Urinal

Yesterday when I was talking to Scotty on the phone he mentioned to me that I always seemed to find myself involved in bizarre stories, wierd circumstances, and situations that 'normal' people just do not experience. I told him that I do not go out looking for these things, they just sort of happen. In fact, sometimes I get the feeling that when people see me coming their way they just know that they are about to have fun at my expense! And now that I am in a country where I hardly know what is being said around me, I am sure I am even more of a target! And I guess it does not help that most of the time I feed into it because I would rather get a laugh from the situation than let it ruin my day.

But I got off the phone and was thinking, "surely I am no different than anybody else? I am sure everybody has a lot of bizarre stories." Well, I went to bed thinking this, but after what I saw this afternoon, I will have to agree with you Scotty - I just seem to fall into these things. Before I get to the details, let me first jump into the DeLorian and go back about 25 years (this will vary depending on your age). First let me apologize, but only dudes will be able to relate to this little journey with Dr. Emmit Brown.

It is that awkward time for boys (and fathers alike) where the boy is potty-trained to go #1 in the toilet at home but now he is trying to master the public urinal. This is a tough challenge because all the training HAS to take place in the public eye (unless, of course, you have a urinal in your house, but I never knew anyone with this luxury where I grew up). Generally, the public urinal is quite high (especially from a little boy's point of view), so it involves a completely different stance than what you have been learning at home - instead of pointing everything down and IN to the bowl, the first couple years of urinal mastery involve a bit of an arched back and a basic knowledge of physics to figure out the perfect trajectory to land everything in the bowl (and, thus, saving the evening cleaning crew a nasty surprise). Then you always have those few moments of panic as you are about to finish and you realize that the fluid pressure is not what it was when you started and that your shoes WILL be getting a little wet!

All of this is bad enough for a little boy who still has not figured out how to do accomplish this task without pulling his pants and underwear all the way down to his ankles to pee. So, occasionally when we men go into the men's room we are confronted with a little bare bum of a boy trying to master another essential skill of life. It always is worth a chuckle as you "remember when". So, this is all very innocent when you come across a little boy in this situation, but a grown man, at your work?!

Yep, that is what happened to me today. I am thankful that it was only a half-moon but it certainly caught me by surprise. If I wanted to get hooked up with crack today, I am sure that the tranny's (saw 3 today) in Bois de Boulogne could hook me up (without the painful image of the visual burned into my retinas). Speaking of my run, I ran 8 recovery miles with the following splits:

7:23/7:19/7:22/7:21/7:20/7:18/7:15/7:31 min/mile

Here is my usual HR (red) and pace (blue) plot. Please note the slight bursts centered on mile 5 and right before mile 7. Mile 5 was during Britany Spear's "Break the Ice" and mile 7 was a mad dash to get across the Champs d'Alysee before I became road kill.

Here is my route. I include this picture to show 2 things. The Eiffel Tower is at the bottom right. The l'arc de Triomphe is at the top right where ALL the roads lead to (looks like a *).

No running tomorrow. Just some sweet, sweet Pilates.

Later!