  We study the motion of an elastic rigid rod which is radially free-falling
towards a Schwarzschild black hole. This is accomplished by reducing the
corresponding free-boundary PDE problem to a sequence of ODEs, which we
integrate numerically. Starting with a rod at rest, we show that it is possible
to choose its initial compression profile so that its midpoint falls
substantially faster, or slower, than a free-falling particle with the same
initial conditions. This seems to be a purely kinematic effect, since on
average there is no net transfer of elastic to mechanical energy.
