Raynellothon October 30, 2005
Posted by Duncan Brook in : Memories , 3comments
The best thing about today’s Marine Corps Marathon is that Raynelle Deans is running it.
Somewhere between
- buying a house
- perpetually cleaning her closet
- fending off countless menfolk
- getting a masters degree on the side (in engineering)
- coaching a girls basketball team
- checking on little ol’ me at four in the morning
- playing flag football for about 2.1 million teams
- mounting a campaign to save the National Youth Sports program
- teaching Kaplan SAT courses
and, oh, I nearly forgot…
- working (Raynelle is a high-powered consultant and engineer)
… she’s found time to train, with Team in Training, for today’s race. It’s her first marathon. Really, Raynelle, I think you should stop being such a layabout and do something with your life.
You can watch how Raynelle’s doing here.
(click on “MAPTRACK” to see a real-time map of her progress on the course).
Go Raynelle!
The people all go for a light jog October 30, 2005
Posted by Duncan Brook in : Memories , add a comment
It’s a crisp blue-skied morning here in the D.C. metro area, which means it’s the perfect day for 30,000 people to run a marathon.
The annual Marine Corps Marathon, organized by — you guessed it — the U.S. Marines, is nicknamed “The People’s Marathon” because the Marines focus on supporting runners of all levels. The race is filled with first-time marathoners, and since there’s no monetary prize for top finishes, elite runners tend to stay away. The race organizers have no plans to start paying winners and are proud of the event’s amateur status.
All this is in stark contrast to the Boston Marathon, the oldest U.S. marathon and a hugely competitive event — only the Super Bowl receives more media coverage every year. If you want to run the Boston Marathon, first you have to go out and run another marathon, and you have to do it fast enough to beat a qualifying time for your age group. The unintended consequence is that every year the 40,000 official runners jostle with as many as 10,000 “bandits” — people who did not qualify but sneak into the race and run anyway.
(People running for certain charities are the one exception to Boston’s qualification rules, and every year Boston marathoners raise huge sums of money for great organizations like Team in Training, the Alzheimer’s Association, and the Boys & Girls Club)
Boston might be famous for its challenging climbs into the city (particularly “Heartbreak Hill” in Newton), but the Marine Corps Marathon route (warning: route is curiously phallic) easily takes the prize for patriotic scenery. Starting at Arlington National Cemetery, racers run past every major D.C. landmark and monument: Georgetown, the Kennedy Center, the Lincoln Memorial, the White House, the Washington Monument, the Capitol, the Jefferson Memorial, the Pentagon, and so on until they finish at the Iowa Jima Memorial back in Arlington.
On a beautiful day like today, it’d be a wonderful 26.3 mile route to, say, drive in one’s car. I’m sure the monuments are inspiring, but running all that way, using one’s feet and legs…
Please don’t hurt me October 27, 2005
Posted by Duncan Brook in : Memories , add a comment
The good people at the Economist have profiled Bain chairwoman and former Israeli special forces operative Orit Gadiesh. The article, which neatly summarizes the results-oriented Bain culture and tells the story of its “true north” mantra, is available here.
My experiences with Orit (pronounced Ore-eet) mostly involved being scared of her in Bain hallways, but I did discover my excellent dentist because I was told, “Orit goes there.” As a result, I had a couple of opportunities to be scared of her in Dr. Kurban’s hallway as well.
Orit is all about the shock of black hair, aggressive smoking (or so I’m told), visionary leadership, and violently sharp stiletto heels. One Friday at Bain, I nearly walked into her, surprising her as she came out of a conference room. For a brief but dangerous moment, I saw the Israeli special forces instincts glittering hard in Orit’s eyes. I swear she nearly decided to kill me with her shoe.
The Economist notes that Orit is the only woman ever to have led a big consulting firm. Personally, I was proud to be part of a company with such a dynamic woman at the helm. “Gender has never been an issue for me,” she says, though “it has been an issue for other people.”
By which she means, “I had them killed.”
