APRIL SNOW SHOWERS
bring no flowers

This month’s feature article is from award winning Footprints journalist Giles McSully, titled “Artificial Intelligence is Our Future, but will it save or destroy running?” McSully is fresh off his trip from Manchester UK, where he watched his City footballers lose the derby to red rival United and lay down to Liverpool in a Champions league exit. At least his article has a happy ending--or does it?!

Let’s see what else we got🤔?
Oh yeah, results are in from a wet and wild Boston, along with some awesome club team performances at Shamrock and Good Life races on the CARA Circuit competition. Plus some great member adventures, stories and chance encounters. The social committee has been very active, eating chili and drinking wine and we got that covered too!

THE 122nd BOSTON MARATHON

Wow wicked weather dude!

LFLBRC Pre-race Pasta Dinner in Boston’s North End

Congratulations to our runners who braved the epic cold, wind and rain to lay it on the finish line Patriot’s Day!

RESULTS:

Brian Wakefield    2:41

Mike Marty            2:51

Dave Zeisler         2:57

Amanda Macuiba 3:10

Andre Bennatan   3:26

Lauren Sykora     3:42

Carol Lundahl      4:42

Geoff Wilson        4:48

Renata Simson    3:52

Nancy Rollins       4:17 1st AG.

The Mens Masters team of Dave Zeisler, Brian Wakefield and Mike Marty running for team JSR came in 3rd place. At the halfway point they were in 7th, then pushing their way to the podium with a strong finish!

Before the Flood…

An annual open house pre-race breakfast in Hopkinton for runners was hosted by Ed Zylka’s cousins Lyn Calkins and husband Greg along with family and neighbors. Calkin’s Athletes Village provided shelter from the storm with runners from around the world finding their way to this hdq for Boston runners. A regular guest is Katherine Beiers. The 85-year-old from Santa Cruz, California, became the oldest woman to ever complete the Boston Marathon. When she crossed the finish line of the race on Monday she set a new record. The 2018 Boston Marathon was Beiers’ 14th time running the race and she finished with a time of 7 hours and 50 minutes.

Christian with Rocket a specially trained Chihuahua companion dog for nervous marathoners

Dave Z weighed in on the weather. “By the end I was getting cold, but it didn’t hit me until the finish. When I stopped running it all hit me at once. I stumbled and hobbled, the hills had done their duty. I felt great up to 20-ish but isn’t that how Boston goes? I was though, beyond happy to be there. 2:57 isn’t even my best Boston but the experience again was indescribable.”

Congrats to Desi Linden for her superb first place performance and the 1st American woman to win Boston in 33 years! Thomas Frazer checking in from Okinawa offered up his take on Yuki Kawauchi the mens champ, from Japan. "Yeah I had not heard of him before. Really nuts. Seeing his record now, it's not too surprising he is so tough. 80 marathons since 2009...4th win this year. All except one of the 80 sub 2:20 multiple sub 2:10's...he's no joke! Good to see someone like him beat all those handheld and spoon-fed "elites".

APRIL FEATURE ARTICLE

Artificial Intelligence is Our Future

But will it save or destroy running?

By Giles McSully

Manchester UK, April 1, 2018

Leading science and Technology prognosticators like Dr Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and Bill Gates have pontificated on how Artificial Intelligence (or AI) may ultimately have a negative impact on human society.

So, the Footprints editorial staff wanted to know how AI could impact the uniquely human sport of running that we all love. With the LFLB running club chock full of smart mathematicians, scientists and engineers, and with deep connections in the running industry we posed the question to these experts in search of the answer.

First up, was Ron Thomas, former design engineer with Motorola who was involved with the invention of mobile cellular radio. We asked Ron the AI question and his response frankly frightened us. Said RT, “Back in the ‘70s (no-not the 1870s THE 1970s) I was pushing the envelope on running while also working at Motorola. We were on the cutting edge of technology and I suspected then that Artificial Intelligence was going to have a huge impact on running. I think I even snuck a claim into my antenna patent application, referencing AI and running. Me and Marty Cooper thought if cell phones could disrupt landline phones, AI runners will break every human running record. I predicted back then, the 2hr marathon barrier will be obliterated by an AI runner! Next, our man Giles McSully spoke with Julian Gordon, former Abbott researcher, responsible for the development of lateral flow immunoassay technology, which led to Abbott's first one-step, over the counter pregnancy test. Dr Gordon also sees the demise of all human running records by AI runners. According to Julian, “Because very big, complex artificial intelligences run on dry silicon they will produce big, complex, unhuman-like minds and bodies. Humans are hindered by cell structures -- the slow metabolism of a cell cannot be sped up, so a human simply will never out run an AI runner.” Then Giles McSully sat down with Greg Hipp, Executive Director - Chicago Area Runners Association (CARA). “Wow, what a mind blowing question Giles, said Greg. My concern is related to CARA Circuit Races and all running races, even the Abbott World Marathon Majors. It has to do with race categories. Like how do you determine gender, does it even exist, will the race director have to do gender inspection--is that even a thing!? Ed Packel who sits on our race committee and is from your club will want to understand the impact on  age groups and Age Graded scoring. Gosh, what size shirt would they wear--would they even want a shirt or finishers medal? The medal and shirt if disregarded would be a financial benefit. But this is a scary scenario and one, we never anticipated. I would have to float this by our race committee. I know Ed  with his PhD will have some answers. He’s a brilliant theoretical mathematician that spent time at MIT. McSully then Skyped with Thomas Frazer, former club president now living in Okinawa. Japan of course is recognized as the land of AI. Thomas who holds a degree in aerospace engineering said he is very familiar with this idea. “At Butler as an undergrad, we actually studied solid state propulsion and fuel used for space exploration--I worked with this very extremely rare compound unobtainium. This compound interestingly enough is actually mined in Japan, which has helped accelerate development of AI systems there putting Japan ahead globally in the field of AI development. Even ahead of Chgina(sic). So, yeah using unobtanium as a solid state fuel in the motion system together with a slick AI algorithm will create a perpetual AI running machine with mechanical immortality.

Overhearing McSully discussing the topic at Starbucks after the Saturday club run, Dave Anderson an esteemed (now retired), Neurological Research scientist at Abbott Labs, added his two cents on the subject of AI performance in running. Dave, who constantly reminds us how he helped discovered epibatidine, a naturally occurring neuronal Nicotinic Acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) agonist with antinoci-Ceptive activity 200-fold more potent than that of morphine. But who better than Dave to eloquently describe the human limits of exercise induced neurological pain, especially as it relates to naturally occurring neuronal Nicotinic Acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) agonist with antinoci-Ceptive and endurance running in rats! McSully asked Dave to sum up his assessment in uh...less scientific terms. “Yeah said Dave, humans really suck at pain management. AI runners--no problemo muchachos!”

We also needed a lay person’s perspective, so McSully asked Patti Shuma if she would be willing to offer up her take on AI and running. She first checked with son Rich, a Research & Design engineer at Apple. Patti said, “I immediately called Rich figuring Apple is involved with Artificial Intelligence and he was really helpful, suggesting I use wikipedia to research something called Al Gore-ithms. I thought it was cool that Al Gore not only invented the internet, but artificial intelligence too! But I told Craig that it really didn’t help explain anything about AI and running and he suggested I send my findings to Giles McSully. Giles reaction was that’s brilliant Patti! But then he went on to explain what Rich actually meant was to research computer ‘algorithms’ and not Al Gore ithms!”

Next, Giles McSully tracked down Ananya Das, former faculty member at Lake Forest College, LFLBRC club alum and now an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Middlebury College. An accomplished runner, she is considered an expert and highly knowledgeable. During a Gondola ride at Stowe Mountain Ski resort in Vermont, McSully and Dr Das discussed AI and running during a day of schussing triple black diamond runs. What she had to say was big. Ananya shared this, “I spoke at AI-Globecom” and predicted for when an AI will pass a valid Turing test and therefore achieve human levels of intelligence -- I set the date at 2045. In 2047 I believe that ‘Singularity’, which is when we will multiply our effective intelligence a billion fold by merging with the intelligence we have created. Everyone knows that when machines become smarter than human beings, they will take over the world of running then all known race records for every distance will be rewritten.

Finally McSully contacted Nike, the global athletic apparel company and posed the question to Nike’s Chief Digital Officer, Adam Sussman. “Long time no talk mate! Yep for sure Giles, we were painfully aware of the potential for disruption in the running apparel textile industry, fearing AI runners could literally create their own apparel obviating the need for human workers, impacting our business. So we recently acquired Invertex to deepen our bench of digital talent and further our capabilities in computer vision and artificial intelligence as we create the most compelling Nike consumer experience at every touch point.”

Now there you have it...from leading experts. So if we asked a prospective AI runner about their impact on the club as a member, they would likely respond by saying they actually have a legit excuse for not paying club membership fees!🙃

--Happy Reading, Giles McSully!

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