Category: Uncategorized

Daylight Saving Time: Do We Still Need It?

October 31, 2013 chadkuhn No Comments Uncategorized

 

We’ll “fall back” and hour on Sunday, November 3, 2013 at 2 a.m

I recently had a discussion with a friend about Daylight Saving Time and it reminded that there is actually a lot of misunderstanding about it. Most of the complaints I hear about DST come in the fall when it ends. I hear people complain that, with the time change, it will be getting dark sooner, and because of that they hate Daylight Saving Time. They shouldn’t “be hating” on DST for the early darkness, because the early darkness is a result of our return to Standard (that means unaltered and un-adjusted) Time.

Why do we use DST?

The rational behind DST is explained simply in the Wikipedia article Daylight Saving Time, “[DST] is the practice of advancing clocks during the lighter months so that evenings have more daylight and mornings have less. Typically clocks are adjusted forward one hour near the start of spring and are adjusted backward in autumn.” *There is a whole lot more to the original motivation and the motivation to expand the date range for DST, but I wanted to keep it simple  here. If you really want to learn about DST, check out the link above and do some reading on your own.

When someone complains about DST and says they are not happy that the sun will set at 5:18 pm on November 3, they are actually saying that they wish the sun had set 5:19 on November 2 and 5:20 on November 1, instead of 6:19 and 6:20. (You can find sunrise and sunset times here.) What they really mean is that they wish we used DST time all year long, so that the sun would set at 6:18 pm on November 3 just a minute earlier than it did the day before. DST always means that the sun sets later than it would on ST.

What if we didn’t use DST at all?

What would the spring and summer months be like? The chart I shared earlier shows that for Ohio, the sun would be rising at 4:51 am (That’s EARLY!)  in the middle of June and setting at 8:03 pm (its latest) at the end June. Daylight Saving Time was instituted to help people use that hour of sunlight between 5 am and 6 am  by moving it to the end of the day between 8 pm and 9 pm, which makes a lot of sense to me.

What if we used DST all year long?

We could, but it would mean really late sunrises in the winter. The chart shows sunrises as late as 8:52 am in December and January. That seems awful late to me.

What do you think?

When we do time changes in the spring and fall, they feel really drastic and maybe unnecessary, but when we look at what those time changes do for us in June/July and December/January is makes more sense. What do you think? Feel free to comment below and answer the survey below.

Marshall Half-Marathon

November 9, 2010 chadkuhn No Comments Uncategorized

or the Herald-Dispatch Half as I found it was called.

I am beginning to think that I am a spoiled racer.  Let me explain.  I ran my first race in the CapCity Half in Columbus, an amazingly well run race with week long packet pickup, clearly marked course, scores of volunteers, great post-race food and services.  I followed that race with the USAF Marathon at Wright-Pat and I’d have to say the armed services know what they are doing when they plan an event.  From pre-race flyover to loads of post-race food like Rosa’s pizza, chocolate milk, oranges, bananas and more; from officers saluting at every turn to themed aid stations, from Air Force planes lining the homestretch to busses shuttleing between parking and start line (AND BACK!) this race was planned to a t- and fun.  Those two races set the bar high and those that followed have not lived up to my expectations.

Next, I ran a small half in Dublin, Ohio.  It was okay, a one-mile loop, with some decent pizza and good fruit.  Then came the Kentucky Derby Festival Marathon, a mess of a race.  We parked more than a mile from the finish then caught a bus to the start.  No buses were available to get runners back to their vehicles.  6 miles of the race were in Indiana through trashy neighborhoods with no scenery, on dirty streets with unenthusiastic aid stations.  And just recently, I ran a half in Huntington, where the pre-race packet was my shirt and bib (with nary a pin to fasten the bib).  The spaghetti meal was included in the registration, but the “expo” was a table with one person selling GU.  We were very pleased to find the “expo” as the only sign for it was at the door, in the center of the block, where is was not visible from the street.

  1. 7.51- We started at the gun.  My brothers and I began shuffling forward, waiting for the start line to start our watches and begin to “run” the race.  Eventually, like those around us, we realized their was no start line, no place for our chip times to be started.  Thus, our splits and watch times were a little further than normal. Not a bad first mile, right where I wanted to be actually.
  2. 7.21- Started shaving seconds off the average pace a little faster than a planned.
  3. 7.37- Started to warm up and relax and enjoy the race.
  4. 7.32- Settled into a pace I hoped I could hold longer than I did.
  5. 7.50- Back and forth, the miles seemed to be going back and forth, slower then faster.
  6. 7.34- Here’s the last mile that actually went fast.  Jason and Andrew were struggling, and a couple of “experienced” runners passed us at the beginning of the mile.  (By experienced, I mean they were about ten years older than me, but definitely had a light build than me and seemed to be cruising along effortlessly.)  I drafted behind them for a mile then began to fall back as we hit a tiny bit of an incline.
  7. 9.25 (1.18 miles @7.59)  Jason and Andrew caught up with me and we all missed hitting our split button on this mile.  More than half way done and we were hitting an 8 minute pace.  The total pace was still around 7:45)
  8. 6.32 (0.81 miles @7.58)
  9. 8.04- On this mile, I began to fall back behind my younger brothers then make mini charges to catch up.  I also shed my outer layer and was down to a long-sleeved tech-shirt and short-sleeved tech-shirt.
  10. 8.12- Now the game was to hold on the best I could and try to make a push over the last mile and a half to two miles.
  11. 8.06- A better mile here, as Jason began to pull away from me and Andrew from him.
  12. 8.19-  The guys moved just out of sight here and I struggled a bit to hold the pace.  Throughout the race I never had any specific physical ailments, but at this point the legs were getting quite heavy.
  13. 8.16-   Two mistakes were made here.  First, I began to kick it up a notch for the finish at 12.5 instead of 13.0; I thought the stadium was just around the corner.  After I recovered from my early charge and began to move better, I missed a turn that was unmarked because the volunteer had left her station.  I had to turn around and re-pass several runners that I had just passed.  It was a devastating development to my motivation at that point.
  14. 1.19 (0.17 miles @7.22)  Motivation returned as I entered the stadium, ran almost half a lap, received a football and mustered my best 100 yard sprint to the finish line with the ball tucked under arm.

*I just looked for a picture or two to add to this post.  I found out that the Marathon and Half Marathon had only two photographers at two locations taking and posting 1800+ total photos of 1600 runners.  C’mon, man!