This is a reminder that this is a light week, because of working events. But Catober is here to amuse you. But there are about 800 words here and four photographs from yesterday’s bike ride. So, yeah, light week.

In my criticism in sport media class we examined two different kinds of stories. The students selected these. One of them was this incredible piece from CNN: ‘Harmed, outed, scrutinized’: How new sex testing rules affect athletes:

Just like Ajok and Imali, a raft of athletes will no longer be allowed to compete in the women’s category at the World Athletics Championships, which are currently taking place in Tokyo, Japan.

Track and field body WA announced earlier this year that beginning from September 1, anyone wanting to compete in the “female category” of its elite events would be required to take a “once-in-a-lifetime test” in the form of a cheek swab or blood test that will screen athletes’ genetic samples. This will determine whether they contain the SRY gene – or “a genetic surrogate for a Y chromosome” – according to the organization.

The decision comes following a World Athletics Council meeting where, along with a raft of other policy changes, the council agreed to adopt multiple recommended conditions of “eligibility in the female category,” WA confirmed in a press release.

The World Athletics Championships hosted something like 2,200 competitors from almost 200 countries and teams. Not everyone, of course, was subjected to this strict scrutiny. It’s an in-depth story that does a nice job explaining this process and some of the biological information to people who aren’t expected to be experts. I wish my lovely bride wasn’t teaching in another building at the same time as that class, because this subject has become one of her primary areas of research expertise. I am not an expert in this area, which meant I had to learn a lot the last few days. The class handled the conversation with interest and care. I was pleased to see what we got out of the story, from a critiquing point of view.

We also discussed this other story which didn’t offer us a lot. But I was able to get in several points about how all stories aren’t created in the same way, some of them aren’t going to have all of the features (or conspicuously lack them) when we’re doing a critique. I turned it into a criticism of Sports Illustrated in general. Because there’s always some context to understand, somewhere. And maybe that’s a note that will seep in over the course of the semester.

We started talking about storytelling in org comm today. Presumably I have a little expertise in this area. There were 14 or 15 slides to digest, getting into the different kinds of stories we receive from the media, our different levels of participation and sociality, fan-centered media messaging and the structures of dramatic reality storytelling. (The by-the-book version requires a story to have drama, adversity, crisis, mentors, persistence and a final reward to be a dramatic reality.)

Here’s a video I showed them that included all of those things and Da Coach O, in under four minutes.

The class will have to put some of that in to practice on Thursday, but they don’t know that yet. So don’t tell.

Here are a few shots from yesterday’s ride, which was a slow, 21-mile tour of some new roads, and some old roads. You can really see the passage of time here, which could be seasonal, or about an afternoon, depending on your meaning.

I love these yellowing cover crops.

On a road I think I’ve been on just once or twice before, we have a discovery for the Barns By Bike catalog.

And on a nearby stretch of road, which I think was entirely new to me, another.

I found myself up a hill, over some bumps, around a bend and taking a left turn. I figured I would just ride that a certain amount and then turnaround. The easy part is getting lost. The difficult part is retracing my steps if there are too many turns. So as I pedaled along some scenic, tree covered roads dotted by a cemetery here and a neighborhood there, I was trying to play the map out in my head: I’m going, roughly, east and this should dump me out … where?

Eventually I got to a stop sign and, considering the amount of daylight I had left, and what I wanted to do with it, decided to turn around and start my hustle for home. It was delightful. Three empty roads and one of them wide open with fields on either side and the only sound was the sound of my tires on the road. I got back to a little crossroads community I know well, turned right and started racing home.

As I got close, this was one of my last views.

I made it in just before dark, and hopeful I can go out again soon. Maybe for some more old roads, maybe for some new ones.