Wow!  What a day!

When I mentioned to you that I’d be in Houston today, with some rare free time, I never envisioned that I’d get to see where science happens.

Peter and I basically played phone tag all day until well after we had landed at George Bush airport and were on our way to our hotel.  Since we were already running late due to our delayed flight I decided to head directly to Rice and meet Peter right away.  He’s already going out of his way to see us.  No reason to make him stay late too. 

GPS is a wonderful thing.  We plugged in the address Peter provided and soon found ourselves in front of the Rice University recreation center.  A quick call and Peter was on the steps welcoming us to Houston.   I am traveling with a coworker and Peter made him welcome too.

You’re right.  He is a humble guy.  All along the path from our car to the lab he apologized to us for the state of the facilities (upgrades and construction) and the need to pass through the men’s locker room to get to the lab (which is a converted racquetball court).  He seemed truly disappointed that we arrived when no activities were in process.

It only took a few minutes to arrive at the lab.   After passing so many squash and racquetball courts with their relatively tiny access ports, I was appreciative of the double door that had been installed to allow entry to the facility.  Upon entering I was immediately impressed that their office space is not that much different than mine.  Open space, and not enough of it.  Past the office is the lab.  Walking in you see a stationary bike connected to a PC.  Far enough in and the treadmill is right to your left.  

It is an unassuming beast.  Simply a small plateau with rails and a hanging harness centered over this green belt.  But it becomes ever more impressive as Peter describes its capabilities.  Inclination, of course.  And strain gauges are even not a great surprise.  Peter at first runs and then hops on the belt so that we can observe the force measurements displayed graphically on an adjacent computer.  Then we learn that this machine can run to 40 miles per hour and we begin to realize that this is not your typical home exercise equipment. 

As we take this tour I admit to Peter that I spent a significant part of our ride from the airport trying to explain to my companion what was being studied here and that he might be able to shed some light on this for us.   He was definitely up to the task and used an analogy to automobiles that helped to bring home how the human machine works when running. 

Back to the bike.  This is also impressive.  Eight strain gauges and a tachometer connected wirelessly to a microprocessor.  All bolted to the floor and connect to more computers.  A lot of good info is generated here as this form of exercise entails a relatively smaller range of variables. 

We spent about an hour with Peter and I can honestly say that he kept us interested the whole time.  I must admit that I was concerned that I was walking into a situation where the material to be reviewed would be well over my head.  Peter was able to explain everything in a way that both I and my coworker could understand. 

We got to see a variety of things beyond the treadmill and bike.  A pedometer seems like such a simple thing until you realize that the one that he is showing you actually works.  And it is even more impressive once you find out that this is what eventually led to Nike’s iPod integration. 

Michael Johnson, anyone?  Here is a photo of him getting set up with sensing equipment at a Prefontaine Classic event and a chart of the data collected.  Here is a guy who clearly jogged in the last part of his 200 meter run yet still came within 0.6 seconds of a record time.  Amazing.  Every step of the 200 meters is presented in this graph.  This is not the hanging-at-the-waist pedometer you get from the local K-mart.

And then there is the picture of the horses.  I had to ask as I recognized the photos.  I would never have put two and two together though and realized how we got from there to here.  How this satisfying of a bet led to studies of locomotion, photographic technique, and even modern animation never occurred to me until Peter brought it all home.

My coworker came along with me today and he was also quite impressed.  After you and I talked on the phone tonight I had an opportunity to show him the video on the Bearpowered forum of the treadmill we had just seen.  Turned out to be a great visual aid!

I’m not yet prepared to discuss human locomotion on your level, but now I am better able to understand what you are talking about. 

I’m glad I came.  Thanks!

Don Phelps