Field Goal Percentages in College Football

Thankfully, this one is easier than the last one.

Using play by play data that I've found on the internet from many (all? most?) 2014 college football games, let's see how good college field goal kickers are:

Answer: Better than me.

There's not tons of analysis to be done here. The further away, the harder it is and the field goal percentage decreases pretty linearly until you get 54 yards out, and then it falls off a cliff. (You can compare this to NFL kickers here; the chart you want is half way down the page.)

This data set doesn't have fake field goals included. In the case of penalties, I've counted whether the kick was good or not, regardless of whether it counted. This represents 2581 field goals attempted last year, which break down by distance like this:



Short kicks are uncommon, as teams will go for it on 4th and 1 or 2 in some cases. They plateau from 25 to 45 yards out, roughly, representing the number of drives that end at those various field positions. (Note: all distances here are recording the kick distance, which I've assumed to be the line of scrimmage + 17 yards.) Beyond 45 yards though, the number of attempts drop - some teams are going for it on 4th down, others are punting (sissies). A third possibility is that the end point of drives are not evenly distributed across the field which could be effecting this chart.

One point I'll make about the data is that there are undoubtedly errors. I've found a few and eliminated those, but with 2581 attempts, I don't have the time or desire to try and double check them all. So long as the errors aren't systematic, we could hope that they will balance out in the end, but that isn't likely to be the case. As an example, assume that all field goals are, in reality, good 90% of the time. Now, lets say that the incorrect result is recorded in my data (found for free on the internet!) 10% of the time. (I'm sure the data is much, much more reliable than this, but this makes the numbers easy.) So, out of 100 kicks in my made-up universe, 10 will be recorded incorrectly. But if those 10 incorrect points are random, on average 9 of them will be good kicks that get recorded as misses, and only 1 is a miss that gets recorded as good. So, my data will show 82% field goal percentage (81 correctly recorded as 'good' plus 1 false positive) with 18% misses (9 correctly recorded misses, plus 9 false negatives). This isn't an issue unique to football stats by any means, but what this does mean, is that any random errors in the data are likely to have pushed the results lower, not higher.

(There could also be systematic errors that are decidedly not random. For instance, the data comes from a computer reading play by play data off the internet. But imagine that the code processing the data that gets pulled from one specific source (Yahoo! sports might have different formatting than ESPN) erroneously records all field goals as misses. This is clearly going to muck up results, but in a very specific way.)

Next, what are the chances of getting a field goal blocked?



Not surprisingly, this increases with distance; kicking the ball lower will make the ball go further, but it also makes it easier to block.

And, to circle back to the question I asked in the last post: When is a hail mary a better option than a field goal? The simple answer is: if you think your kicker can get it there, you're better off kicking. Hail mary plays from 30 to 45 yards out are only successful 5 to 10% of the time.

Hail Mary Probabilities in College Football

In case you didn't hear my yelling all the way from Illinois this last Saturday, BYU beat Nebraska on a last second (literally) Hail Mary - a 42 yard pass from Mangum to Matthews. As a game winning play, it has to rank up there with McMahon to Brown in the 1980 Holiday Bowl and Beck to Harline against Utah. (Though it probably can't compete with the importance of the game - BYU's first bowl win ever and, well, any game against Utah.)

The question of the day is: how unlikely are these plays? It seems like these plays ought to be easy to defend. It's end zone or bust as far as the offense is concerned, so the defense really only has to worry about a long pass play, and it isn't easy to complete a pass when there are 3 or 4 receivers against 8 defenders in the end zone. Sadly, the internet is pretty lacking in data on this. The best I could find was this analysis using data from 2000 to 2011 in the NFL. Which game them only 223 data points.

Well, after some digging, I found this site, which has play by play data for the 2014 college football season. There is a lot of fun things that can be done with this data. And, because there are so many more college football teams there is a lot of data there. So, I started filtering . . .

In the interest of transparency, I'm going to fully detail how I've selected this data. It's more than 145,000 plays, so you'll excuse me for not sorting through them by hand. (Feel free to skip this next bit if you want.) The data was filtered to include drives that ended the second or fourth quarter whose final play was a pass. This catches the end of each half where there is little reason not to try and get points if you can. I then excluded plays from the 4th quarter where the margin was more than 9 points - teams in this situation may not be playing their best players. (I assume no one has given up before halftime.) There are, of course, a few worthy plays that could slip through this screening. For instance, if a team is throws a "hail mary" that happens to be caught while there is still one or two seconds left on the clock, I won't have included it. But I'm happy that this filtering will provide the vast majority of pertinent situations. Oh, and in case you're wondering, I'm excluding all OT posessions because of how the data is configured. (Some small percentage of OT games would have passing plays that qualify as short range hail marys.)

Ok, so here's what I find: 210 plays met this criteria, which resulted in 11 touchdowns. That's 5.2% which isn't great, but is a little higher than I would have guessed. Let's break it down more.



Comments:
- These numbers sure make it look like teams aren't trying very hard at the end of the second quarter.
- There was only 1 defensive touchdown scored in all these plays (in a 4th quarter blowout), so there isn't much of a reason to fear a pick-six (which could hurt you in the 2nd quarter, but can't in the 4th quarter unless you're tied).
- The huge fumble rate it due to teams lateraling the ball around trying to score, and mostly happens on plays from really far away. (Average field position for the 7 fumbles in the 4th quarter was the offense's own 27 yard line.)
- Look at the huge difference in sack rate between the 2nd and 4th quarters. On game ending hail mary plays, defenses usually rush 3 and offenses will block with 6. Apparently teams don't do that in the 2nd quarter. Perhaps pressuring the QB is more effective? (Bad things can happen when you give a quarterback all day. See: 2006, Beck to Harline.)
- "4th down, knock it down" applies here. ("4th quarter, knock it down"?) Unless it's a tie game and you are going to try and return it for the win, there's no reason to even try and catch the ball. Nearly all of these interceptions are a case of a defensive back deserving a ruler across the back of his hands.

Taking all 209 attempts with yardage data from competitive games together, we can break it down by distance:




More comments:

- The completions that don't result in a TD from less than 50 yards out confuse me. The QB should be able to get it to the end zone from there - I guess some of these are teams running out of time and not getting that "final play" off. In one sense those plays should be removed from the data set - they don't represent a "hail mary". But, in another sense, I like that they're there, because they represent another way that you can fail from the 40 yard line with 7 seconds left in the game.
- Completion percentage sky rockets beyond 70 yards; quarterbacks can't throw the ball that far, so it is more sensible to throw short and hope for some lateraling magic to happen. In this group we see the INT rate drop (6%), fumble rate climb (19%), and the sack rate drop (13%). This strategy is also far less likely to work (3.1% success rate), though, given the low chances of success, some of these 2nd quarter attempts may not represent true best efforts.
- It's easier to score from 11-20 yards out than it is from closer it. This probably makes sense as offenses have a little more room to operate.
- Why is 41-50 yards a sweet spot, compared to 21-40 yards? Also, why are there so many more attempts from the longer distance? One reasons is that from the 45 yard line a hail mary is an option, while most teams won't even consider attempting a 62 yard FG. So even if your team is only down 1 or 2 points, the hail mary is probably the better option. Here's some data on historical NFL field goal kicking by distance. Apparently my next post needs to look at FG % by distance for college kickers, because I can't find anything very good for college.

Finally, here's a graph of what the success rate looks like by distance.


I'd love to have more data to see if this would smooth out a bit, or if this really is tri-modal. So, if you happen to have multiple years of play by play data for college football handy, let me know.

Also, as I do have data for last year, if you can think of anything interesting you'd like me to look at, let me know. Essentially, what I have is the game state (teams, score, down, distance) and result (score, completion, INT, fumble, rush, sack, yards gained) for every play.

More Books

I'm fascinated by lists, so let's assume you are, too. You know the drill.  This is what I've been reading lately.

The Princess Bride by William Goldman
I've read it before (more than once probably), but since I had just read Cary Elwes book, I thought it was fitting to read this again. Delightful as always.

The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
In a world where all movie previews start out with "In a world . . .", this book was not what I expected.  These days you know just what to expect when hostile aliens land on earth, there will be explosions, the military, and probably the president of the United States is going to have to personally punch someone in the face or something. You know what I'm talking about, you've seen this movie ten times over. This book is not any of those movies, though. It's a travelogue narrated after the fact detailing the Martians landing in England. Interesting, but not captivating. Interesting is good for non-fiction, but fiction needs more captivating.

Manhunt by James Swanson
John Booth, cranky actor, shot President Lincoln, jumped from the box to the stage, broke his leg, ran off, was discovered in a barn in Maryland and was shot and killed. That's a nice tidy story, which until recently I assumed took less than 12 days to happen. As it turns out, I was wrong.  As we live in the Land of Lincoln these days, I figured I should be a little more knowledgeable on the subject.  The book is well written. At 391 pages, it can start to get a little slow when Booth and friend spent the better part of a week hiding in the bushes, but I'd definitely recommend it if the topic interests you.

Wu Tang Physics Clan by Boring Liberal Arts-Major
Ok, the book is actually named The Dancing Wu Li Masters and it was written by Gary Zukav. It's from the 70s and is supposed to be some sort of lay mans description of modern physics. It's terrible. I tried, but I could only get about 50 pages in. I don't remember what his point was with the title of the book, but the first 50 pages were primarily him blathering on about Eastern Philosophy and modern physics and how wonderfully difficult it is and how understanding the universe. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for understanding the universe, but that phrase has two distinct means which I think Mr Zukav is wrong to conflate. Physics want to understand the mechanisms by which a set of physical conditions causes other events to happen. Liberal Arts majors want to talk about "what it all means". Both are worthy things to discuss, but I don't believe that one is particularly useful in describing the other. If you want to understand something about modern physics, I can point you to all sorts of better books. I've reviewed entertaining ones, massively dense books, and dumb books. I've also apparently neglected to review yet other books on the general subject that range from challenging but excellent, to simple enough that your dog can understand. Any of them would be better than this one. (Though, if you are really going to read something, the first one is excellent, and the last two are very good.  Skip the other two.)

Once a Spy by Keith Thomson
Dad is 60-something, suffering from Alzheimer's and doesn't have much of a relationship with his son. Oh, and someone wants him dead. Turns out, he never mentioned to his son that he used to be a super spy. All sorts of fast action spy stuff the occurs, interspersed with Dad not knowing what's going on. This book was OK, but for me there were a few too many plot twists to the point that every chapter seemed to end with "But wait! Here's something else!"

The Wright Brothers by David McCullough
I've now read about a half a dozen of McCullough's books which are typically very good. This one is even better than average. This is the story of the Wright Brothers focusing primarily on their years when they were developing the first airplane. At the end, I was wishing the book were longer (it's only 262 pages) but it's one of McCullough strengths that he doesn't try to write everything on a topic that could possibly be written and instead just tells the story with enough detail that you can appreciate it all. I would recommend this book. Also, North Carolina needs to give up this whole "First in Flight" thing on their license plates. Two guys from Dayton, OH came to your tiny fishing village on the outer banks because you had a sandy hill and a nice breeze. You really ought to be able to come up with something more impressive about your state. The Wrights built their plane in Ohio, and once they had made their first powered flights they quit going back to Kitty Hawk at all because they didn't need the breeze and hill any more and just flew around in someone's field a few miles outside of Dayton. Essentially the whole state is hanging it's hat on "Dayton didn't happen to have a nice breeze like Kitty Hawk does." (And of course they put it on their quarter, too.)

Ok, now I'm running of things to read, so you can suggest me a book if you want.

Sabbath Sleep Deprivation

When I was young and stupid, a friend and I decided to stay up for 48 hours. I only made it to 42 hours, and even in my sleep deprived state I realized that it was a stupid idea and finally went to bed.

These days, I do stuff like that professionally.

Sapphire crystals wait for no man, which means my work schedule revolves around big furnaces and I get to go nocturnal for a few days on occasion. Sadly, the rest of life also waits for no man. Being not quite as young, but still mostly as stupid, I once again find myself scheduling things that make me question my sanity. I'll be at work until a touch after 8am this morning, which gets me home around 8:30, and we don't have to leave for church until 10:45, so I should be able to squeeze in about 90 minutes of sleep in there, before it's off to church, a home teaching appointment, a birthday party, a dinner party and then home.

I can't say it's my preferred schedule, but, it's just how things come out sometimes. Evidently sleep management is not one of the things that I learned in college.

I am OK alone

Shannon and the girls took advantage of summer vacation and cheap airplane tickets and jetted off to SLC for a week.  That leaves me home alone for 6 days, which has been interesting.  Shannon and Julia left me home alone years ago when Shannon was sick and pregnant with Ella, and that was the last time that we spent more than 2 nights apart.  Even the times where we have been apart for a day or two, I've been the one gone on a business trip, and there's at least been the novelty of being somewhere different for a day or two.  (Even if that different place happens to be Cleveland, which for some reason is where half of my business trips end up being.) So, I've learned a few things being alone for a week.

First off, I am OK alone. Despite what everyone else thinks, I am more than capable of feeding myself and getting myself up on time.  (It helps that the sun comes up at about 5:30 here in the summer.)  But, living alone isn't all fun and games.

Living alone is lonely. I know, who'd have thought? Maybe it's because I'm not particularly good at living on my own, but there's nothing to do.  I turn on music when I get home from work, and I talk to myself, just to have some noise in the house. TV isn't as fun by yourself. Dinner isn't any fun by yourself. This feeds right into my next point:

Living alone is boring. Between coming home from work and going to bed, I have about 5 hours of time, and almost nothing to fill them. I've cleaned up the house a fair bit, but it was messy to begin with. Now that it's straightened up, it should stay pretty clean, at least until I decide to have a My Little Pony party. Even when it is time to go to bed, I don't want to read - there's no need to find a way to quietly retreat from the world when you live in silence all the time.

Finally, living alone is pointless. I mean, seriously, if I lived alone, I'd have soooo much free time. What on earth could I do? I like to run, but there's a limit to how much of that I can do a day. I've played some Starcraft with Brett, but at some point even that starts to wear. I can't imagine having enough hobbies to fill my time. I don't know how single people do it. I suppose they have a bunch of single friends and they go off and do fun stuff all the time. I'm sure they find interesting and meaningful things to do with their time - hopefully they're much more productive single people than I am.

To sum up: Living alone - did not like; would not recommend.

Everyone gets home tomorrow night, and I'm sure I'll be wanting some peace and quiet around the house shortly after that. If you find me complaining, remind me that noisy and messy is far better than alone.

Another Book Dump

Last time I did a book dump, Lauren asked why I read so much, particularly given my gender. My response was essentially, "I don't know; I just do." Very satisfying answer, I'm sure.  So let's bring this to a (very slightly) larger audience and generalize a little bit. (So you don't have to submit answers as to why you think I read a lot.)  Why is it that you read whatever amount you do?

From a few minutes of research on the internet, it seems that Lauren is right in her assumption that women read more than men. NPR thinks so. There are lots of studies done on children's reading abilities, and they generally pick right at the fact that girls tend to be better readers than boys. But by adulthood, that gap seems to go away. Women aren't reading more because they are better at it. One theory I saw was that women are more empathetic than men, and therefore enjoy reading (particularly fiction) more, as they enjoy the characters and relationships in novels.

Another idea (which I thought up all by myself) is that in as much as more men work full time jobs than women do, men are likely doing more work time reading that women. If you've spent your day doing the dishes and battling with screaming kids, settling down with a book probably feels like a nice change of pace.  If you've spent all day writing reports, reviewing contracts or looking through technical manuals to try and figure out why that orange light is blinking on your control panel, coming home to a book doesn't sound quite so exciting. Obviously, there are many exceptions to this rule - there are plenty of great women out there reading all day at work, and quite a few stay at home fathers, too - but I suspect that on average it may still play a role. (Though not at Lauren's house, likely.)

Please, share your personal thoughts, as well as any kooky ideas you might have as well.

Now, on to my book dump. For the record, I do this as a public service to all of you. Many of the books that I read are what I see other people reading. I'm well aware that you can get a better review of these books on Amazon or Goodreads, but it's hard to know to look up a book that you've never heard of.

Think Like A Freak by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt
It's those freakonomics guys again. Rather than just telling interesting stories, this book is supposed to help you learn how to think like they do - that is, to examine every day life to see why people make the choices they do. It still feels pretty much like their other books.

The Came to Baghdad by Agatha Christie
A Christie mystery novel from 1951. This book takes place in a location that is much in the news today, but in a time far different. The book revolves around a spy trying to deliver a message before a big meeting in Baghdad between the Russians and Americans, and the people trying to intercept him. The main character is a civilian who of course gets mixed up in things and is trying to survive and figure out who is on which side, who she can trust and who isn't who they say that they are.

As You Wish by Cary Elwes
Maybe some day I'll figure out how to say his name. The making of the movie The Princess Bride as told by Westley himself, with lots of little comments written by the rest of the cast, director and producers. Lots of fun stories about what to do when a 500 pound man passes out drunk in the hotel lobby and why, if you watch closely, Westley goes skipping into the Fire Swamp.

When to Rob a Bank by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt
If you're going to read three of the Freakonomics books, why not just read all four? I guess because it's there? This book is literally just a compilation of their best blog posts over the years. I suppose this means I can feel good about never going and reading their blog, at least. I'm a bit overloaded with freakonomics at this point, but I've read all the books now, so I guess that's ok.

Now that you're caught up on my reading, what have you been reading lately? (I'm going to need more books to add to my reading list.)

7 Doctor's offices in 6 days

I've been sitting on this blog post for about a week now, not quite sure what I wanted to do with it. Clearly, I've finally decided to publish it. So, rather than beat around the bush any more, here's the post. The week in question here is May 11th - 16th.

Shannon pulled off the remarkable feat of visiting 7 different doctor's offices in 6 days last week.  That sounds tough to pull off, even if you wanted to.  We didn't want to, but that's how it worked out.  It's not exactly a happy story, but it's probably a story worth telling.

Just to get this out of the way now, Shannon had a miscarriage last week.  There you go.  Now the tale:

Visit 1: Monday at the OB/GYN (at Hospital #1 campus)
This was supposed to be the find-a-heartbeat visit, as Shannon was about 8 weeks along. Sadly, there was no heartbeat. The purpose of this blog post is not to cover the topic of miscarriages.  Miscarriages happen, and people are often hesitant to talk about them. It's not so much that I don't want to talk about it or anything, but that I'm currently not at the point where I'm going to write a whole blog post about it. I don't really know what I'd say. Anyway, while the ultrasound pointed towards a miscarriage, it wasn't for sure, so they ordered a blood test to be repeated 48 hours later.

Visit 2: Tuesday at the Pediatric Hematologist (at Hospital #2 campus)
This was a checkup for Ella, to verify that her red blood cells have stopped self-destructing. Good news! She's still fine. They still want to see her 6 months from now, though. This was, by far, the best doctor's visit of the week.

Visit 3: Wednesday at the clinic
Shannon went to the walk-in clinic by our house to get her blood drawn again.

Visit 4: Thursday morning at the outpatient clinic (at Hospital #1 campus)
Cardiologist #1, who was not even included in this week's fun, wanted Shannon to get an extra echo (which is essentially an ultrasound on her heart) prior to seeing Cardiologist #2. This was done at the hospital.

Visit 5: Thursday afternoon at the OB/GYN (not at a hospital, just a doctors office)
This was the same doctor as visit #1, but at a different office, because that's just the sort of week that it was. This visit confirmed that indeed the miscarriage was for real. The blood test showed that various hormone levels were falling instead of rising, so it was pretty much official. Shannon scheduled a D&C for Monday.

Visit 6: Friday at the Cardiologist  (at Hospital #2 campus)
This was with Cardiologist #2. When you're special like Shannon, you get to have your cardiologist refer you to another cardiologist. I think I'm nearly qualified to be a cardiologist myself - all you have to say is "I'm a bit concerned about this thing, we'll need to keep a close eye on it and have you visit another cardiologist." On a recent echo, Cardiologist #1 saw something that looked suspicious, so they sent Shannon in for an MRI to get a better picture.  The "something" was diagnosed as noncompaction cardiomyopathy.  For those who don't speak Latin, cardiomyopathy means "heart muscle disorder".  Very helpful, right?  Basically, this is an issue where a small part of the heart muscle just doesn't do anything.  It doesn't compact.  This is very likely congenital, and probably isn't getting any worse, so essentially Shannon is exactly as healthy as she always has been, just now we have better pictures. Cardiologist #2 also wants Shannon to wear a heart monitor for a day and then go see yet another Cardiologist (#3) who specializes in heart rhythms (cardiac electrophysiologist).

We made it through Friday.  Surely the doctor's visits are over, right?  Of course not!!!!

Visit 7: Saturday at the ER (at Hospital #1 campus)
Saturday evening we found ourselves in the ER because Shannon was bleeding a lot. I don't like blood in real life, or on blogs, so I'll be brief here. Basically, Shannon's body decided to not wait for the D&C and take care of the miscarriage by itself (which, I suppose is what bodies are supposed to do in these situations) and there was lots of bleeding. The doctor had previously told her to go to the ER if this happened, so in we went Saturday evening. We were there for a few hours, they did an ultrasound to see how things were going and we finally got home about 1am. Things have all basically resolved themselves and now we work on getting through the physical and emotional recovery. The added bonus of this visit (because clearly we need to add more to this) is that Saturday night was the make-up day for our 11th anniversary because I was at work for 12+ hours on the actual day of our anniversary.  Not like it was some elaborate, fancy evening or anything, but it wasn't supposed to end in the ER.

It was a long and stressful week, and I was only there for visit #1, 6 and 7.  (Not to mention blowing a tire on our new car on Friday.  Thankfully that was under warranty.) We are very grateful to the many friends here who have watched our kids this week, who have brought food, or flowers, or who have simply offered kind words and hugs. The week would have been at least twice as hard without all of their help.

I don't know what the future holds for our family, but I, for one, pray that it includes fewer doctors visits.

Moonlight (Half) Marathon Race Report

Last weekend we took a trip to Springfield (IL) for a very Lincoln weekend.  We drove down Friday night, and on Saturday went to Lincoln's tomb, his house, the old state capitol and the Lincoln museum.  Everything in Springfield seems to be Lincoln themed.  And there's no better way to relax at the end of a day of sight seeing than to run a half marathon!  So, here's the report, which will be long.  I'll throw in a tl;dr at the end.

Background/Prep
For Christmas, I got a race entry from a race to be picked at a later date.  I picked the Moonlight Marathon, which offered a 5k, 6.55mi, half marathon, full marathon, relay marathon and ultra-marathon.  Because I'm not totally crazy, I signed up for the half - I'd never done one of those before.  The fun 'hook' for this race is that it is in the cemetery where Lincoln is buried (Oak Park Cemetery) and takes place at night.  The half marathon started at 7pm, so the first lap was still light, but the second lap would be in the dark, and the marathon "winner" is the person who finished closest to midnight.

Training was good until about two months ago when I went for a run and something was not right with my knee.  I think it's an IT band issue.  After much googling (and no doctors) I decided to just rest it until it felt better, which was several weeks later.  This, of course, hurt my general training plan.  It's not like I had a rigid plan or anything to begin with, but my loose outline of a plan certainly didn't call for a three week stretch with only 10 total miles of running less than a month before the race.  In the last 2 1/2 weeks before the race I got more regular runs in, though the longest was only 7.4 miles.  All told this year I had only one run longer than that 7-miler prior to the race.  Not ideal.

So, I dialed back my expectations by 5 or 10 minutes for the race, and just hoped I could finish it without my leg falling off.

Then we went to the cemetery the morning of the race.  There are hills.  Oh, there are hills.  It's not that there is a specific big hill, it's that the whole cemetery rolls up and down, and race course is two laps weaving around just about every road in the whole place.  When I saw that, I dialed my expectations back another 5 or 10 minutes and prayed that I wouldn't die.

The Race
We didn't have a hotel room or anywhere like that to hang out, so we got to the park where the race started about 90 minutes early, picked up my stuff and spread out a blanket on the grass to lay down for a bit.  The girls played on a playground.  We watched the 5k and 6.55mi races start.  I got changed, put on my glow stick necklace and headlamp and eventually went to the starting line.  There were 83 people doing the half marathon, so I just slid into the middle of the pack and we started.  The first quarter mile or so was on a sidewalk, which made some early passing difficult, which is what I wanted.  As I really wasn't sure how the race would go for me, I wanted to be extra conservative at the start.

Lap 1
It's really hard to not pass people when they're right there in front of you and you know you can pass them.  In the first mile or two I made my way past a few dozen people.  Because there were so many different races on the same course, and they all started at different times, you couldn't be sure who you were really racing against when you saw someone on the course.  Also, the course looped so much you couldn't see anyone who was more than a hundred yards or so in front of you, so it was very difficult to tell where you stood in relation to the other runners.

Somewhere around mile two or so, I also took my first wrong turn of the day.  The course was generally well marked but because there were turns and forks in the road constantly, if you stopped paying attention for just a moment, you could make a wrong turn.  A runner about 20 yards ahead of me made a wrong turn on lap 1, and I followed her.  Luckily we merged back into some runners quickly, and figured out our error and went back.  I guessed at where that was on a map and came up with 0.15 miles that we added to the course with that wrong turn.  The good news was, it at least didn't involve a hill.

I'll spare you the elevation map I made on the internet,but know that there were hills.  The elevation change between the high point and low point on the entire course is probably less than 50 feet, but because the course is so looped in on itself, we kept going up and down the same hills.  At times the course would go down a 30 foot hill and then literally make a u-turn and go right back up it.

After getting back on the course, I caught up to 3 guys that I'd passed a little bit earlier and decided to hang with them for a while, so I wouldn't make any more wrong turns.  They were friendly (as friendly as people can be while in the middle of an exhausting race) and we hung together for quite a while.  For the remainder of the first lap, I was feeling good and felt like I could easily have pulled away from the other guys at any time, and even wondered if I was going too slow.  (Spoiler: I wasn't.)  We came back to the start/finish line and Shannon, Julia and Ella were there cheering and gave me a high-five.  Because the marathon was a prediction race, they didn't have any mile markers on the course, and I didn't even wear my watch, so I really had no idea what my pace was like.  I took my first cup of water and kept powering on.

Lap 2
I started planning on when to drop the other three guys.  I figured I'd say, "I'm going to push on a little bit, you can come if you want," and then go off on my own, but I felt a little bit bad, so I kept putting it off.  Thank goodness for my own fear of sounding like a jerk.  Slowly, our group of four was pulling apart, with me and Scott consistently in the front, and Marlon and Gavin(? Kevin? Something like that) sliding back a few yards at a time.

Lap two started getting dark.  The cemetery isn't very well lit (not surprising) and eventually we had to put on our head lamps.  I don't really love how bulky mine is, or the fact that it's made for someone with an enormous head.  I had to safety pin the strap to make it tight enough.  (I was smart enough to do some trial runs in the dark the week before the race and figure this all out.)

About two miles in to the second lap, we suddenly found ourselves at Lincoln's tomb, which is supposed to be about 4 miles into the lap.  Crap.  Another wrong turn, and this time, in the dark.  Also, we had just done the steepest climb on the course to get up to the tomb parking lot when we figured out that something was wrong.  We stopped, went back to the previous intersection and tried to figure out where we went wrong.  Some volunteers tried to tell us we were going the right way, but we knew we weren't supposed to be there, so we just went backwards until we found our error again.  I mapped out what I think we did wrong and I think it was about 0.40 miles (round trip) that we added to the race.  Apparently we wanted to get our money's worth.  Back on the course, and passing people again.  There are some people that I passed three times, even though they never passed me.  I'm not sure if they noticed or not.

For much of the second lap, I kept going back and forth about how I was doing.  One minute I'd feel like I could step it up a bit, the next I was wondering how I would maintain the current pace until the end.  By this point it was just me and Scott who was a great impromptu running buddy.  I need more running buddies.

Over the last few miles, my legs were done.  My breathing was fine, but leg muscles all over were starting to hurt, and I was running out of energy as well.  It felt like we were holding the same pace, though I have no way of checking.  Scott said he thought we were in the top ten overall, "probably 5th and 6th", though I thought he was crazy for placing us that high.  I asked him if he had anything left for a sprint at the end, and he said he would try over the last tenth of a mile or so.  With about a third of a mile to go, I told him I wanted to see if my legs had anything left, and I took off.  The final quarter mile is along a candle lit path in the cemetery, then across a street, through a slightly muddy field, around a pond and into the finish line.  I suppose I was going faster, though at that point I don't even know if I was.  Finish time was 1:57:13. (8:57/mi)  That was 6/83 overall, 4/26 men.  Despite my "kick" Scott was only 10 seconds behind.

Afterward
I found some water, and so much food.  Pizza, chocolate milk, water, cookies and grapes.  I passed on the oranges, bananas, Pepsi and beer.  Shannon and the girls were still there and everyone was in good spirits (though Julia would soon melt down).  Even though we had to drive three hours home that night, I really wanted to hang around to see if I might have gotten an award.  They were giving out top 3 men overall and then top 3 men under 40 awards, and I figured I had a decent shot at an age group award.  I was up the hill getting more food (pretty cruel of them to have the food at the top of another hill) when they announced that I was the 3rd place male finisher!  I made my way down the hill as quickly as I could and picked up my award!  . . . which I got to keep for about 2 minutes before they called me back up.  I guess there had been a clerical error and I was 4th place male, overall.  So I waited for a few minutes and then got my 1st place under 40 male award.  My first age group victory!  Scott got first place in the over 40 age group.  And that was despite adding about a half a mile to the race course.  I figure I did 13.65 miles, which is an 8:35 pace and would have given a finish time of 1:52:30.  The guy in front of me (3rd place overall) finished in 1:55:18, so I totally would have had him.  I guess that goes to show that it's better to be smart than fast. (I still would have been 12 more minutes behind 2nd place overall.  So there was no catching him.)

TL;DR:
Night time half marathon with lots of short hills, both up and down. (But it felt like mostly up.)  I took two wrong turns which probably added about half a mile to the total.  Found a running buddy that I did about 10 miles of the race with, and who probably saved me from running too fast and then bonking.  (Also saved me from a few (more) wrong turns.)  Finished in 1:57:13 and got first place in the under 40 age group!

Apparently all I do is Read

But if that's what you're interested in, you're in luck!  Here's the latest batch:

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
Louis Zamperini was one of the best middle distance runners in the country and just at the start of a very promising track career (in a time when track was a much more popular sport) when WWII broke out.  Off to war he went, like so many others.  His plane was shot down over the Pacific, and he spent weeks at sea in his little raft nearly starving to death, only to eventually wash up on a Japanese held island and spend years in terrible POW camps.  It's a riveting story of a very terrible life.  From the beginning of the book, and the title, it's pretty obvious that he survives all of this, but even knowing that, it was still almost unbelievable that he did.  You should read this book.  There is also a movie, which I haven't seen.

The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton
Someone really did steal a few hundred pounds of gold from a train in England in 1855, which inspired Michael Crichton to write a book which should not be mistaken for a work of non-fiction.  I read this a few decades ago, and though it was good, but not great.  I picked it up again, curious if I would like it better as an adult.  It's still good, but still not great.  There is also a movie, which I haven't seen.

The Big Year by Mark Obmascik
I like to look at birds and figure out what species they are.  But not like these people.  This is the story of 3 very different people who go on a "big year", which is a quest to find as many different species of bird in the US and Canada.  They head off to Alaskan islands, mountain tops, the gulf coast and everywhere in between in search of birds.  The book is fairly short and entertaining, and a whole lot less work than finding 700 species of birds yourself.  (A lot cheaper, too.)  There is also a movie, which I have seen, and which was pretty entertaining.  The book is factual, the movie is adapted from the book to make it into a better movie.

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
The tale of the 1936 US Olympic 8 man rowing team.  How do you go from a poor kid in Washington to an Olympic gold medalist?  Well, this book tells you how.  (Also, that's not a spoiler, because just about from page 1 you know they win.)  This was fairly engaging book, though I'm not really sure how to write up a brief description of it that will make it sound good.  It's about college students rowing a boat.  There is no movie, to my knowledge. 

The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver
This is the second time I've read this book, which was still excellent.  Nate Silver is known for developing player prediction systems for baseball players, projecting election results and running fivethirtyeight.com.  This book is about making predictions, specifically how to make good ones and how to understand their results.  He looks at different attempts to make predictions on things from weather to sports to earthquakes to global warming and analyses why we are good at predicting some things, but bad at other things.  More than being about the specific predictions, this book is about the process of making the predictions and how to do a better job.  I find it very interesting.

Superfreakonomics by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt
The followup to Freakonomics.  These guys have a podcast that is pretty good, and which steals material from their books (or vice versa).  Basically, they like to investigate data about everything from health care to terrorist banking habits, to car seat safety to prostitution.  It's interesting, quick to read, and basically a collection of lots of interesting results of studies that examine why people act they way they do.

There you go.  Now let me get back to my reading . . .

It's just like taking an ocean cruise, only there's no boat and you don't actually go anywhere

I first proposed to Shannon over 14 years ago.  I think it was over the phone.  Romantic, I know, but probably appropriate given that we weren't dating at the time.  I don't remember quite how the conversation ran its course, but the important bit is that when Shannon expressed a concern that she'd never get married, I saw my opportunity and proposed.  As I was still a teenager, I did the smart thing and gave myself a good long time frame, and suggested a wedding date of May 5th, 2015.  Hey, what do you know, that's today!

As part of our backup marriage plan, we picked a date that would have put us firmly into the "menace to society" category (note: that quote is apocryphal) while still not quite "old".  We would still be young enough to pop out a few kids (note: this is not an announcement of any kind!).  And, as part of a perk of having been single for that long, we should have saved up some money which means we could afford to get hitched in the Tahiti Temple.  Why Tahiti?  Um . . . it's a tropical island.  Sounds pretty fantastic to me.

In the end we decided we couldn't wait that long and moved the wedding up by 11 years, but we still figured we should honor that commitment to go to Tahiti in 2015.  Some people would have a big event for their 10th anniversary, but we would hold off for a big 11th.

We're not going to Tahiti this year.  Probably not any time in the next 11 years either.  Maybe for our 33rd anniversary?  The years have brought us through a few jobs, a few states, a few houses, and a few financial crises.  But I would rather be sitting on a 9 year old couch watching 'Friends' on Netflix with Shannon, than be in Tahiti with anyone else.  (There are good odds that this is what we'll be doing tonight.)

I don't have any better idea what the next 11 years will bring than I had for how the last 11 years have gone.  The 11 year plan called for me to be lounging on the beach this week, after all.  But while life for the last 11 years has not always been ideal, I can truthfully say that my marriage has almost always been ideal.  I can't always figure out why it works so well, but it does.  I have a fabulous marriage, and as I figure it, most of that credit goes to Shannon, because as far as I can tell, I haven't been doing anything all that impressive to make life so good.

Shannon is fabulous.  Shannon feeds me (which would barely happen if I were left on my own) and yet still understands that my Blockburger genes also dictate that sometimes you can have cereal for dinner.  Shannon has complained a remarkably small number of times about the pile of clothes that has been on the floor on my side of the bed for about 11 years now.  Furthermore, she keeps making the bed even with 11 years of evidence that I'm not going to help.  Shannon is a fabulous mother - when I'm left to put the girls to bed the screaming usually starts from one of the three of us within 20 minutes of Shannon walking out the door.  Shannon has spent so much time around herself for the last few decades that she doesn't always realize how fabulous she is, and I fall into that trap too, sometimes.  It's not any big thing about her, but it's a million tiny little things, that when you add them all up, . . . . well let's just say she's fabulous, because this program isn't nearly long enough to list them all.

So, at the conclusion of the best 11 years of marriage I could imagine, I'm excited to start on the next 11, and there's no tropical island that I'd trade that for.