Mary Cain—training in Mammoth (with Deena Kastor)

To annoy you.

They all have some work to do when the 45 year old coach looks like the fittest person in the photo.

Deena should be a great mentor for MC.

Go Hogs!

I understand what the professor you mention was aiming at, but his reasoning was fundamentally flawed in a couple ways.

1. It's way easier to answer a multiple choice question wrong than right, even if you have no idea what the answer might be, provided that only one choice is correct and every other choice is incorrect (typically, your odds of answering incorrectly at random would be either 3/4 or 4/5). Additionally, there are typically incorrect answers that are more evidently wrong than others, making this even easier.

2. From the opposite perspective of number 1, if there are even a few questions where all answer options are of dubious correctness, it would be in their best interest to just aim for selecting correct responses. Any student who would answer a majority of questions correctly, which is a majority of students, would be better served to do so rather than risk abysmal failure if they incorrectly identify even one wrong answer. Additionally, for any student with unquestionable command of the test material, there is no reason why they would answer every question wrong as opposed to just going through the test normally and acing it. I'd argue it's more impressive to get 100% than a zero because it's much easier to guess one of several wrong answers than to guess the single correct one.

3. This might break the professor's experiment, but what about leaving questions blank? If you answered every question wrong but one and left that last question blank it would present an interesting conundrum. If it was deemed incorrect as per the test-taking status quo, then technically that would equate to a 100%. If you were given a zero, that would imply according the structure of the professor's game that the unanswered question had to be correct, which obviously it wouldn't be. If the blank question was thrown out entirely, the experiment would lose all value, and the problem would be how to address all the remaining wrong answers given that "absolute confidence" clearly wouldn't have been displayed. Or to go down the rabbit-hole further, what if a question was missed (skipped over) by mistake?

I imagine that the offer was only taken up by one or two cheeky geniuses and that given the appearance of a #3 the Professor would either fail the student regardless or (perhaps more likely) have them retake the exam, but still, it certainly ratified the possibility of some entertaining scenarios.

photo analysis team wrote:

They all have some work to do when the 45 year old coach looks like the fittest person in the photo.

lol, Deena has probably run more races in the last two years than the rest of the group combined

Huge vs lean wrote:

Pappas and Cain look huge and way out of shape, especially compared to Kastor in that photo.

Lol they're in coats and sweaters. You are an idiot. Pappas just came off a marathon. "Huge"? Just a little dramatic don't you think?

fasdfsf wrote:

Huge vs lean wrote:

Pappas and Cain look huge and way out of shape, especially compared to Kastor in that photo.

Lol they're in coats and sweaters. You are an idiot. Pappas just came off a marathon. "Huge"? Just a little dramatic don't you think?

Just? It was 3 months ago

Cain is huge.

Mary who?

fasdfsf wrote:

Huge vs lean wrote:

Pappas and Cain look huge and way out of shape, especially compared to Kastor in that photo.

Lol they're in coats and sweaters. You are an idiot. Pappas just came off a marathon. "Huge"? Just a little dramatic don't you think?

And Pappas forgot to wear pants again.

why do good girls like bad guys

fasdfsf wrote:

Lol they're in coats and sweaters. You are an idiot. Pappas just came off a marathon. "Huge"? Just a little dramatic don't you think?

Oprah runs marathons too.

You sure are stupid, especially for calling someone else an idiot.

frmerfan wrote:

Good to see MC looking happy.

You mean "good to see MC smiling in a photograph."

There is a difference.

Drainthefecesswamp wrote:

I really hope Pappas is doing something like that: pretending really hard to be completely vapid all the time, because the alternative is really depressing. Imagine going through life like that!

What about this post leads to you saying she is vapid all the time?

What is even wrong with you?

I feel bad for you, man.

Recently we were all impressed with Tuohy running 2:49 for 1K. Mary Cain ran 2:35.80 in 2014. I like to think she can find that talent again.

Shoebacca wrote:

May all you basement dwelling trolls be lucky enough to have daughters who are phenomenal runners or film makers.

Amen!

notrump wrote:

Recently we were all impressed with Tuohy running 2:49 for 1K. Mary Cain ran 2:35.80 in 2014. I like to think she can find that talent again.

Cain was faster than Tuohy at Mary's best distance, and Tuohy is faster than Cain at HER best distance. Just to be clear.

Phenomenal film maker???

That right there is some good comedy.

Cracking up wrote:

Phenomenal film maker???

That right there is some good comedy.

You are just very jealous of Alexi. Not only is she fenomenol filmmaker but she also is an Olympian, a Greek record holder, an world class essayist, a poet, a world class mentor, a fenomenol friend, and a super fast runner. Take that gramps!