2013 Boston Marathon Winner: Lelisa Desisa

 

Born in Ethiopia’s Oromia Region, Lelisa made his breakthrough on to the senior international scene at road races in 2010, beginning with a sub-60 minute run for third place at the Zayed International Half Marathon in January. … In his debut over the marathon distance, he made one of the fastest ever debuts by winning the 2013 Dubai Marathon in a time of 2:04:45 hours. He was surprised by the quick time and said he would like to make a world record attempt in the future. Three months later, in the 2013 Boston Marathon, he took the victory in a time of 2:10:22. Desisa was not hurt in the Boston Marathon bombings that occurred after his victory.

via Lelisa Desisa – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

About the Dubai Marathon:

Lelisa Desisa Benti, who celebrated his 23rd birthday earlier this month, claimed a belated present in the form of a cheque for $200,000 (Dh720,000) after completing the emirate’s 42.1km course in two hours, four minutes and 45 seconds. On crossing the finish line, Desisa – enveloped in a low-lying fog – fell to his knees as a throng of nearby African spectators, waving Ethiopian flags and dressed in reds and yellow and greens, increased the volume of their perpetual cheering. The four fastest times recorded in the men’s event were all set by Ethiopians, but it was Desisa who made the late breakaway despite compatriot Berhanu Shiferaw Tolcha appearing best placed to claim the top prize. Shiferaw finished three seconds behind the winner, while Tadese Tola Woldegeberel was a further second behind.

via thenational.ae

Lelisa Desisa Benti of Ethiopia has won the Boston Marathon men’s elite race. Finishing in 2 hours, 10 minutes, and 22 seconds, Desisa bested two other racers who were close contenders in the final mile. Perhaps most impressive of all is the fact that this was only Desisa’s second marathon, yet he ran like a seasoned pro.

What sort of sneakers does a world-class runner like Desisa lace up for an event like this? The Nike Zoom Streak 3, which is built with a lightweight, breathable upper and features responsive Zoom Air cushioning. This model was released in 2011 and has since been discontinued, but many runners stick with what they’re used to, which is likely the case with Desisa.

via sneakerreport.com

I’m interested in what Lelisa eats and how he trains as well as his choice of running shoes. Let me know if you find a link with that info. That shoe is only about $65 on Amazon right now. I’d get it quick since they are no longer made. Great deal for a marathon winning shoe.

Golfer Mark Mihal rescued by friends when 15-ft sinkhole swallows him on a St Louis course

A Missouri father was hoping for a hole-in-one when he set out for a day of golf on Friday – but he didn’t think he’d end up the one in the hole.

St Louis mortgage banker and avid golfer Mark Mihal was with three friends at the Annbriar Golf Course near Waterloo when he suddenly disappeared into the turf on the fairway of the 14th hole.

The 43-year-old fell into a bell-shaped enclosure below the green that measured 15 feet deep and 10 feet wide, surprising his golf pals and the course management who said this was the first time anything like this had happened in Annbriar’s 20-year history.

‘I noticed this anomaly in the fairway and went to have a look but, by the time I took one step, I was gone, I was underground,’ Mihal told MailOnline.

‘When I went through (the opening) I couldn’t see anything, I didn’t know how far I was going or what I was going to hit.’

He said, after plummeting through the earth, he landed on a pile of mud in a cavernous space that could have fit up to 10 people.

‘I was just lying on the side of the mound,’ he said. ‘There was some room in there, it was sort of like a room or a cave. It wasn’t confining. It was very dark, though after a while my eyes got used to it. But I couldn’t look up because there was stuff still falling.’

The rescue was precarious as no one knew whether the hole would expand, swallowing more people. The fact he dislocated his shoulder in the fall didn’t help either.

‘I knew the only way to get out was straight up and I didn’t have the use of my left arm,’ he said.

Sinkhole: The 43-year-old fell into a bell-shaped enclosure below the green that measured 15 feet deep and 10 feet wide, pictured…

His friends – Mike Peters, Ed Magaletta and Hank Martinez – called the golf course’s pro shop and, armed with a rope and a 12-ft ladder, general manager Russ Noble rushed to help out.

Magaletta, a local real estate agent with whom Mihal had been playing golf for years, bravely volunteered to climbed down into the enclosure where he tied the rope around his friend’s waist so the team could pull him to safety.

‘Ed came down to get me. He made a sling out of his jacket and tied a rope around me, which the others used to pull me from the top and he pushed me from underneath,’ Mihal said.

The whole rescue took just 20 minutes, but the father said, during the terrifying ordeal, he couldn’t help but think of the sinkhole that two weeks ago swallowed 36-year-old Florida man Jeffrey Bush, who remains missing.

‘That crossed my mind when I was actually falling. Is this how I’m going to go out? In a sinkhole,’ Mihal told MailOnline.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk

Surfing pig sensation in New Zealand

Man terrifies pet pig by making it surf…

Surfing pig sensation in New Zealand – YouTube.

World Naked Bike Ride: Spring 2013 – this is crazy!

Meet at 11:00am for body painting (Bring body paints, washable markers, watercolors or other easily removed media to apply slogans and designs to your bodies if you wish if you want to protest dependence on oil) and then a Noon departure from the Plaza so that the ride will take place in the warmest part of the day, but they ride rain or shine so no excuses not to be here and bare it out.

The ride generally hits AT&T Park, the embarcadero, Fisherman’s Wharf, North Beach, the Haight, the Castro and more.

4th Annual World Naked Bike Ride | 2013
Southern Hemisphere Ride
Saturday, March 9, 2013
- 11am body painting
- Noon departure
Justin Herman Plaza, San Francisco
FREE
RSVP on Facebook

How “Naked” is this ride?: While it is a “naked” bike ride, all are welcome; it’s ride as bare as you dare. That is, body paint, rubber latex, bikinis, topless, lingerie, bubble pack, whatever costume you are comfortable riding with. Skates or skateboards have ridden along with us in the past. How about a nude unicyclist?

Why so many “World Naked Bike Ride Days?” – Please note there are several “World Naked Bike Rides” throughout the year. The Northern Hemisphere Ride is generally in June and the Southern Hemisphere Ride is generally in March, but a few minor naked bike rides throughout the year. But the June ride is the biggest.
http://www.pinchit.com/pinches/31373

Expect traffic jams.

Brazil arrests dozens of ‘corrupt policemen’

The arrests are part of “Operation Purification,” a crackdown on Rio’s historically corrupt police force [Reuters]
Investigators in Rio de Janeiro have arrested 63 police officers and 11 alleged drug traffickers after a year-long bribery probe and on-going efforts to stamp out police corruption ahead of the World Cup in 2014 and Summer Olympics in 2016.

“We can no longer accept the humiliation of deviant conduct practiced by a few,” Erir Ribeiro, commander of the police force, said on Tuesday.

Dubbed “Operation Purification”, the probe and arrests reflect efforts to curb unruly elements of a police force with ties to the criminals they are supposed to pursue.

“It’s important that we cut into our own flesh so the institution can earn legitimacy,” Mariano Beltrame, Rio’s state security secretary, said.

Following Tuesday’s detentions, officials fired the commander of the police battalion where the arrested officers were deployed.

The arrests, part of a crackdown on Rio’s historically violent and corrupt state police force, follow an investigation into bribes that drug dealers allegedly paid to police officers so they could operate without interference.

The arrests were centred around Duque de Caxias, one of the crime-ridden suburbs that make up the gritty outskirts of the coastal metropolis.

The officers and others arrested were charged with crimes including drug trafficking, corruption and kidnapping. The activities, state police officials said, were carried out in the favelas, or slums, north of central Rio.

Turning to crime

Because of low salaries compared to much of the private sector, police often turn to crime.

In addition to collusion with drug gangs and other criminals, some Rio police run the infamous “militias” that control vast swaths of the state and engage in illegal activities.

Officials have gone to great lengths to clean up Rio and the surrounding state of the same name before the international sporting events, which are expected to attract hundreds of thousands of visitors.

But the violence, corruption and drug trade that have plagued Brazil’s second-biggest city thrive in all but the few neighbourhoods where the events will take place.

Combined with construction delays, missed budgets, and a stagnant Brazilian economy, security concerns add to growing uncertainty ahead of the competitions.

On Tuesday, officials at the International Olympic Committee reminded Rio that “time is ticking” ahead of the games.

State officials, however, pointed to Tuesday’s arrests as progress on the security front.

The arrests came on the same day that another officer, a state police corporal, went on trial for the killing last year of Patricia Acioli, a Rio judge known for her work investigating militias.

As the trial got underway, the corporal, who helped investigators build their case, gave a dramatic confession and said he deserved to be punished.

“I regret the disgrace I did my family and hers,” said the corporal, Sergio Costa Junior, according to an online account published by newspaper Estado de S Paulo.

“I strongly believe in justice. Do justice with me.”

The corporal is one of 11 state police officers accused in the murder. Acioli was shot more than 20 times outside her home.

Einstein, Gödel, and the Science of Time Travel

Gödel actually showed that if we were living in a rotating universe, this universe could create loops in time — and by “loops in time” I mean you actually have a timeline that’s normally a straight line of past, present, and future, that’s turned into a loop — and you can actually go along that loop in time and go back into the past. And he based his work squarely on Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

via Einstein, Gödel, and the Science of Time Travel | Brain Pickings.

Black belts’ white matter shows how a powerful punch comes from the brain

Karate experts are able to generate extremely powerful forces with their punches, but how they do this is not fully understood. Previous studies have found that the force generated in a karate punch is not determined by muscular strength, suggesting that factors related to the control of muscle movement by the brain might be important.

The study, published in the journal Cerebral Cortex, looked for differences in brain structure between 12 karate practitioners with a black belt rank and an average of 13.8 years’ karate experience, and 12 control subjects of similar age who exercised regularly but did not have any martial arts experience.

The researchers tested how powerfully the subjects could punch, but to make useful comparisons with the punching of novices they restricted the task to punching from short range – a distance of 5 centimetres. The subjects wore infrared markers on their arms and torso to capture the speed of their movements.

As expected, the karate group punched harder. The power of their punches seemed to be down to timing: the force they generated correlated with how well the movement of their wrists and shoulders were synchronised.

Brain scans showed that the microscopic structure in certain regions of the brain differed between the two groups. Each brain region is composed of grey matter, consisting of the main bodies of nerve cells, and white matter, which is mainly made up of bundles of fibres that carry signals from one region to another. The scans used in this study, called diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), detected structural differences in the white matter of parts of the brain called the cerebellum and the primary motor cortex, which are known to be involved in controlling movement.

The differences measured by DTI in the cerebellum correlated with the synchronicity of the subjects’ wrist and shoulder movements when punching. The DTI signal also correlated with the age at which karate experts began training and their total experience of the discipline. These findings suggest that the structural differences in the brain are related to the black belts’ punching ability.

“Most research on how the brain controls movement has been based on examining how diseases can impair motor skills,” said Dr Ed Roberts, from the Department of Medicine at Imperial College London, who led the study. “We took a different approach, by looking at what enables experts to perform better than novices in tests of physical skill.
“The karate black belts were able to repeatedly coordinate their punching action with a level of coordination that novices can’t produce. We think that ability might be related to fine tuning of neural connections in the cerebellum, allowing them to synchronise their arm and trunk movements very accurately. …

via Black belts’ white matter shows how a powerful punch comes from the brain.

Texting competition prize defended by US champion

A 17-year-old has out-tapped the competition to hold onto the title of being the US’s fastest texter.

Austin Weirschke from Wisconsin beat 10 other competitors at the sixth National Texting Championship held in New York.

Contestants had to do one task with their vision blocked and another with their hands behind their back.

Mr Weirschke said he planned to put the $50,000 (£32,012) prize money towards paying for his college education.

The competition – which is sponsored by LG Electronics and featured one device with a physical keyboard – put three skills to the test: accuracy, speed and dexterity.

Two of the tests were straight-forward – memorising and then typing phrases as quickly as possible, and translating text abbreviations into “regular speak” such as TTYL (talk to you later).

But others were more challenging, including writing words backwards – or text sdrawkcab as the round was dubbed – and having to tap out the words to the song Twinkle Twinkle Little Star within 45 seconds while wearing darkened glasses that blocked the competitors’ view.

The champion said he typically sent 500 texts a day to his friends, but attributed his success to added practice with his mother.

The writer Malcolm Gladwell once wrote that studies suggested that it typically took 10,000 hours – or 417 full days – of practice to become an elite performer. …

via BBC News – Texting competition prize defended by US champion.

Nice skillz, but if cell phones cause cancer as some research indicates, his generation should start dying off early in their 30s and 40s.

US judo fighter expelled from Olympics after testing positive for marijuana

American judo fighter Nick Delpopolo was expelled from the Olympic Games on Monday after testing positive for marijuana he said he ate accidentally before arriving in London.

Delpopolo is the first of the 10,500 games athletes to fail an in-competition doping test.

His case is the fifth positive test for a banned substance reported by the IOC since its official London Games testing period began in mid-July. The other four athletes were caught before competing.

The International Olympic Committee said it disqualified Delpopolo from the men’s 73-kilogram class, where he placed seventh.

Delpopolo tested positive for metabolites of cannabis after competing on July 30.

He apologized to the United States team in a statement acknowledging he was “embarrassed by this mistake.”

“My positive test was caused by my inadvertent consumption of food that I did not realize had been baked with marijuana, before I left for the Olympic Games,” Delpopolo said in a statement released by the U.S. Olympic Committee.

“I look forward to representing my country in the future, and will rededicate myself to being the best judo athlete that I can be,” he said.

Delpopolo “shall have his Olympic identity and accreditation card canceled and withdrawn immediately,” the IOC said.

USOC spokesman Patrick Sandusky said the team was “absolutely committed to clean competition” and supported Delpopolo’s disqualification.

“Any positive test, for any banned substance, comes with the appropriate consequences,” Sandusky said.

The IOC said it would ask the International Judo Federation to alter the standings in Delpopolo’s event. He beat opponents from Hong Kong and Belgium, then lost to fighters from South Korea and Mongolia.

Delpopolo faces further sanctions as the IOC requested that judo’s governing body “consider any further action within its own competence.”

The 23-year-old Delpopolo commented on his official games biography that he found training for London to be intense and he would like to return to study. …

via US judo fighter expelled from Olympics after testing positive for marijuana | Fox News.

What judo advantage is he supposed to have gained from eating some pot?

UFO Over Olympics Opening Ceremony [VIDEO]

Friday night’s spectacular pyrotechnics display of the most watched opening ceremony in summer Olympics history attracted more than the eyes of over 40 million people. A clearly seen unidentified flying object was videotaped making its way over London’s Olympic stadium, reports Examiner.com.

The disc-shaped object is first seen entering the upper left portion of the video as the fireworks erupt over the stadium. The UFO — which appears to have a dome or bulge rising from its center — moves slowly across the sky as if deliberately observing the light-show spectacle below it.

While NBC Olympics — a division of NBC Sports — has chosen Goodyear blimps for all of its 2012 Olympics aerial coverage, the strange-looking object that appeared over the opening ceremonies doesn’t appear to be a blimp.

So what was it? … On an evening that included an apparent Queen Elizabeth and 007 agent James Bond parachuting out of a helicopter into the Olympics stadium, most people probably wouldn’t have been surprised if a staged UFO was also on the entertainment menu, just two weeks after the U.K. released its most recent batch of UFO documents.

Last month, former Ministry of Defense UFO desk officer Nick Pope suggested that a huge event like the London Olympic Games, could present itself as a prime target for otherworldly craft to show themselves to a gigantic viewing audience.

“With the summer of mass events, we are all on high alert for terrorism. But we must also cast our eyes further afield and be prepared for even the most seemingly unfathomable,” Pope said, according to PressTV.

via UFO Over Olympics Opening Ceremony: A Classic Flying Saucer [VIDEO].

Looks like a blimp to me. Moves like one too.