August 2005

There were 37 posts published in August 2005 (this is page 5 of 7).

Police Officer Dies After 12-Mile Bike Ride

Tragic:

A highly honored 25-year-old D.C. police officer died yesterday after he apparently drank too much water Tuesday while training to use a bicycle on patrol, police officials said.
Doctors believe that hyponatremia, a sodium imbalance caused by drinking excessive amounts of fluid, most likely caused or contributed to the death of Officer James C. McBride, police officials said. McBride consumed as much as three gallons of water during and after the 12-mile training ride Tuesday morning, police said.

Three gallons? Last week I had a hard time drinking one gallon during and after a 24 mile ride; my stomach started hurting hurting. [I drank half of it after the ride–probably too much at once].
You can drink too much while exercising.

Caught

Not surprisingly, the saga of the fugitive couple has dominated local news the last couple days. Roane County isn’t far from here; one of my bike rides goes from Farragut (West Knoxville) to the southeast corner of Roane.
[I was amused to hear one of the CNN guys refer to Roane as being “in the extreme eastern” corner of the state; there’s over 100 miles of Tennessee east of Roane.]
Anyway, the capture of the fugitives illustrates once again that you don’t have to be very bright to be a criminal. Note that if you are trying to elude capture by law enforcement, it’s probably not a good idea to: (1) take a 100+ mile taxi ride; or (2) check into two hotels within a few hundred miles of the crime scene, when all the cable news channels are repeatedly showing your picture.
Of course you also have to question the mental soundness of someone who marries an inmate. But that’s a separate issue.

RHR

At last I have something tangible to show for my bicycle riding besides a depleted bank account.
I measured my resting heart rate today and it was 48–squarely within the “well-conditioned athletes” range. It’s been a while since I last kept track of my RHR; I recall that historically it has hovered around 60. So this would be a notable improvement.
Still, it’s 14 bpm above Lance Armstrong [see under “About Lance”/”Key Stats”], who is in the 32-34 range. Wow.

2,000 Miles

At the beginning of 2005, one of my “resolutions” was to bicycle at least 2,000 miles this year.
I surpassed that on Friday.
Is 3,000 possible?

Threatening Note

A Southwest Airlines plane gets diverted to Houston after a passenger finds a note with “threatening language.”
Which makes me wonder: Does it make sense for someone intent on blowing up an airplane to place a note explaining his or her actions on said aircraft? Wouldn’t you leave it where someone could read it afterwards? Seems to me that the primary suspect to leave such a note on a plane is a hoaxster, not a terrorist.