My 200th post.
According to Wikipedia, 200 (two hundred) is the natural number following 199 and preceding 201. The number appears in the Padovan sequence, preceded by 86, 114, 151 (it is the sum of the first two of these). The sum of Euler’s totient function φ(x) over the first twenty-five integers is 200. 200 is the smallest base 10 unprimeable number – it can not be turned into a prime number by changing just one of its digits to any other digit. It is the sum of dollars given in the classical Monopoly game to a player passing Go. A common ISO-standard film speed for photographic films. The name of a car made by the Rover Group — the Rover 200. An HTTP status code indicating a successful connection. It is also a Harshad number. 200 MeV is the temperature of quark-gluon plasma phase transition. I don’t know what some of those things mean. Also (pay attention Husband) I don’t care. Do not attempt to explain Harshad numbers to me.
As I’m apt to do, I googled “running + 200″. I have decided to dedicate my 200th post to an underappreciated distance. The 200 metre dash. It doesn’t have the glamour of the 100 metre dash or the full-circle satisfaction of a 400 metre loop. It is the ignored middle child of running. Sprinters specializing in the 100m or 400m often double up with the second-choice 200m in a quest for double gold. The icing on their laurel cake.
Do not underestimate 200m. The long sprint is more technically demanding than the 100m, with both a curve and a straightaway. The inside lanes are disadvantaged by centrifugal forces during the bend phase, which means it’s better to run on the outside. The 200 metre is a precise tradeoff between strength and endurance. A tough beast to tame. In 2009 Usain Bolt broke his own 200m record with a 19.19sec run. Florence Giffith-Joyner’s suspicious women’s record of 21.34sec has stood since 1988. My own 200 metre record is unknown. I haven’t run the 200 since elementary school, on a grass track, during which I finished somewhere in the vicinity of dead last in my preliminary heat.
I would offer congratulations and many thanks for the hours of wonderful reading you have provided in these 200 posts (overlooking your metric rants, of course) if I weren’t still haunted by the horrible images brought about by your previous entry. See-through running shorts for the well-endowed, big-legged Forrest Gump, indeed. Sigh.
(that was a bad sigh, not a good sigh. I think.)
Wow, you’re posting at a furious pace. Congrats on 200!
Well done, keep it up!
happy 200th! love your creativity and humor throughout your blog. i’ve definitely never heard of anyone dedicating a milestone post to an obscure race distance
200 thanks!