Dean Karnazes Endurance 50

With all the drama surround Lance Armstrong completing his first marathon it seems like no one if paying attention to Dean Karnazes. Dean completed his 50th marathon in 50 days in 50 states with the NY marathon. Read his blog here: Endurance Is

It is absolutely amazing that the human body is capable of such a feat.

Cyclecomputer Errors Caused by Magnet Orientation by Charles Learoyd

I haven't ridden my bike in quite a while. In fact, I had to install a new battery in my Shimano Flight Deck 6500 bike computer. I had to do a complete reset of everything in the memory including gear ratios...more on this later. On my first ride, the speed shown was about double of the actual speed. I couldn't figure out why and assumed I had programmed the wheel circumference incorrectly by about half the right size(?) I finished the ride (at an average speed of around 39 mph) and promptly reset the computer. But the same thing happened next time I tried to ride.

I did a quick Google Search for "Shimano Flight Deck errors" and found this: Cyclecomputer Errors Caused by Magnet Orientation by Charles Learoyd.

My wheel magnet was not mounted at 90 degrees like the author's, however, I wondered if I was having the same symptom due to the spacing between the magnet and sensor. I decreased the spacing, spun the wheel and voila! The speed while spinning the wheel by hand dropped from 16 to 9 mph.

Apparently the spacing must be minimal...about 1/8 inch or less to prevent the sensor from seeing multiple peaks in the magnetic field. It makes me wonder what the field plot of a circular magnet looks like.

Borat Conquers Charlotte

Elizabeth and I went to the 7:20 show of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America....yadda yadda. I'll get to the point...it was hilarious! We were both crying at one point.

The showing was sold out. We bought tickets online and arrived about 10 minutes before showtime. People were streaming in, mostly 20-something young people. Since everyone was shouting to each other across us, it was obvious they knew each other. It turns out, a large continent of bank workers (I separate them from bankers) came straight from the office. I believe our immediate crowd were from the Big Bank, but I'm sure the other guys were represented.

The laughs start immediately. Borat shows us around his village and introduces us to family and friends. As soon as he gets to America, the uncomfortable stuff starts. I thought he was going to get pummeled on the NY subway. New Yorkers live up to their reputation!

The hilarity peaks when Borat and his manager get into a "wrestling" match. It's too disturbing to describe here but I had tears of laughter running down my face.

The climax of his journey is a marriage proposal to Pamela Anderson. I don't know if she was in on the joke. It seemed like she knew he was filming a movie. However, I don't know if she knew he was going to throw a burlap sack over her head and try to carry her away. Borat was thrown to the ground by her security guards and I'm assuming had to answer to the police. I hope to see some "behind the scenes" clips of that one!

There are several deleted scenes on the official movie website as well as at YouTube.com. The one about the cheese in the grocery store is awesome!

RIP: Cingular Send a Message

I used to be able to send text messages from my PC to Cingular phone users through this page: www.cingular.com/sendamessage. It made typing the messages fast, kept track of the 160 character limit, and it was free.

Cingular recently launched a whole new website...which is pretty slow, at least on my PC. (It also has several dead links.)

I can't find anywhere on the site to send text messages! I guess they figured out they were missing some revenue. So yet again a wireless carrier has come up with a way to squeeze a few more cents from the masses in the name of ARPU. Pathetic....and still no regulation about the quality of their services.

Google still has a cached version of the old page here: Send a Message

Race for the Cure Results

I am slow. And I don't mean just mentally. I am physically just a slow, slow runner. Here are my results from the 5k last weekend:

755  46/61   400/512  Eric Banks          40 M   2995 CHARLOTTE          NC   30:10   30:35  9:51

I really didn't think I was that slow. There seemed to be a lot of people finishing after me. Granted a lot of them were pushing baby carriages.

I came in 46th out of 61 in my bracket...that is probably fogies between 40 and 45. I also came in 400th out of 512 men. That's what, the top 80%? Yee-haw!

The sad thing is that I've been doing hill running.

Oh well. Let's see how I do this weekend in the Hopebuilders 5k.

Polar S625X speed calibration

I've been looking for a straightforward explanation of the speed calibration feature on my Polar S625X. I finally found one here.

"Once you have an accurately measured place to calibrate your S625X, run that distance and make note of the distance recorded by the S625X. Your calibration factor would be

((Actual distance)/(Measured distance)) x 1000 = Calibration factor

or if you have previously calibrated your S625X, the your calibration factor would be

((Actual distance)/(Measured distance)) x (Prior calibration factor) = Calibration factor"

Race for the Cure 5k

Yesterday I ran my first 5k in about a year. It was the annual "Race for the Cure" to benefit the Susan Komen organization for Breat Cancer. The main difference between this event and other charity events is that so many of the victims or their families participate in this one. I'm not trying to slight other worthy causes, merely pointing out that my feelings during this are magnified. It is incredibly poignant seeing the names of cancer victims, seeing victims walking with bandanas on their heads, and walking with families of survivors/victims. It is a moving experience and makes one forget about one's time and think about what's really important in life.