Get off my treadmill! Act 2

Where were we? Oh yes, we ended Act1 (read it here if you missed it) with me on the verge of making an ass of myself.

I was a couple of miles into my run when I heard the door to the fitness center open. I quickly grabbed the remote and switched off the Will and Grace re-run that I was watching in favor of ESPN. Grrrrrr sports! In walked my little friend and I could tell that he was ready for another workout because he was still wearing his workout jeans. He spotted me on the treadmill and was visibly disappointed. After standing there watching me for a few seconds he looked at the other exercise equipment in the room, presumably to determine which would be best for some high intensity screwing around.

The elliptical was the winner, or perhaps the loser if you’re looking at it from the elliptical’s point of view. He climbed on and started exercising, constantly leaning over to get a look at how fast I was going and attempting to match my pace. I was smack in the middle of an interval and had the speed set at 8mph (don’t laugh, that’s interval speed for me). I immediately decided that I would keep going at that speed until he stopped and fortunately for me he was tuckered out after about a minute. At this point he turned on the TV in front of the elliptical and cranked the volume up until it was loud enough to drown out my TV.

Next he stood with both of his feet on one of the eliptical’s paddles and began rowing himself up and down like a piston, a chubby piston. At this point I was getting a little agitated. He was no longer watching the TV but still had the volume cranked up so I asked him if he’d mind turning off the TV if he wasn’t watching it. He turned and walked away from me, completely ignoring me as if he was my own child. It was just as annoying when he did it as it is when they do it.

At this point he was just trying to irritate me. He took the dumbbells off the rack and started spinning them around at arm’s length as fast as he could, then left them lying on the floor. He stood behind my treadmill and imitated me running. I know this because as with most fitness centers, this one had a large mirror in front of the treadmill. And that’s when I lost it. I don’t know why that kind of thing gets my blood boiling so quickly but it’s happened before. I hopped off the treadmill, turned to face him and yelled at him. Yelled at him, at a kid. I’m not even going to tell you what I said because I’m pretty ashamed of myself for having said it. It was a stupid thing to do and I’m not proud of it, but the kid left quickly so it was at least effective.

Moments later I was running on the treadmill again when the kid walked back in followed by his father. His big, angry father. You might have deduced this from my race pictures but I’m not exactly a big guy. I’m all of 5’5” soaking wet (and bone dry since being soaking wet doesn’t make you any taller). I was terrified that this guy was going to crush me and in my haste to get off the treadmill and face him I got crossed up and ended up falling like a sack of potatoes onto the moving surface where I was promptly ejected off the back. My right forearm was throbbing like it was broken and I don’t even know what I hit it on (it’s not broken by the way, I’m just a wuss). The kid’s dad moved towards me quickly and with my adrenaline rushing I was sure that he meant to harm me. With my left arm caught awkwardly underneath me and my right arm in pain I did the first thing that I could think of to protect myself; I lifted my foot up to fend off Gigantor, who was now looming over me. He immediately grabbed a hold of my ankle with his enormous paw and started pulling... pulling on my leg... just like I’m pulling yours! April Fool’s suckers! I can’t believe you didn’t see that coming. Or maybe you did, bully for you. Let this be a lesson to you not to believe anything you read today.

Get to Shaving Already!

Of the 94 stubble times that have been submitted for the Shave Your 5K Challenge, I have received only 19 smooth times. Perhaps people have forgotten about the challenge, or perhaps they’ve gotten slower and are too ashamed to e-mail me their times, fearing that I will mock them mercilessly (a well placed fear if ever there was one). The good news in all of this is that the less people who submit smooth times the greater your chances are of winning! Thus far it appears that there has been some pretty impressive shaving going on and I’m sorry to say, some pretty impressive cheating going on too. I just re-checked my originally posted terms and conditions and wow, are they long. They are as lengthy as my... well... let’s just say that they’re lengthy and leave it at that shall we? Anyway, the terms and conditions do state that I have the right “to disqualify anyone who submits a stubble time that I feel is significantly slower than it should be” and I’m so glad that I put that in there because disqualifying people sounds like a total power trip and tons of fun to boot.

I’ve decided that I won’t be posting the results until after the competition ends on January 1st just to keep you in suspense. Okay, you got me, it’s mostly because I like to procrastinate and put things off to the last minute, I haven’t even bought a single Christmas present yet. Why would I? There’s still 2 more weeks left before Christmas!

That’s all I’ve got for today. Have a good weekend and enjoy this video of the Mother of the Year and her son enjoying some kind of evil amusement park ride. Or maybe it’s the mother who’s evil, not the ride. By the way laughing at this video is equivalent to punching your one way ticket to Hell, so it’s a good thing that I wasn’t laughing at the video but rather at a joke I heard the other day.

Holla at a Runner When You See Him in the Street

Whenever I’m in my car driving to and from work, or driving to and from the donut shop and I see a runner, I always get this tremendous urge to yell something encouraging to them. “Keep going!” “You can do it!” “Great job!” Fortunately for all you Denver based runners out there I usually manage to smother that urge. I realize that the runner won’t know that I’m also a runner, will think I’m mocking them, or won’t hear me over their iPod anyway.

I’ve had people shout things at me occasionally from their cars while I’ve been running, usually things like “go faster,” or “good job,” or “hey, that track’s not open to the public!” More often than not it happens when I run past the high school and it almost always annoys me more than it motivates me. Why then do I feel so compelled to yell at fellow runners when I see them? Perhaps it’s because when I see someone running, I wish that I could be out there running instead of whatever is taking up my time at that moment. Perhaps it’s because I feel a sense of kinship with the runner and want to encourage them to give it their best today, or perhaps I’m just an emotionally stunted jerk who enjoys making others miserable.

Most days when I’m on my way home from work I drive past a lady running up this really steep, long hill. It seems like she’s always out there running, and she always inspires me to get out and run if I haven’t already. A few weeks ago, I arrived home from work early (unless my boss reads this blog in which case it was definitely a Saturday) and I decided to go for a run. I was running down the aforementioned hill (because Momma didn’t raise no dummy) and I passed her coming up. I didn’t realize that it was her until we were already passing each other. We both smiled and nodded politely and I almost wished that I’d stopped her to tell her that she was an inspiration to me, that I always saw her out running this hill. Upon further reflection, I was glad that I didn’t have a chance to say anything. I probably would have fumbled for the right words and then ended up getting a face full of pepper spray when I said “I watch you run everyday and wanted you to know that you arouse me... wait, no... inspire, I meant inspire…”

I guess I’ll just stick to smiling and waving at fellow runners, but if the blond chick with the ponytail who always runs the big hill east of the golf course happens to be reading this, then just know that you arouse me.

Despite the title of this post, Half-Fast does not endorse shouting at runners from your car no matter what your intentions are. Also, please remember that when you see someone running from your car, you’re probably driving on the sidewalk.

One for the Orphans

If you've spent any time reading this blog then you realize that I rarely post anything serious here. OK, I NEVER post anything serious. So when I ran across a touching story about orphans in Africa and wanted to post something about it I found myself with a dilemma. How could I maintain the tongue-in-cheekyness of the blog and still talk about the orphans. I began a post delicately making fun of the orphans but just couldn't pull it off without sounding like a cold heartless jerk. I know it's hard for you to believe, but I don't think it's possible to 'delicately' make fun of orphans in a tongue-in-cheeky way, much like it's apparently not possible for my doctor to 'delicately' have me turn my head and cough.

Essentially the story is this; two American women, Lara Vogel and Claire A. Williams have been teaching orphans at the Tumaini Children’s Home in Kenya to run. Ignore for a second the irony of American’s teaching Kenyan’s to run and focus on the good. Hope Runs, a fledgling organization started by the women in March uses running to raise the self-esteem of the children and seeks to create opportunities for volunteers to run with the kids and help with reading and music programs. With the help provided by Williams and Vogel these kids will grow up to become well-adjusted adults.

The Tumaini Children’s Center has a blog set up here, where you can make donations and read posts from the children. I encourage you to go read some of their blog posts, but make sure you've got a box of tissues... you know... in case your allergies start acting up like mine did... I wasn't crying! It was my stupid allergies! You can also visit www.hoperuns.org for more information or visit Clare and Lara’s blog, Tripping On Words.

Up next for Williams and Vogel: Teaching the French to surrender and showing the Japanese how to make wild and crazy game-shows, meanwhile I’ll be traveling to orphanages in Brazil to teach them the game of soccer. In all seriousness, we need more people like this and I wish them the best. Now go check out the links in this post. Go on.
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