Look! In the Sky. It’s a Rocket Racer.

eh...what?  It wasn't you?  Oh it must of been one of the other many daredevil astronaut/test-pilot types that read the rivet.  It's one of our core demographics you know...the astronaut.

Racers in rocket-powered aircraft will fly four laps around a five-mile “track” at anywhere from 150 feet to 1,500 feet above the ground. The planes, designed to fly at 340 miles an hour, will start side by side, two at a time. The pilots include professional test pilots who received their training in the military and a former astronaut.

This is a great idea...

Red Bull Air Race already has a competition with acrobatic prop planes.  I guess that isn't hairy enough.  I mean 240+ miles an hour, doing flips and stuff...not enough.

Add rockets.

Race 'em together.

50% faster.  100% louder.  100% more dangerous...what's not to like.

I've been thinking about this lately.  You see, I'm becoming a runner.  Never been before but I think you'd have to say that I'm getting there.  Which brings me to this point.  I think my "hull speed" is a 9 minute mile.

For those of you not familiar with "hull speed" it refers to a boats natural "max-speed".  Essentially the point at which you have to begin expending vastly more energy into the boat to get incremental speed increases.  For our family's Cal 40 sailboat that is approximately 6+ knots (6.5 maybe).

For me and running it appears that the 9 minute mile is about where my body likes to be.  Check out this chart.

Of course I have a chart, I'm a geek aren't I?

Anyways, the first datapoint is from February 6th.  Just coming off the long winters break and I walked half my route.  But look at the way the curve is settling down very nicely right at the 9 minute mile mark.

My goal of course is to get it much lower than that, but I anticipate having to expend a lot more energy to get there...and the energy is being expended vastly right now...at least that is the subjective opinion on the ground.

For those of you interested in this chart, go here: running log

If you know me you know I love Porsches.  Although I'm a bit more of a classic Porsche guy.

Rather than a new Porsche guy.

But this guy REEAALLY loves a Porsche. He broke the highest speed recorded by the British police...and that isn't a good thing.

I've lost my job, said driver clocked doing 172mph. Now his liberty has gone too.

...oops.