Go, you chicken fat, go away!

"Give me your tired, your poor

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free"

This morning Lady Liberty was a Mexican with tattoos up and down his arms.  Of course I high fived him.  I may live in Arizona, but I have no problems with the huddled masses coming over as long as they do it legally.  That reminds of one of the first short stories I wrote that wasn't for school.  I put it below if you have time to read it and you're not easily offended.   

Time - 46:54 (avg. pace 8:38)

Splits - 8:31, 8:30, 8:35, 8:41, 8:45, 3:52

****************************************************************************

Do not read this story if all you care about is running.

It was a cold winter night.  No, wait, wrong story.  I was preparing orders in the drive thru at McDonald's one day.  I was feeling pretty good because subconsciously I knew that my days in the fast food industry were coming to an end.  I had two jobs at the time; the other being an intern at a civil engineering firm.  I guess you could say that I really didn't care what the customers thought anymore, although I still took pride in my work and kept a cheery disposition.

A man with a foreign accent (I'm not sure where he was from) and his wife came through the drive thru this day riding along in his brand new black Volkswagen Beetle.  Undoubtedly, he was feeling pretty proud of his new set of wheels.  He ordered a Happy Meal (probably for his grandson).  When he got to the first window to pay for his order he added on two apple pies.  I missed that.  I got his Happy Meal ready, handed it to him, and told him to have a nice day.  Then I proceeded to bag up the next order.

Well, I heard this honk coming from outside the window, and instinctively I looked up his order on the screen.  I realized that he ordered two apple pies at the first window, so I bagged a couple up and brought them to him.
I told him sorry about that and hoped that would be the end.  But he just had to push it.  He looked at me over his nose and said, "No apple pies, no napkins, no straws, no ketchup."  (As if he were better than me, and by the way, there was a  straw and napkins.)  I handed him a straw, napkins, and ketchup, apologized again, and told him to have a nice day.  He still wasn't satisfied.  He looked at me over his nose again and said, "Huh, you guys are really messing up today."

That's when I snapped.  I said right back at him, "Messing up?  It looks like you messed up when you bought that car."

So, here's the middle aged man, driving what he thinks is a cool car, trying to show how much better he is than any fast food employee, and the cold truth splashes him right in the face.  For some reason he took offense to that comment instead of taking it with a grain of salt and doing something to remedy it.  Next he told me he wanted to speak to the manager.  I did a quarter turn, turned back, and said, "I'm the manager.  Can I help you?"  He said, "Well, I'm taking you're name down."  I said, "I don't know what good it's going to do you.  You can't get me fired."  Then he said, "Well, I'm going to report you."  I said, "I'm going to report you, too.  To the immigration services."  Wow!  The flabbergasted look on his wife's face was precious.  She said, "You can't say that."  The man finished writing my name down, and left.

Just so there's a sense of closure to this story, about a month later when I only had a few days left, a supervisor approached me and said, "You know, I got this funny phone call.  I don't know the details that lead up to it, but apparently you told somebody they had an ugly car.  Let's try not to do that anymore."  That was the last I heard of the man with the ugly car.  Yes, this is truly a memory that I will treasure for years and years to come.

I'm pretty sure I broke a world record today in running.

Time - 47:51 (avg. pace 8:50)

Splits - 8:38, 8:37, 8:53, 9:01, 8:55, 3:48 for 0.42

Poo poo.

I wasn't feeling too great this morning.  I've got some congestion deep in my lungs.  I hope it's not pneumonia.  I tried to stay just outside of the wheezing realm.

Time - 25:04 (avg. pace 8:22)

Splits - 8:23, 8:25, 8:18

Since Nan ran the 15k National Championships today, I thought it would only be fitting to run 15 miles.  Plus, I think I ran at twice her pace.  So, that's cool.

I took off at about 10am.  It was 75° out.  Of course I didn't pack any water because that's how I roll.  I ran towards the east because that's the direction of the Superstition Mountains and thus uphill.  I ran straight down Broadway and turned around at 7.5.  It's a 200 foot climb there, so I kept telling myself that all I had to do was make it, then cruise back.

At mile 7.2 another guy was running towards me.  He looked like he was moving pretty good, so I gave him a high five.  As I was running I texted my wife that I was at 7.5, so I might as well turn around.  Only I accidently texted Vanessa who is the first V in my phone and Victoria is the 2nd.  At least Vanessa was impressed.  Oh, and the word around came out "crowne."

At mile 8 I stopped at a gas station and used the bathroom.  I drank water out of the sink.  Then at mile 10 I stopped at another gas station to drink out of the bathroom sink.  I knew there was no gas station at mile 14, but I remembered seeing a PowerAde on the side of the road.  Don't judge me.  I was so thirsty people.  I removed the lid and took a whiff.  It smelled okay.  There was about 4 oz. in it.  I downed it in one gulp.  Now I probably have gonorrhea.  At mile 14 I drank from the bathroom sink one more time.  Then I realized how late it was and that I was supposed to be at my Del Sol Ragnar team's celebratory picnic in  a few minutes.  Anyway, I was late, and after spending most of the day in the sun, I'm a beautiful shade of crimson.

Time - 2:22:22 (avg. pace 9:30)

First Half Splits - 9:09, 9:10, 9:26, 9:27, 9:38, 9:33, 9:43, 5:01 (9:52 pace)

Second Half Splits - 8:52, 8:58, 9:10, 9:32, 9:36, 10:02, 10:02, 5:02 (10:16 pace)

4 second positive split.