The Art Neuro Weblog

Chicago: Where You HAVE To Go The Extra Mile
This is hilarious.

Fri Jun 3, 8:22 PM ET
CHICAGO - Any marathon is a grueling test of physical and mental endurance, but Chicago's Lakeshore Marathon was extra tough this year: The course was inadvertently set a mile too long.

More than 500 runners finished the Memorial Day race, running 27.2 miles instead of the standard 26.2.

The long layout of the state's only spring marathon, as well as problems such as missing mile markers and unstaffed aid stations, led some runners to urge the city to stop issuing permits for the Lakeshore Marathon until it's under new management.

Race founder and organizer Mark Cihlar issued an apology on www.marathonguide.com on Thursday.

Last-minute changes "caused us to miscalculate and we foolishly added an extra mile — how terrible!" he wrote in a memo to race participants.

Cihlar, who has had sole responsibility for 90 percent of the marathon's planning for the past four years, said he plans to relinquish control over event coordination and is seeking qualified directors and coordinators to help on the 2006 race. Marathon entrant and attorney Hugh Mainard of Chicago said that's not enough. Mainard was so upset that he complained about Cihlar to the officials at Chicago Area Runners Association, the Chicago Department of Special Events, the Chicago Park District and the Boston Athletic Association.

"It's hard for me to fathom how someone can get the most basic element of a race wrong," Mainard said.

Aurora's Dan Martin, 46, won the men's race in 2:50:24. Chicago's Megan
Smiley, 30, won the women's race in 3:12:53.

Unfortunately those times won't mean a thing in the record books except they'll have an asterisk next to them for years to come.

And The Yanks Skid Back To The Middle Of The Pack
Just like that. 6 losses on th trot; the worst skid since the one that closed out the 2000 regular season; and those guys won the World Series anyway, but this is bad.
Big Stein isn't too pleased.

As soon as he heard about the call, Torre knew it wasn't going to be a pleasant conversation. Torre has gotten used to outbursts from Steinbrenner during his 10 years in New York. When the Yankees are winning, their owner wants them to win bigger, and when they are losing, look out.

``It's a long season and George isn't a very patient man and we understand that,'' Torre said. ``In dealing with George, when you lose and you're supposed to be winning, it's not a happy time. But when you win, he's constantly driving you to improve, so the tone doesn't change much.''

Torre did say he hoped Steinbrenner, who has a reputation for firing employees in a heartbeat, would exercise a little bit of restraint and keep his staff intact while it tries to right the ship.

``We hope we can continue as far as work-wise,'' Torre said. ``Results-wise, we want to change that.''

It's been a painful week that way.
The Ku-Ring-Gai Stealers B-1 team however pulled out a mighty win today. Hooray. :)

- Art Neuro