Blankbaby

I ran a 5K and met the Mayor

Awhile ago Roz asked me if I would run a 5K with her and some other folks. Roz knew that I wouldn't want to do anything of the sort, but managed to somehow convince me to do it (mostly by paying the entry fee for me, and promising me that no one cared how long it took me to finish). I agreed, using the typical short term thinking that most humans have. The race wasn't until April 19th, and surely the Earth would be destroyed by then and the race would be canceled. I wouldn't actually have to run the darn thing.

Imagine my shock when I woke up on April 19th (very early on a Saturday morning, I might add) and the world was decidedly undestroyed. I hadn't planned for this course of events.

With a heavy heart I donned my Viddler tshirt (Viddler represent!), my New Balance 992's (best sneakers ever), and my running shorts to run 3.1 miles outside.

Before I continue this story it is worth noting that I had never, until only very recently, ran 3 miles in a row. This was some cause of concern, but not as much as the fact that I had never ran more than 1 mile outside in my life (I had to run a mile in Central Park 8 times in high school. Once a year we had to take the Presidential Fitness Test, part of which was running a mile under a certain time. I would run a mile the first time, and not do it under the needed time which meant I had to stay after school later in the week and run it again, just so I could repeat my embarrassing failure. Yes, I did go to Catholic High School. How did you guess?). Many people told me that running outside was completely different than running on a treadmill, which I found plausible but that wasn't going to stop me (for some odd reason).

Marisa and I walk to where the race was, meet up with the team (Go Team!) and Roz hands me my number (862). We do some stretching, and my anxiety increases. I look around and see that everyone with a number is in much better shape than I am (not too shocking, of course). I was doomed. DOOMED!

I thought about faking an injury, but I figured Marisa wouldn't believe me so I scraped that idea.

Off to the starting line we went. I don't recall a gun going off, but when lots of other people started running I took that as my cue that the race had begun.

Less than a minute in I nearly knocked over an elderly woman who was running the race (and passing me, I might add). This didn't seem like the most fortuitous start to my racing career.

Off I went, running on the road like some sort of... running guy. It wasn't bad at all! Running outside wasn't so different than running at the gym, though the ceiling was a little higher and there wasn't a TV to ignore.

The first mile was great. I did it in 9 minutes 40 seconds, which is pretty good for a fat guy, I think. Sadly, I don't think I paced myself well. Just before the 1.5 mile mark I had to start walking. That's when lots and lots of people passed me.

I soldiered on! I saw a table with cups of water on it, so I went in for a cup. That's when I found out someone who was running faster than I was had knocked all the cups off the table mere moments before. Bastard.

Knowing the race was half over made me feel a little better though, and so I began to run once more. I'd like to tell you that I ran the whole second half of the race, but I didn't. I walked about 35% of it, but I made sure to run the last 500 feet or so (mostly because I wanted to impress Marisa. It was all in vain though, since she didn't even see me cross the finish line.).

Soon I passed what I thought was the finish line and slowed a little. That's when I heard the race officials yelling, 'The finish line is a little further up! Keep running!'

Now, I'm no 5K organizer but I would imagine someone would of thought, 'you know, having this thing that looks like a finish line right before the finish line isn't that great of an idea.' What do I know?

The race was finished, and I did it in 33 minutes and 3 seconds which works out (somehow) to a pace of 10:40 minutes per mile. Not too shabby for my first 5k.

I started looking for Marisa who I assumed would be at the finish line waiting my triumphant finish (oh, foolish me!). I found her standing where we all had gathered before the race started, not even within view of the finishline. I was all like, 'WTF.' And she was all like, 'STFU!'

Ok, I was more like, 'Hey, I thought you were going to watch me cross the finish line!' And she said, 'Oh, I was over here talking to Shay. I didn't know you wanted me to actually see you finish.' I, of course, thought that was the whole point of the race. Luckily, there was free ice cream and I can never get too upset when free ice cream is in play.

Off I went to get my free ice cream from Ben and Jerry's. I was standing in line and I noticed quite a number of people in front of me didn't look like they had just ran a 5k. Many of them were wearing jeans for goodness sake! It seems to me that the people who just ran 3 frickin' miles should get first crack at the free ice cream, but once again the ways of the 5K are new and mysterious to me.

After having those bitter thoughts I got my small cup of sweet, sweet ice cream. It looks like vanilla fudge ripple which is one of my favorite kinds of ice cream ever so I shoveled it into my mouth with gusto.

That's when I thought I was having a stroke.

I am very familiar with how vanilla fudge ripple ice cream should taste. I have had it on numerous occasions. This, my friends, did not taste like vanilla fudge ripple ice cream. It tasted, much to my shock, very much like yellow cake with chocolate frosting and vanilla ice cream. This taste is not unpleasant, on the contrary it was quite delicious. I walked back to where Marisa was standing and let her have a taste, not mentioning what flavor of ice cream it was (I'm clever!). She seemed to enjoy it, and said, 'Oh, this must be their new Cake Batter flavor.'

I wasn't having a stroke after-all, I was experiencing a taste sensation.

After I finished my ice cream, we had to stand around for a while and wait for Mayor Nutter to announce the winners of the race. Sadly, our team (Go, team!) did not win. That didn't stop me, however, from getting my picture taken with mayor.

After he announced the winners he stepped off the stage and was surrounded by well wishers. I decided that this was an opportunity too good to pass up, so I lurked by the mayor until I could get his attention. A few minutes went by and it looked as though the mayor was going to leave without acknowledging me, but then I caught his eye (I mean, look at me, how could I not catch his eye?). I asked if he would mind having his picture taken with a large, sweaty man and he was OK with it.

That Michael Nutter is alright in my book (and a snazzy dresser!).

The race was over, and everyone started to walk towards the Art Museum. Roz thought it would be fun to get a picture of us all standing around the Rocky statue. As we walked towards the statue I jokingly suggested we run up the Art Museum steps in celebration. Surely, no normal person would want to do that after having just ran a 5K, right?

Wrong.

Everyone thought that was a great idea, and so we did it. Then we cavorted around the statue.

Check out all the pictures over here.

This was my first 5K, but I am betting it won't be my last (crazy, huh?).

3 new shirts for Scott

In honor of the 2008 Hawaiian shirt season, I bought 3 new shirts for my stylish (ha!) wardrobe.

What say you all?

I declare 2008 Hawaiian shirt season open

Look who got a haircut

No wonder Huckabee lost

Clearly, Huckabee is not presidential material. I mean, what kind of man stands idly by as his wife's head is being stolen by an unseen assailant?

Marisa drives me to drink

$65.82

That's how much you get from 8 pounds of change (your results might vary).

1,101 coins! Ah, if only I had ten more coins in there, that would have been awesome.

My only question is: how the heck did I end up with so many dimes?

So that's what eight pounds of change looks like

I have an uncanny ability to collect staggering amounts of change in short order. Until recently, most of that change ended up scattered across my apartment: on the floor, on top of the fridge, in the cushions of my sofa, on top of the TV... you get the idea. Marisa put a stop to all of that (she demanded that I start putting my change in a bowl, before we were going out even! Shortly thereafter I started putting my change in a bowl).

I have collected just under 8 pounds of change.

I'll wait as you read that again.

Yep, you read that correctly: 8 frickin' pounds of change.

The question is, how much money does 8 pounds of change translate to? That question is difficult to answer since the mix of change can't be determined (8 pounds of silver dollars, one imagines, would be worth more than 8 pounds of pennies), but it is still fun to guess! I'll be cashing in my change tomorrow morning and posting the amount that I get in the afternoon.

My guess is somewhere in the neighborhood of $85. Marisa says $23 (she so totally wrong). What do you think?

The TV is happy now

The Big Move In continues! My fancy new TV has been in Apartment 2024 for awhile now, but a couple of days ago we finally bought a fitting stand for it. That's the West Elm Modern Storage Media stand in acorn. The website lists it for $349.00, but luckily for us there is a West Elm in Center City. Marisa and I stopped in the store on our way back from Fork You Live (more on that in a little bit) to get a look at this media center in person. We had seen it online and liked it, but you want to touch these kinds of things. Boy, are we glad we did! It would seem that the acorn colored Modern Storage Media stand had been recently discontinued and was available in the store for $200 less than what was listed (and still is listed) on the website. The only problem? Finding a store that had one in stock. Luckily, we had the most helpful salesperson ever who looked up what stores were listed as having some of these in stock, and called them to make sure they had them. He then handed the phone over to Marisa, who ordered the stand and had it shipped to the apartment for $20. Not too shabby at all.

That explains that

Tweeterboard tracks Twitter users based on their relative 'influence.' For reasons unknown to me, I am currently the most influential Twitterer (according to Tweeterboard, of course, and no doubt by the time you read this I will no longer possess the top stop).

While I think this is meaningless, it does explain why I have seen an uptick in my number of followers.

Twitter is a stranger and wonderful thing.