and lucid in the late 1960s, in which case you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Dave had hairy legs. We were riding about 7mph, talking. We were in my old neighborhood. I don't remember what we were talking about. I have no idea what this dream means.

This was last night, sometime between 9PM, when I went to bed, and 1AM, when I awoke, entirely alert. I entered the living with one, single thought etched on the inside of my forehead: "Write about the mythology of triathlon."

I had no idea what it was this meant. What mythology? I hadn't been reading anything on this topic, hadn't watched any TV, this was just out of the blue. I sloughed it off, laid my head on my pillow, spooned with Charlee (yellow lab mix) and went back to sleep.

Except I couldn't fall asleep. So, at 1:30AM I got up, turned on the light, flipped on the laptop, and Charlee and I wrote until 4:30AM, whereupon I'd finished my article on mythology in triathlon. I have no idea if it's any good. But I was true to The Voice.

About noon today, or a little after, I was growing a bit weary because, of course, I'd been up since 1AM. So I took a nap. And again I dreamed.

This time, USA Triathlon's interim executive director, Mike Greer, decided to write a letter to the USOC. In it he said, "Here's the deal. We're all going to conspire on a joint press release and put this thing behind us. We, USAT, are going to apologize for certain specified things and we're going to withdraw the resolution to secede. You, the USOC are going to apologize for making certain demands that you have no statutory right to make, and also for saying we're not in compliance with the Amateur Sports Act. Dan Empfield is going to apologize for being an asshole."

Sometimes you work out your problems in your dreams. But of course this was just a dream, and the solution is impractical. It makes no sense for me to apologize for being an asshole. For acting like an asshole, yes, I'd fall on my sword for that. But how can one apologize for one's state of being?

A TALE OF CUSTOMER SERVICE

The '80s were the ME decade. The oughts are the YOU decade (sez me). It's the decade of customer service, that is, the era of providing less of it, while convincing you you're getting more of it (because it is, after all, all about YOU). It's an era of really nice women saying, "Your phone call is important to us," when in fact the nice woman is a recording that appreciates your phone call. Who is included in the "us" to which the recording refers? The other tape machines in the room? Do they all appreciate my phone call?

Every now and then I get a chance to put real-time, face to face, customer service to the test. Transactions with another carbon-based life form are rare enough, but when it's with a bank, well, this is noteworthy and I so note the transaction below.

I called the number printed on the money order. "I don't bank with you," I admitted over the telephone to a pleasant voice female that, for a change, did not inform me that her menu items have changed. "I have a personal money order drawn on your bank, purchased at your Burbank, California, branch. The money order's purchaser forgot to sign it. What should I do?"

"Just take it to one of our branches," she said. "They'll negotiate it for you."

Fortunately, there was a branch up the street a mile or two from my bank. I walked in at 4:25 p.m. The line was long. I slowly snaked around the velvet-roped recticulation and arrived at the teller at 4:50 p.m. "I have this item here," I said, and explained to the branch manager after she was called over by the teller. I commenced telling my story, ending with, "You see here, the item is not signed."

"Do you have an account at our bank?" she asked, ignoring the fact I'd already answered that question. "If you had an account with our bank, we could just deposit the money order. We'd have recourse if it was not honored. Otherwise, we can't help you."

I was ready for this. "No problem," said I. "I'm in no hurry to have access to this $595. I have a credit card relationship with your bank. Here's my card. Just credit the $595 to the credit card account."

"Sorry, can't do that," she replied. "Again, we'd have no recourse. You must have a checking or savings account with us."

"Via this Mastercard..." I replied, in a measured tone—I figured losing my cool is what she'd want me to do..."I have a $20,000 credit limit with your bank. This is an unsecured credit line. You have no recourse if I choose not to pay the bill. You offer me this credit line because for a dozen years I have paid my bill, I've always paid it, and my credit report will demonstrate that you've never reported me as anything other than an on-time payer. So, if this money order is dishonored by your bank, how is that different than any order form of payment I tender toward this credit card account? If I mail a payment toward this card, and it bounces, you just charge back the account, right? How is this any different?"

"I'm sorry, this is just our policy."

"Fine, I'd like to open up a savings account. I'll deposit this money order, and when it clears, I'll close the account."

Now she was pissed. "Wouldn't it be a lot easier to call your customer, have him put a stop payment on the money order, get a new one and send it to you?"

"Yes it would," I replied, "for you. But not for him, and not for me. He's my customer—we're both your customers—and I'd prefer not to inconvenience him. Why don't you just call him and ask him if he did in fact buy this money order?"

"No, we're not going to call him," she replied.

"Fine, I'm ready to open my account." She was clearly frustrated. She brought me to New Accounts, and said, "Here's the sign-up sheet. When everyone in front of you has been taken care of, you'll be called."

I signed up at 5:06 p.m. I was called at 5:40 p.m. During my waiting inverval I thought I'd call the telephone number printed on the money order again.

Another nice lady answered the phone. I thought I was calling the branch where the item was purchased. Instead, I discovered the number rings to the national call center in Billings, Montana (as opposed to Delhi, India, the site of the last "national" call center to which I spoke). I explained everything to her, and asked why I was given information different from that I've received at the branch.

"Cashing this money order, it's at branch discretion," she answered.

"In other words, the branch can negotiate this item," I queried, but it's up to the branch personnel—they each make up their own minds?"

During my nice talk with the lady in Billings, in which, yes, it was confirmed the branch manager had the power to negotiate this instrument of payment, I noticed a familiar face. A teller who worked at my bank up the street until two weeks ago was now at this bank. We chatted. Then it was my turn to open up my savings account.

It was six o'clock straight up, the forms had been filled out, my thumbprint taken, my banking relationships verified by some sort of online service not unline a credit check, and it was time for me to deposit my personal money order. "I don't mind waiting several days, go ahead and put a hold on it."

"Ten days," was the reply. Hmm. Not that I need the money, but why does it take a bank 10 days to negotiate an instrument of payment drawn at a branch of the same bank one hour away? No matter. I wasn't going to argue the point. "Ten days is fine."

"Besides, we can't accept this deposit."

"Why?" I asked.

"It's not signed."

MY FIRST USAT BOARD MEETING

I just returned from my first ever USA Triathlon board of directors meeting. Here’s what I can report.

The meeting is run according to Robert’s Rules of Order. Loosely construed. I had a copy of Robert’s Rules with me, and tried to follow them up to the limit of my patience and demeanor. I was frequently unsuccessful.

It occurs to me that I could do worse than carry Robert's Rules around with me wherever I go, living my life by what's in that handbook. I would call everyone “Mister” or “Madame.” “Point of clarification,” I might say, if I thought I had the floor. I would do nothing grave or deliberate involving any other party unless I first entered into debate, and then only if I was able to gain a majority vote.

Marriages would be saved I think, and friendships protected, if both sides would occasionally agree to table the motion.

Much of USAT’s staff was also usually in attendance at the meeting, and staff and guests don’t seem quite as tightly attached to Robert’s Rules as does the board. But the board suffers these young men and women because they’re young and attractive and full of energy and who really cares if they know Robert’s Rules? Plenty of time yet to learn them.

USA Triathlon's bylaws dictate that there will be eleven board members, and one can’t help thinking of America’s Sunday pastime. In fact, it might be best if instead of running to be table officers we’d run for positions. Bradley Davison was voted our federation’s quarterback, by the way. Hut–one, hut-two, Dan you have the floor. I think I would be best at middle linebacker, as I’m the one on the board most prone to running back and forth waving my arms—like all-pro Junior Seau—trying to make life hard for the quarterback. Steve Locke is our free safety, willing to give up short yardage but making sure we don’t fall prey to a really disastrous mistake. Jack Weiss is our strong safety, just waiting to plaster anyone who runs an unwise route. He leads our team in tackles.

I fulfilled one campaign pledge. I ran on the platform of being a uniter, and I can unequivocally say I achieved this. It was common for the board to be arrayed as one, standing in solidarity, all ten of my contemporaries aligned in purpose. Against me. I do not blame them. I frequently relied upon flawed reasoning—wielded flawlessly, to my credit, but you can only doll up a bad idea so much.

We eleven arrived friends and colleagues, and we left friends and colleagues, though the issue was occasionally in doubt during the second and third quarters.

I’m gratified to report that our board is a cohesive team, united in purpose and mission. It was only our first game of the season, but we’re developing a strong playbook, and we execute well. I think we’ll make the playoffs.

CHATTANOOGA

I was in Colorado Springs last week, meeting all the fine young people at USA Triathlon who toil to make the business end of our sport as seamless and invisible to the rest of us as possible. I flew to Colorado from Chattanooga, Tennessee, where I addressed roughly 200 of American Bicycle Group’s highest-volume retailers. It’s year-two of ABG’s Dealer Shindig and year-two of my being there as well.

Jeremy Bentham, English economist and philosopher, died in 1832 and yet his embalmed carcass is still wheeled in to preside over the annual meeting of the University College London's administrators. Likewise ABG, the makers of Litespeed, Merlin and my old company Quintana Roo, wheels me in to preside over their annual meeting.

After I spoke several of the retailers asked if I could repeat certain items contained in my address and I, thinking on my feet, blurted that I’d be putting my address on Slowtwitch within the week. It seemed the easiest way for a lazy man to fulfill these requests.

I may be lazy, but I’m not a welcher, so what follows is what I said to the retailers in Chattanooga.

It’s hard to imagine anyone NOT holding the view that road cycling is booming. Americans took to the road after Alexi Grewal won the Olympics in ’84, and then again in the Greg LeMond era. Now there’s another American whose hair is on fire and, really, it’s never been like this.

Today I saw on TV a news show comparing, as role models, Barry Bonds versus Lance Armstrong. The fact that any endurance athlete would have his name spoken in the same sentence as that man who’ll soon own both the single season and career home run totals is startling enough.

This evening I asked a female server in this establishment’s dinner house, “Do you know who Barry Bonds is?”

“No, she answered, “I’m sorry I don’t.”

“Do you know who Lance Armstrong is?”

“Yes, of course!” she replied. “But about that Barry Bonds fellow, I’m sorry, I don’t follow cycling very much.”

How popular is Lance? If I was a sneaky Democratic operative I’d wait until the Republican convention and then inject a poll into the field asking Texans, “Who’s your favorite son?” I’d put George W. Bush, Lance Armstrong, and any other three Texans on the ballot. I’ll bet I know what the answer would be, especially if the other three were pro baseball players, who appear to be relatively anonymous compared to those in major sports like bike racing.

The question is, how much of this notoriety is rubbing off at your cash register? Is it as robust a bump as I noticed after Grewel’s and LeMond’s successes? I’m not in the position to say.

However, as a newly elected member of USA Triathlon’s board of directors, I have a bit of inside information and so I can comment on how triathlon is doing.

5 years ago USA Triathlon had 14,000 annual members, that is, 14,000 people paid $25 to be an annual member, and some additional number simply bought $5 one-day licenses.

2 years ago the number of annual members rose to 35,000, and one-day licenses, the price of which had risen to $7, were purchased 140,000 times. The decision was then made to raise the cost of annuals to $30, and one-days to $9, in an effort to push people toward annuals.

Predictably, last year annuals soared to 47,000, while one-days dropped from 140,000 to 125,000.

This year, annuals are currently sitting at 55,000, and are on their way higher still, perhaps to 57,000, and maybe toward 60,000. However, one-days are on their way back. Through the first six months of this year, they’re up 40% versus the same time period last year.

And this isn’t because USAT is simply taking market share away from non-sanctioned races. The entire sport appears to have grown in equal measure, that is, both sanctioned and non-sanctioned races are growing in equivalent numbers.

What is not known —though I intend for the federation to start tracking this metric—is the race director’s equivalent of “same-store sales.” You’ll sometimes hear the same complaint from race directors that you’ll hear from bike shop owners: “If the sport is growing so much, why is it my numbers are flat?”

The answer appears to be that the sport is growing out as much as it is growing up. More would-be race directors, and more bike shop enthusiasts, are wanting to share in the largess, and it takes more than tenure and history to get your share of the increase.

How do you dip your pail into that larger and larger river of money flowing by?

Of course, my knowledge is limited to the high-end market, and it’s this segment I can speak to. As I’m not in the business anymore per se, you are privy to more bike sales and import statistics than I am. However, there is a barometer I closely monitor. I publish an online magazine, Slowtwitch.com, and we serve about 70,0000 pages to our readers each day. Over half of this traffic occurs on our forum, and it’s both intriguing and informative to read the comments. As Art Linkletter might’ve put it, “end-users say the darndest things.”

According to my readers, they’re particular about where they spend their money, and to whom they give their allegiance. And yes, they do grant allegiance. Be not disabused of this truth. If it’s running shoes, they may well revert to mail order. With bikes and other high-end equipment, they’re far more reticent to do this. And, when you consider what they value most from their bike vendor, you’ll see why.

For them, the items you stock are certainly of interest. But whether your high-end inventory sits at 200,000 dollars or 2 million dollars is not their prime consideration. Yes, they see a large inventory as an indicator that you take the market seriously. Plus, carrying a full shelf is important to your business on many levels. But, to your customers, inventory levels ranks below issues of greater import.

In fact, I’d rate inventory levels sixth on the list of importance.

Fifth is SOCIAL INVOLVEMENT. Do you have a presence at the races, and at their club meetings? Do rides emanate from your shop? Are your employees part of the road race, disease ride, or triathlon community? Do your area’s riders see you as part of their community, or an outside vendor selling into their community?

Number four is SERVICE AFTER THE SALE. They’d like not to feel abandoned, and it’s not about the money. Don’t think your upper-end customers don’t understand that the purchase of a high-end bike is a process, not a one-time sale. They do understand that.

Third on their list is KNOWLEDGE BASE. While I can’t speak for road racers, triathletes hate nothing more than walking into a specialty store and realizing they know more about the product in which they’re interested than the person selling it.

Second would be SHOP ATMOSPHERE. People like to buy from people they like. I might just ask you to consider your own buying habits. How many of you push Giro over Specialized, Garneau over Bell, Carnac over Sidi, or Zipp over Mavic, simply because of Andy Ording, or Steve Hed, or Glenn Spiller, or a certain rep you prefer?

Closely connected to that is the element of the successful shop I believe is paramount, the reason why customers choose one shop over another. What do you think this is?

It’s YOU. It’s the owner. Let me add a caveat. If you’re talking about a door with over $5 million in annual sales, then no, it’s all that other stuff I mentioned. However, at a shop size below that it’s the owner who makes the difference. The front man. The headliner. You’re the chef of your restaurant who comes out from the kitchen several times a night to greet the customers, and perhaps break out into an aria. You’re the captain of the fishing boat who regales his customers with tales of the ones caught, and the one that got away.

Two years ago I moved to a new home in a new locale. One of my dogs got cancer last year, and when the day came to end her life, I found that I could not take her to my local vet. Instead, I drove 150 miles each way, to the vet who’d cared for this dog during her 12 years of life.

You matter to your customer. If it’s a small door you operate, you are the prime reason your customers come to you. For some of you, that is a comfort. For others of you, that is bad news, as you are at the point in your professional life where you’d prefer investing time with fewer of them, not more of them.

However, in truth that is not entirely so. In fact, if the $5000 bike itself is not the prime mover behind your customer’s purchase, let’s face it, it’s not your prime mover either. It’s not the number one issue with them, and it’s not the number one issue with you. How many times have you, yourself, told your customer that it’s not about the bike. It’s about:

• FIT
• Or COMFORT
• Or POWER APPLICATION
• Or PROPER TECHNIQUE

And only then it’s about the bike. And because you hold the priorities in their proper order, your customer invests his trust in you.

Best, however, not to break out into an aria in the middle of your sales presentation.

MY FIRST WEEK ON THE BOARD

Having been carried into Colorado Springs on the Jacksonian rail I, one-eleventh the supreme commander of the triathlon universe, end week-one of my populist administration.

How is it going so far? I only speak for myself. The other ten-elevenths might have a different spin. But first, some background.

Now that I'm on the Board I can explain to you how things operate. The deputy executive director does a lot of the actual work at USAT. His boss is the executive director, who motivates and directs the staff. He reports to the president of USAT's board who presides over USAT's board meetings. These meetings are organized and controlled by the board's executive committee. This is how the federation works.

We will have no deputy executive director by next week. His job would be filled by a person hired by the executive director, except we don't have an executive director to hire the new deputy. We also don't have a board president, who's elected at a board meeting, called for by the executive committee, which we also don't have.

It is not as bad as it sounds. We can still deposit checks. Write them? Well, we're working on that.

Do not fear because we, The Board, have things under control.

For those who predicted carnage and bloodshed, pppfffthhhht. People who have every reason to stick pins in my likeness have been a privilege and a pleasure to work with. We're all giving each other big sloppy kisses. At least as sloppy as one can over the internet. This is both remarkable and a little surprising because, as we all know, a person with whom you'd be fast friends face-to-face can easily be your sworn enemy if the only communication between you is nameless, faceless 1s and 0s. This board has been communicating mainly by email and, while it's easy to hurl calumnies and insults over fiber optic that's not at all what's happening. So there.

As far as the actual stuff we're doing, I can't tell you about that because I've chosen not to break faith with people who are telling me stuff in confidence. However, should the infamous Petition pass we'll have to be forthcoming at regular intervals, and I like to think this current crop of board members would want it to be that way anyway.

Long story short, I'm playing well with the other kids.

IT'S ABOUT PROCESS

It's not Americans who are exemplary, as it turns out. Only America. "We are a government of laws and not of men," according to John Adams and oh, boy did we find that out last week. While the Arab World exports its oil to us, perhaps we're now finally ready to export something worthwhile to it.

As did many of you, I watched something last week that must have caused the Arab World to scratch its collective head. A group of civilians were asking pointed questions of a half-dozen of America's highest military commanders, and had the latter squirming in their chairs. Never mind relative right or wring, or how much of it was political posturing, or where ultimate blame ought to be placed. Imagine how curious that sight to those watching Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya (both Arab networks broadcast the hearings live). The very same military a soft, diminutive unassuming John Adams commanded over 200 years ago is still taking orders from civilians today.

I feel like a load has been lifted. After my initial visceral reaction to the photos of Iraqi prisoners under U.S. control, that's the surprising feeling I'm left with. I've been wondering why, over the years, the world doesn't like us, and what we can do to change its mind. That Arabs hate us in spite of our patience and magnanimity has left me confused and just a little angry.

After a weekend of reflection here is what now resonates. The thing is, we aren't more patient and magnanimous. We've been putting on a front, as if entire societies were entrants in a TV reality show, with Americans trying to convince the Arab World why it ought to date us instead of terrorists and extremists. After cooly explaining what a catch we are, we're shocked when we lose the popularity contest.

I'm just a little bit buoyant, because now it can be told (though the Arab World and everyone else besides us knew it all along). We might be a kinder, gentler nation but we aren't a kinder, gentler people. We have no prognosis for becoming so, and we don't have to pretend anymore. The veil has been lifted. The photos describe our capacity all too well. We—Democrats and Republicans, military and civilians, Christians and pagans—are just the same as everyone else. Our society has the ability to be just as mean, unfair, sadistic and cruel as the next one. There is no difference between us and them. Save one.

People, like the rest of nature, are subject to the law of entropy. We shall devolve to our basest element absent a system of self-correction. Do you think the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners was notable and shocking to Arabs? The English press, the Red Cross and Paul Bremer have known and sent alerts about Iraqi prison abuses for upwards of a year. No surprises there. Shocking to the Arab World is a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs asking a news network to delay or refrain from airing something (and taking no strident action when the request was denied). Shocking to Arabs, Kurds, Persians and the rest of the Middle and Near East is the world's largest military machine bowing to a council of civilians.

America's most successful export over its history has been self-correcting government. The Arab World got a taste of it last week. If I'm a sheik or a mullah or a tribal leader hoping to hold onto power, I'm very worried about that.

This has nothing special to do with triathlon save this. Our sport's national and world federations both have specific issues brewing. The USOC's Blue Ribbon Panel is scheduled to hand down a decision regarding the near-term political future of USA Triathlon, and former pro triathlete Dr. Sarah Springman is going to challenge Les McDonald for the ITU's presidency later this Summer. Both federations have had elections marred by their lack of adherence to process. It would be nice if world events of today caused everyone to remember that ITU presidents, USAT board members, secretaries of defense, generals, sergeants and privates are not what matter most. The people who are in power are temporary. The processes that govern power are not.

GETTYSBURG IN MY LUNGS

I've got my annual lung thing. What really irks me is that the cure for this, whatever it is, is out there somewhere. If you milk the testicles of the Borneo Tree Frog and make a paste with bat guano and garlic, and replace your belly-button lint with it, presto, you're cured. Or something like that. My fear is that there will soon be a housing project or rubber factory replacing the forest where the Borneo Tree Frog now lives, and that'll be the end of that.

The Battle of Gettysburg is going on in my lungs. It's not that I caught this somewhere. Yes, I've just done a round of traveling and had to spend time on filthy Airbuses sitting next to the people who make them filthy, but that's not where I caught this. If it were, it wouldn't always be the same sickness. It's always viral. It's never bacterial. So I never get to take antibiotics. This time I said fuck it and I'm my last day of Zithromax. It hasn't even made a dent. I justify this with the rationale that if my sickness wasn't bacterial, I no-doubt had something else bacterial inside me that needed killing.

Somebody sent me Chinese herbs. What the hell, Molina will swallow anything, so why shouldn't I? When I got up this morning I smelled like Chinese herbs. I'd probably test positive for something. They haven't helped. Maybe they will.

People note that I get sick every winter and every winter people say to me, "You need to take better care of yourself." To all of these people, I have only one reply, and you should keep in mind that I'm not myself right now, and also that I mean this in love: Fuck you.

Other than that, things are going pretty well.

TRIATHLON'S OPEN-DOOR POLICY

The measure of fairness and ethics in a sport is not in how many of its stars are caught taking performance enhancing drugs. You can take a sport's temperature by looking at how serious, effective and intrusive its efforts to keep drugs out.

The first anti-doping rules for the young sport of triathlon came into existence in the late 1980s. They were commissioned by a representative of many of the best pro athletes of the day. Erin Baker, Colleen Cannon, Brad Kearns, Andrew MacNaughton, and others constituted the Pioneer Team (sponsored by Pioneer Electronics) and that team's manager-agent, Scott Zagarino—also a USAT board member—made a request for a set of rules.

It was the ITU's current secretary general, Mark Sisson, who was tasked with the job. The rules he generated became the basis for those still in existence at the ITU and most international triathlon federations (it's also a model for federations of other sports).

I've been thinking about this because both professional football and baseball have been seen lately as dragging their feet and/or using legal ploys to limit drug enforcement in their sports. It seems the players associations are the main forces keeping drugs in and testing out.

As a San Diego Padres fan, I read about its former third baseman Ken Caminiti. He made the explosive admission that he used drugs during the 1996 season in which he was voted the NL MVP. He further stated that he thought half the pro baseball players were taking performance enhancing drugs. He was villified and shouted down by players: "I'm just getting bombarded," he was quoted a saying. But now it seems he's been vindicated. When more than half the players in the union vote against effective drug testing, the simple interpretation is apparent, isn't it?

Same with football. Yes, the NFL has banned steroids and, as opposed to baseball, you don't have to get caught five times before any sort of real punitive action kicks in. However, news stories have widely reported that four Oakland Raiders were demonstrated to have taken a new designer anabolic steroid and, while the rest of the sports world—from cycling to running to triathlon—cannot take any class of anabolic steroid, it seems football players can (even though the rules imply they can't). More so, these players—through their association—are crying foul because the positive tests were made public.

Effective drug testing is intrusive. It doesn't take place during the season. It doesn't take place at an event. It takes place in the off-season, at your home, with a 48-hour notice. I called Sisson to refresh my memory about triathlon's first steps in setting up an anti-doping regime, and his recollection concurred with my own. Instead of objecting, pro triathletes of that era—to a man and woman—said Please, send them to my house! As opposed to pro baseballers, pro triathletes had the collective will to keep drugs out.

Either triathletes were just a lot more hospitable than baseballers—with tea and cakes at the ready—or they were less afraid of home tests than those of other sports. They weren't afraid of getting caught. They were eager to see their fellow competitors get caught, if cheating was going on. Not only did Zagarino, on behalf of his Pioneer Team members, stand up for effective drug testing, so did the agents of Mark Allen, Dave Scott, Paula Newby-Fraser, and the rest. No athlete—or agent providing political cover for an athlete—objected. Triathlon rolled out the red carpet for real, harsh, tough drug testing.

Not only are both baseball and football as groups stonewalling real, effective anti-doping measures, I haven't read of a single active player's voice speaking out against this. Those on the record are former baseballers like Todd Zeile, a member of eleven pro baseball clubs in his career. Out of better than two-thousand current, active major league baseball and football players, I have not read of even a single voice willing to say what is right. They go to church, they work with the United Way, they raise their young sons and daughters, and they take drugs. It's either that or, in my view, they are complicit by staying silent about the issue.

So, I've given up on these sports. I'll come back when they clean themselves up. As an avid Lakers fan, I've got one major sport left. I'm also in trouble with basketball, though, as it appears the NBA won't retest for THG—the same steroid for which the four Raiders reportedly tested positive. That league has the same issue with its union: retesting can't be done under the current collective bargaining agreement.

The silver lining: Maybe in high schools around the country Fall and Spring will mean, for a few more kids and their parents, cross-country and track instead of football and baseball.

AMERICA, THAT BASTION OF FAIR PLAY

Sometimes I write things that are apropos of nothing. This might be one of those times. You can only stretch data so far. Garbage in, garbage out.

With those qualifiers as my backdrop, I do have some data to share. It started with my morbid curiousity at who got penalties at this past weekend's Ironman Florida. Like slowing down to view a roadside wreck, I wanted to see the carnage. And then I noticed something: A lot of penalties were racked up by foreigners.

Below is how it broke out but, first off, here is how I did my analysis. I thought I'd consider those who as athletes were quite good (plus, cutting the number down made it easier for me—a lazy guy at heart—to tabulate).

None of the top 25 finishers in the race got a penalty, and this either means the official following the lead men was loathe to use his red pen, or the pro men knew and understood the pro rules (in particular the stagger rule) and rode cleanly. So I considered the next best 250 finishers, that is, finishers 26 through 275. This included those men and women who finished in roughly 10:25 or better.

Of these 250 athletes, I looked at the eight countries with the most finishers. American athletes took up 138 of those 250 spots. Germans made up 43 of these finishers, Canada had 17 in there, Belgium 9, Italy and Switzerland 6 apiece, Austria 5, and Japan had 3. There were 42 athletes receiving penalties among these 250: 38 of them with a 4-minute penalty, and 7 with the 12-minute variety, i.e., they got a second penalty.

Who do you imagine were the cleanest riders among these various nationalities? It couldn't possibly be the Americans, could it? I routinely read on our forum about "all the drafting" going on at race after race. Well, surprise, surprise. The 138 Yanks who finished in places 26 through 250 racked up 11 penalties between them, or were penalized at a rate of 8%. Next cleanest were the Germans, though it's hard to call them clean, exactly, as they were penalized at a rate more than double that of the Americans. Eight of the 43 racers were penalized, meaning they were dinged at a rate of 18% and change.

Only one of the five Austrians got a penalty, and then came—tsk, tsk—our neighbors to the north, those 17 who crave fellowship such that they, like Icarus (or was it Dedalus?) got too close for comfort and were burned to the rate of 29% (5 out of 17).

Belgians were caught slipstreaming (or blocking, whatever) at a 1 in 3 rate, but they were better than the Italians and the Swiss, who each had 3 of their 6 entrants go to jail.

But what can you say about the profligate Japanese? Did they think this was an ITU race? All three of their athletes in this finish category were dinged, and two of them got 12-minute penaties.

One possible answer is that there is a conspiracy, and that USAT officials sit on the backs of their motorcycles leafing through the race program, matching up race numbers with foreigners and penalizing them because (for example) their countries didn't support us during Gulf War II.

A second option is that these athletes are more prone to cheating or, like NBA basketball, the officials in their respective countries say that drafting (or traveling) is against the rules, but they don't really mean it. Having spent a lot of time at German races, I rather suspect this an issue in their case, and you find it hard to blame them too much. They're used to getting away with murder in their own country, just to fly over here and find themselves caught in a buzz-saw. That might also explain the Italians and the Swiss.

Related to the NBA thing is a third possibility, that we just have a different set of rules over here, or we interpret them differently. I must assume that is the case with the Japanese. With all that cultural emphasis on honor and "face" and everything, their ding-rate just doesn't make sense. And that's backed up by an examination of the rest of Japan's 16 entrants in IM Florida, who received a total of one penalty among them.

Maybe this doesn't mean anything. Just the same, there are some conclusions one might choose to draw—such as—if you're a foreigner and want to race a U.S.-based Ironman, strictly adhere to the written rules and it wouldn't hurt (to be on the safe side) to encourage your government to go along with us when we decide to invade.

Also, when you grade on a curve, it appears maybe we Americans don't misbehave all that badly while on the bike.

THE CAFFERTY FILE

I'm cranky today, due to certain hormonal disfunctions that occur from time to time that I'm convinced are common to men (women have grasped "the period" and made it their own — darn unfair). Unlike most women I will, however (as any rational man would) put my period to good use — I'll pick today to rant and whine, since I awoke already warmed up.

Litigiousness.

By happy paradox, it's not Americans this time. They've just convicted a bike race promoter in New Zealand of criminal negligence. Apparently the course was warranted to competitors as closed, and yet a car was on the course and hit a female competitor. That's bad. But bad things sometimes happen when you promote a race, and it's nothing you ought to go to jail for. Now, will the participation-crazy Kiwis have any events in which to participate in the future? Not sure anymore.

I don't wish ill upon any country but thank God that, for once, it's foreign people who transform into morons as soon as they enter a jury box.

Not that our society isn't full of those trying to blame others for their own mistakes. I was on my way to master's swimming a couple of weeks ago and NPR's news was on the car radio. Seems a female police officer in Madera, California, had just about enough of a misbehaver in custody. So she pulled out her stun gun and shot him. Except she reached for the wrong gun by mistake.

Understandably traumatized, the officer and the Madera police department — the news reporter said — were suing the maker of the stun gun. I'm not quite sure why.

The local NPR affiliate — KPFK in the L.A. Basin — generated the news story, which ended with the precise comment that the officer was not charged because, "the murder was accidental."

Right about that same time it emerged that Admiral Poindexter was credited with the brilliant scheme: a futures market for terrorist acts — thereby making it possible to both commit an atrocity and financially profit from it. This sort of multiple-dipping isn't new to the former national security adviser (under President Reagan). The idea that won him the Oscar was selling arms to Iran (illegal), taking the money and buying arms, ordnance, or whatever needed for the Contras (illegal), evidently — according to some reports at the time — employing drug smugglers to fly it all down there (quite illegal), and there's some evidence suggesting the planes were then filled back up with drugs for the trip north (which would be exceptionally illegal, needless to say).

All that notwithstanding, one of the nefarious minds in the annals of 20th Century Americana — a man ingeniously foretold in Dr. Strangelove — is still on the government tit as I write this (he's tendered his resignation, but will make paper-clip chains at his desk for some several weeks more). Yes, his criminal conviction for lying to Congress was later overturned, but it must be acknowledged that the bar over which one must jump to work in the Pentagon these days seems fortuitiously low, if any Slowtwitch reader needs a job.

Which leads me to Jack Cafferty, of The Cafferty File on CNN's morning show. I watch this fellow every morning — you've got to suffer him to get Daryn Kagan. God only knows how he got this job — the same way Poindexter got his? — and like Poindexter it doesn't seem to matter how badly he blows it, he's Crazy-Glued to the payroll.

Considering Cafferty's escapade (read our forum), and the maiming in St. Petersburg of many of your friends and mine by a motorist who admittedly feels no remorse, you can pretty much do to a cyclist whatever you want with your car. You won't pay much of a price, save a higher insurance premium come renewal.

All that written, I'm grumpiest at CNN, and their no-comment about Cafferty. I wrote them on two different occasions. They don't reply with a no-comment. They don't reply.

Jack Cafferty — the morning voice of conscience and outrage on CNN — exhorted us today on prospective governor Schwarzenegger who was, Cafferty said, "Short on specifics."

Boiling it down, Cafferty (on his own behalf and on CNN's) suggests that Arnold just doesn't answer questions he'd rather ignore.

The horror.

CNN's head of PR is Christa Robinson.

So what have we learned this month? You can cross the double yellow with your car, swerve into oncoming traffic, knock cyclists into next week, have no excuse and less remorse, and get away just about scott-free.

But if all that happens during a race, the promoter goes to jail.

You can engage in certain combinations of those motoring activities listed above, and add to that leaving the scene of the crime and becoming belligerant when caught (according to at least one news report) and you can still keep your job as arbiter of what's fair and right at America's premier news network.

And nobody bats an eye, because the cycling constituency is small enough — meaning the level of outrage is small enough — to keep that same news agency from having to come clean. Besides, the (near) murder was accidental.

There is a silver lining. Next time you see Cafferty driving down the road, running red lights, a dragging bicycle underneath him, you can shoot the bastard with impunity.

I have it on good authority you can blame the stun gun maker.

BIG DADDY

I hope Slowtwitch readers will forgive my absence of several days. I just returned from American Bicycle Group's first annual dealer conference. ABG is the owner of Litespeed, Quintana Roo and Merlin (and Real Design and Tomac as well). It is based in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and about 160 people representing 100 significant independent bike shops in the U.S. attended.

ABG has separated itself from the peleton of boutique bike makers, and is attempting to bridge the gap from small bike company to large. That's difficult, because plenty of companies (like Centurion, Univega, Nishiki) have died trying to make the jump, and few are able to get across from the pack of $3 million companies to the breakaway — the half-dozen or so companies who sell $100 million or more. Perhaps Bianchi and K2 are representative examples of companies trying to make the jump right now. (ABG is a good deal of the way toward bridging the gap.)

Anyway, I was in Chattanooga talking about the triathlon market. The theme of my lecture was: "Triathletes are a profitable group to which to sell, but if you try to date this market you'll get burned. If you want to be successful you have to marry it." Steve Hed was there as well, talking about wheels. Steve and I bummed around together while in Chattanooga, but my intent was to spend my mornings with Inside Out's Cid Cardoso. On day-1 we met at 6AM and ran 6:30s or 6:45s for nine or so miles, next to Chattanooga's river. The topic of this run came up later in the day, and ABG's president, Mark Lynskey, asked, "Do you want to run Big Daddy tomorrow? I'll bring Steve Underwood, he holds the record for Big Daddy. We'll pick you guys up at 6AM."

I didn't know what Big Daddy was, but I was feeling frisky, and the critical elements catching my attention were the existence of a run with such a reverential name, and the presence on that run of a local hot-shot who holds the record. No way could Cid and I pass that up.

To get to the Big Daddy you drive to the top of Lookout Mountain, about 1500' above the river valley in which Chattanooga sits. On this mountain in November, 1863, 7000 Union forces attacked what was thought to be an impregnable defense put up by 4000 Confederates. The North suffered 190 casualties compared to 1251 for the South, as the Union troops took advantage of a stealth approach afforded by a covering fog that sat below the top of the mountain. On the morning of the 24th, the Confederate General Bragg controlled Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. A day and a half later he controlled neither.

You don't get the sense of how confusing it must have been for Civil War soldiers until you run through these dense forests. It is a thick hardwood forest primarily populated with pin and red oaks that must reach up high (for oaks), in order to get any sunlight. The forest is entirely enclosed overhead, with the trail below covered by roots and rocks and rivulets causing you to run with the cadence of an Irish step dancer just to keep from turning an ankle. Big Daddy is a 13-mile loop run, starting downhill and finishing uphill.

Chattanooga sits about 10 miles east of the time zone line, so it's much darker at 6AM than it would be a few miles to the west (where it'll be 6AM an hour later). That meant that when we started running Big Daddy it was pitch black. In the dark, downhill over rocks and downed branches and around turns, the ringer (Underwood) and Cid were immediately gone. I love to run trails, as do they. But they're good at it. Me? Imagine a giraffe trying to run fast on this course.

I'm therefore stranded in the middle, between these guys and Mark Lynski, and I'm wondering when the proverbial pair of toothless locals with a shotgun will show up and want to party with me. But then after a bit of a descent here comes Mark, as he is as much as a mountain goat as the others. Mark is a good athlete, and we run in together. Steve Hed has also come out to run Big Daddy, but takes a wrong turn and gets entirely lost — but at one point stumbles across the Civil War battlefield monument and so doesn't mind.

I invite Mark Lynskey out to my neck 'o the woods, as we have trails that will satisfy any trail runner's appetite. Cid pipes in, and backs up my claim, having been here earlier this year for a FIST workshop.

There were other, more pressing, reasons for my trip to Chattanooga. Along with my little speeches to dealers I got free reign of ABG's factory, and spoke with a lot of their employees — people who actually build bicycles. I've taken a lot of photos of the factory, and will publish them along with a story, on the assumption my photos turn out.

ABG has won a lot of battles in the bike industry, but still struggles with the battle of hearts and minds. Part of the reason is because they're located so off the beaten track, and dealers don't have the opportunity to visit. That's why ABG's dealer conference was a good strategic move. People here put their pants on one leg at a time, they care about their employees, and are more than just good fabricators.

But Litespeed's people are also very good fabricators, and all of us in the industry have known that for some time. This is part of ABG's historic image problem. They were titanium fabricators before they were bike makers, and a segment of the industry resented the fact that they might take business away from "bike people" (like those who worked at Merlin).

But after 15 years of making bikes you wake up and discover that somewhere along the way you've become a bike person, and the industry accepts you as such. That's where Mark Lynskey is right now, and in that regard I have some personal experience from which to draw. It's been 15 years for me as well.

As we drove back into town from Big Daddy Chattanooga's work day was just throttling up, and we passed several people pedaling bikes to work. They were Litespeed bikes, ridden by Litespeed employees. I guess these are bike people.

OFFICIATING

In no fewer than two movies—Schwarzenegger's Commando and the Bond Movie For Your Eyes Only—I recall chase scenes in which the hero took "the fall line" in pursuit of his switchbacking quarry.

Those movies came to mind yesterday as I watched Lance Armstrong take the straighter route between the fallen Joseba Beloki and the road below him—reconnecting with the chase pack one switchback ahead.

I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Probably that's because I'm a triathlete. Rightly or wrongly, I suspect most people in our sport who saw yesterday's Tour coverage thought, "Man, if this was a triathlon, Lance would be gone from the race. Our officials would see to that."

I like to think I'm wrong. I like to think that the extenuating circumstances would've been considered: Lance took the only evasive action available to him, and his cross-country ride did not net him an advantage. Yet I must admit that I'm doubtful as to what the result would've been if our sport's officials would've had to make the call.

Let's face it. Our officials are more of a jot-and-tittle group, in general. It's often the letter, not the spirit. I know a lot of very good head refs, and they frankly don't much like it. But they're hamstrung because of the constraints put on them by the national office. I've written about this before, but due to Lance's timely "infraction" (or not, depending on the sport) I think it's time to write about it again.

We need to ask ourselves an important question. No, as a matter of fact, it's time that we stop asking ourselves the question. We need to demand that our national office answer the question: "Why do we have rules?" What is their purpose? It seems to me that there are two reasons: To make our sport fair, and to make it safe. If those are our objectives, we have very good rules. But I'd like to consider how it is we convey and enforce them.

For ten years we've had a policy in practice if not in print, and it's this:

If you recite that slowly, it's precisely one minute long, and waves are generally 2 to 5 minutes apart. So there's plenty of time to give this little speech before every wave leaves.

Now, let's say the swim is over, and you're out on the bike. What do you see? Half the field has completely forgotten to ride on the right. And why not? Everyone's brain cells are oxygen starved. So, when the motorcycle edges past, with the official on back, what is the harm in him repeating, over and over, "Ride on the right unless passing!"

Will doing this throw the universe out of balance? Is this proof that the antichrist has won out, and the world's cheaters have siezed the high ground from us? I think not. It's selling the rules. It's making each race a little safer, a little more fair. It's showing you're serious about your insurance liability crisis. It's admitting your approach to rules enforcement for the last decade has not been entirely successful, and that it needs a fresh approach.

I've put on USAT races in which 25% of my field has received a penalty. I've sold products at the expos of these very same races and taken credit cards for products sold, never even checking the cards until I returned from the weekend. I've never been unpaid for a product in 15 years of selling at race expos. Know what this tells me? Our sport is overwhelmingly peopled by honest participants. It's frankly wrong that we're penalzing a fourth of them during a race. Those of us on the administrative end must bear some responsibility for that. We've got to do a better way of letting everyone know what the rules are. Then if they break a rule, by all means issue a DQ, or slap two minutes onto their finish time.

The secondary goal is to penalize those of us who break the rules. The primary goal is for us not to break the rules. Let's focus on the goal, and encourage our elected officials to do so as well.

FIRST YEAR RACES

Now that I've done my duty, all of you should do my duty as well. This past weekend I competed in a first-year race, and I want to tell you about some other first-year races.

Blackwater Eagleman, to be held this upcoming weekend, was once a first-year race (more than 20 years ago)? So was the Wildflower Triathlon. As was the Chicago Triathlon. They were all races on which participants took a chance, and now those people can say, "I was there in the beginning, and I helped build that race."

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to say that? Wouldn't it feel good to know that a big-time race survived because of the efforts of you and a few of your friends?

But that's not the main reason why I attended and raced in Brad Kearns' World's Toughest Half. Wildflower and Chicago are both on my schedule this year. But I can only take so many of these races in a season. Having been a triathlete pretty much since the beginning, I covet the small-race experience. I like seeing new RDs and new races find their personalities.

I sometimes hear people say, "First I'm going to wait and see whether this is a race worth going to—maybe I'll go next year if I hear good reports." Funny thing, you'd expect to hear that from the athletes who've already "made it"—those who can enter any race based on their reputations and relationships. Yet it was those old-timers who tended to come and race at the World's Toughest Half. When Brad Kearns—once among the world's best triathletes—decided to put on this race, his old training partner Andrew McNaughton came out of retirement to do the race (and placed fifth overall). Gordo Byrn came out. As did a lot of the other people I hadn't seen for a long time.

And they were appreciated by the race organization. This very difficult course ends on a two-mile steep uphill stretch. Many of the participants found their names in huge chalk letters, as on an ascent of a grand tour.

Do a first-year race. Take a risk. You're a triathlete, that's what you do. Make that a part of your schedule every year. The Hawaiian Ironman was a first year race 25 years ago, and this year many of those first-timers will be back for the festivities. The field that year totalled a dozen. They took a chance. Why don't you?

BAY AREA WIMPS AND WHINERS

I've more or less stood in solidarity with you Bay Areolas during this whole race-entry-swapping thing. It's not that I thought that it was okay to sell one's entry, but that in the case of you folks it was somewhat defensible. After all, if you're SF-based, one maxes out one's credit card in October just to pay for an entire upcoming season's racing. What if, in February, you get run over by a trash truck, or Hewlett Packard transfers you to Bangladesh? What do you do with $1500 of entries you've bought and paid for?

The penalty, should you get caught selling your entry, appeared to me severe. There was the guy who tried to buy his way into Alcatraz and got sued by USAT. Last I heard he got his wish—I think he's serving a nickel there.

That's been my position, but now I'm changing sides. You're just a bunch of wimps and whiners. You'll stay awake watching infomercials until midnight so that you can type in your digits and register for Alcatraz and Wildflower, because life is not worth living if you can't compete in these two races. The guy who finishes fourth in the Olympic Trials is less devastated than you if you don't get in.

I've got no problem with that, except Brad Kearns is putting on a half-Ironman in a world class location outside of Auburn. This is the city that just voted itself the Endurance Capital of the World (American River 50-mile run, Western States 100, endurance horse racing, blah blah). Here's a city that wants you, an RD that wants you, and all in a place that God created just for triathlon. This race will take place on May 31, and it's no where near capacity as of this writing.

Don't tell me it's too far for you guys to drive. It's closer than Wildflower. Don't tell me the $175 entry is too high. It's in the ballpark. Don't complain that you won't go until it's a proven race—it won't be a proven race until you go and prove it.

I haven't yet made up my mind whether the Bay Area has replaced San Diego as the new capital of multisport, or whether you're just a bunch of flakes. God bless Andy Robles and Terry Davis. If it wasn't for them, Metro San Fran wouldn't be multisport's national hot spot. But they'd agree with me. It's uncomfortable for them to have to turn away so many athletes. It's bad PR for everybody. There needs to be more races and new RDs to take the pressure off them. Their races are going to fill regardless.

The gang I hang with—the old guard I used to race with in the 80s—are all going to Bradly's race and, though I love Brad, it's not because it's his race. It's because it's a new, ambitious race (the World's Toughest Half) contested over the hottest distance going right now, placed in a spectacular location, backed by a willing city.

When this race fills, I'll write in these pages again, eating crow and explaining how wrong I was about the intrepid Bay Area multisporters who are willing to climb out of their comfort zones, and take a chance, and support a new race.

NOTES OF A WAR CORRESPONDENT

I have on my bookshelves a volume by that title, written by Richard Harding Davis. This author—who was already famous for his fiction—covered World War I and many wars prior to it. He was in Cuba for the Spanish-American War, reporting for William Randolph Hearst and, before that, Joseph Pulitzer's New York Herald.

Having been born in 1957, I didn't get a chance to read Harding's war installments as news. He died 41 years before I was born; 45 years before I could read; and 55 years before I thought much about what I read. Just the same, in this time of war I miss him.

I write this because I am a living witness to a modern marvel: the stretching of 45 minutes of daily useful war news into 24 hours of coverage. There seems to be a zero-sum equation at work: The smartness of smart bombs is counterbalanced—as the coverage grows in volume—by the dumbness of the reports about them. Right now my T.V.'s news channels mostly air a rehash of the same hastily-produced reports I saw a day ago; or "up close and personal" vignettes of U.S. soldiers' stateside families—stories emblematic of what I've never liked about Ironman's coverage (this, instead of a 5-minute history of how Saddam Hussein came to power; or the history of Iraq as a country; or a 5-minute overview of Iraq's geography: does Iraq have states? or high mountains?).

I don't blame the reporters. If they were given time to investigate and write the news, they could give us lucid, mostly accurate, accounts. Instead, they're given 30 seconds to collect their thoughts. It's a stretch to consider them reporters in this environment. They're play-by-play announcers.

War is, at best, the best of bad choices. But I confess that in the conflict's first few days I gave myself over to the coverage. I had that same anticipation as when I turn on the tube in the A.M. and watch a grand tour. When the war first started, and the tanks were rolling along the desert without encountering any enemies, it felt like a flat stage. I was anxious for the cavalry to get into The Alps. I wished it was on OLN, with Paul Sherwen and Phil Liggett, "Reporting live from Baghdad."

I say this against a certain backdrop: I feel the gravity of war less than I ought. Is it because it's being reported in a way that feels not unlike sport? I don't know. I'm usually an addict to the NCAA basketball tournament, and am possessed from the time the seeds get announced. This year I didn't even know who was in the championship until I heard who won. Is this because the Iraq war was better sport than college basketball?

Not necessarily for those who cover it. The paradigm of the 24-hour war causes journalists, cameramen and producers to be right there, on the scene, giving it to us live, before another network gets the story, irrespective of the dangers. Is it this CNN-style coverage that's caused many journalists, Arab and Western, to lose their lives in this war?

Which leads me back to Richard Harding Davis, and the Golden Age of war coverage. He wrote about the strip search of a young Cuban woman in the Spanish-American War, carried out by female guards. Hearst printed that the search was conducted by male guards, apparently wanting a more vivid story. This caused Davis to resign, and he never worked for Hearst again.

Publishers and producers must be like those who generate any product. I suspect they're zealous to give us a war they think we want to see and hear. Maybe it's the same in every war, and every era. Maybe Richard Harding Davis would be a Fox network anchor today.

(Publisher's note: Highest point is Haji Ibrahim, 11,800' above sea level; Iraq has 18 "governorates"—their version of states).

ALL'S FAIR IN LOVE AND SPORT

Alison Colavecchia writes our Beginner's Luck column and this month she wrote not about beginning, but ending. She wrote about the demise of her marriage. We took a little gentle heat from this on our forum (see the navbar up-top), and I don't mind this.

I offer no apology for her column, but I'd like to clarify my view of it. I reiterate my praise, and believe it's is one of the more compelling things that's been on this site in awhile. This is not because I celebrate the breaking up of a marriage in order for a person to become more self-actualized. It's that my charge to Alison, as a columnist, is to write about the ups and downs, ins and outs, of the life of a budding triathlete, and to write it with transparency. Had Alison written a column about a rocky patch in her marriage—about how she'd worked hard to buttress the structure of her marriage—with the end result being a reinvigorated relationship, that would've gone up on Slowtwitch just as quickly. I'd have been just as happy.

It's not the divorce I'm celebrating when I praise her column, and it's not even her ability to step out and make a hard decision. It's her transparency. It was her willingness to write about something which troubles a lot of us, and through which many of us have gone or will go.

The "problem" with sport is that we (and often our loved ones) consider it not a necessary part of our existence. It's not food or drink, it's not shelter, it's not procreation, it's not about safety from imminent peril. It's not about the air we breathe. It's a hobby. It's what we do after we've got the important stuff done. It's not urgent life, it's what we fit around our life.

Speaking for myself, though, while it's not necessary to my existence, it is elemental to it. In a way, it is the air I breathe. Perhaps running isn't part of the "real" world. But sitting at a desk in an office is? For me, endurance sports are my connection to things real. They're the analog in my otherwise digital world.

And this begs the question: What if your spouse laid it on the line to you? What if he or she gave you the ultimatum: Stop all this running and cycling, or I'm outa here? Or to make this a more real-life scenario, what if this was not the explicit message, but the implicit one? What if he or she is already "outa here" in spirit, though perhaps not physically?

This appears to happen in a lot of marriages in our sport, and it's the result of one party deciding, perhaps, to take charge of his/her physical well-being, resulting in the other getting left behind, or feeling left behind. I don't know that this happened in Alison's case, and I rather suspect it was a lot more complicated. But whether it's triathlon or something else, is it that uncommon to see one party move forward in life while the other doesn't? What's the proper response to that?

A lot of Christians read this site, and they are among the most thoughtful of our readers and forum participants. I'm thankful for them, because their credo requires thoughtfullness. It's a thinking man's religion (or at least it is when it's practiced best). They are uncomfortable when reading the sort of thing I'm writing above, and they express their discomfort through articulate and civil discourse. They are attractive models of religion best-expressed. They were not, as a group, entirely happy about Alison's column. I think it's fair that I address them. I'm not a theologian, but this is where I do opine, so here goes...

It is my private opinion—and now it's a public opinion, I guess—that it might be an interesting exercise to go back and look at one's marriage photos. Should one do so, it will become apparent that there are, after all, only two people up there exchanging vows. But it seems to me that in practice there are often three entities up there having promises made to them: the bride, the groom, and the "marriage." Things are done for the sake of "the marriage." What is this third entity? What is it owed? It appears to me that if one strips out the idea of serving an entity that doesn't exist in real life, there is more energy left over for the people who need my service, including my spouse.

I know that I'm in the real minority here, but in my hours spent poring over the New Testament—which have been considerable—I just don't see much written about marriage. There are charges given to husbands and wives, to be sure, perhaps slightly more than the charges given to masters and slaves on how they ought to behave in their relationships. They both appear to me to be treated as social institutions by the writers of the New Testament letters. This is not to denigrate the importance of marriage, but to put it into a certain context. This is how I read it, and it is based on simply considering the simplist, most literal interpretation I can, and taking into consideration the volume and weight of time spent by New Testament writers on this theme. This is why, I guess, I'm comfortable with a pragmatic discussion of "triathlon" and "marriage."

But I know I hold a minority view. Probably a singular view, as a matter of fact. It's hard to imagine another person versed in the Bible holding the same view as I, and I expect and encourage contrary opinions. Mostly, though, what I encourage on our forum is not just your contrary view, but the benefit of your experience. Alison was brave to share her transparency. Be brave and share yours. It doesn't matter what you believe. It matters what you've done. I'd like to know how you've scratched and scraped your way through your marriage and—like Jacob wrestling with the angel of God through the night, not giving up without receiving a blessing—how is it that your wrestling match has gone? And have you received your blessing?

I'd like to hear about your successes and your failures. Hold yourselves up as beacons for those of use who need examples to follow. Or make your failures known, for those of use who need examples with which we can relate.

Because sport IS necessary, as it turns out. It IS the air I breathe. It IS my shelter. It's not the racing, but running is my connection to things real, at least in the temporal sense. Sometimes our families don't understand that very well, and sometimes our ability to explain and demonstrate it falls on deaf ears. Sometimes we are greedy in our pursuance of our sport and we neglect our responsibilities to those who are in our charge. Sometimes sport is the proximate cause of the break-up of partnerships we've entered; sometimes sport is used as a rationalization for breaking vows we've taken.

All that is true from time to time, and it's all part of the real world of a
triathlete. Therefore, it's fair game to write about, and we're nothing if not fair. (And don't worry, we'll be back to product reviews by this afternoon!)

THE EPIC OF EL SKID

Monty and I were talking this morning over coffee and he remarked that Skid has finally found his sweet spot in the tri world—or rather that he's rediscovered it. It's been the overriding theme of his adult life, he just finally found a way to make it pay as an over-40 athlete.

Fortunately for him other people will want to do what it is he's charging money for, and he had to step back and rethink things before he came to his senses and figured it out. His diatribe, in the final installment of his Epic Camp diary, against the passive approach our sport has been taking toward risk management is right on target. We tend to dumb-down our camps and races and coaching advice. Maybe we ought to smarten-them-up instead. You can't be so afraid that someone might die or become injured that you take an inherently dangerous activity and make it so safe that it's not fun anymore. You can't be so worried that you won't fill up your camp that you make it easy enough so that any customer can do it. That's what makes no customer want to do it.

Bravo, Scott and Gordo! They built a product that isn't for everybody! And in so doing they built a product that is going to be in great demand. You've got to be able to keep up, or you can't go to their camp. That'll make people want to become good enough to do the camp. That's a step forward. That's the idea.

Epic Camp is not a triathlon. It's not an adventure race. It's not a training camp per se. It borrows from the disparate elements of all of what makes these activities work for us. We want to go places—both physically and physiologically—we've never been before. We want to challenge ourselves in the presence of others. We want to see whether we've got enough mettle; see what we're made of; see how we react in the moment of truth. We want to come out the other side.

Epic Camp is the Next Big Thing. Or at least it ought to be.