I hope she wins

On my way home from work today I caught the edge of a piece on NPR discussing Caster Semenya.  I was fascinated by their discussion of how testosterone levels affect (or don't) different people, given that some are more sensitive to low levels and others are less sensitive to high levels; how there's no particularly good cutoff for what's a "male" level versus a "female" level, leading to some male athletes with very LOW testosterone levels; and how it's interesting that you're not born with a specific testosterone level that then stays relatively constant, but rather that the activities that you engage in can make you produce more/less of it.

FASCINATING!

Here's a good piece on it.  And another.  And another.

So I'm reeling with a brain soup of the unfairness in this violation of a woman's right to her body (different though it may be from some imagined "normal"), frustration that they're regulating (here read: making them undergo hormone therapy to lower their levels if they want to continue to compete) what is a NATURALLY OCCURRING level for these women simply because of the commonly-held belief that testosterone is a "man thing,"  and anger at the assumption that if a woman is good at something physical, it must be that she's trying to be like a man and therefore shouldn't be allowed to compete with other women.

In all of that, I googled her.  She's an 800 runner.  Which of course makes me like her.  Of all the track and field races, I think the 800 is particularly brutal, and if you've ever run it, you know why.  It's short enough that you're supposed to run freaking fast.  And long enough that it hurts like hell to do that.

Which is why it was the only track race I ever enjoyed (though I did the 1600m, the 3200m, and anchored the 4x8, often in the same meet....yeah, 4 miles per meet running track).  Go figure.  Me and my gluttony for punishment.

Watch some beautiful, powerful, focused running.  And hope with me that she wins this summer.