Ran, Hit Remix

I did the Nike run yesterday with Dave, Caitlin, Mike, and a friend of Dave's from his ward, Matt. Mike served as Aaron's proxy because Aaron was testing for Costa Mesa Fire people.

Anyway...I ran the 5 miles in about 40 minutes, which isn't terrible. Considering I haven't even run a 5-miler in awhile, and then I haven't even been able to get out and run in the last couple of weeks, I felt alright about that time. Plus we partook of the musical stylings of Naughty By Nature, Sugarhill Gang, and Dawn Robinson of En Vogue along the route so maybe I could have knocked off another minute or two. Sir Mix-A-Lot was beckoning around the last turn churning out his greatest hit Baby Got Back, and even yelling out that he had donuts, beer, and weed and that we should stop running and gain weight with him, but I had to press on that last mile. Although the weed was hard to turn down.

I'm telling you, these races are really fun. They have such a cool energy about them, and then by the time you finish the race it doesn't even feel like you ran for as long or as far as you did. Thanks to Matt, I think he and I practically sprinted that last mile to try and make the 40 minutes because our pace was pretty slow the first part of the race. I totally didn't want to run as fast as he was, but I also didn't want to be left behind like a loser. It also helped bolster my self-esteem passing so many people in the end because we started out with the people on 10-11 minute mile paces. But I especially love this race because you come down into the Coliseum and are on the actual grass of the stadium, you get to run up and out of the steps. It's just all really cool. It's really fun. What was the most fun though was the post-race MC Hammer concert that followed.

Hammer was awesome. My favorite was yelling out stuff to Hammer because for every song he performed, he had some kind of silly intro. It was really funny. I kept yelling out, "Hammer, please don't hurt 'em," but I don't think anyone there realized that phrase is the title of his first record. And I couldn't really tell if he was all that serious or not because he was laughing a good amount about some of the things he'd say. And they would be things from his songs, like when a person was getting up on stage he said, "oh it's alright, he do what he wanna do, say what he wanna say, playa." So awesome.

And why are black people so dang cool? They can say, and dress, and do so many things that no one from any other race could ever get away with. I don't really have any specific examples, but I think you know what I'm talking about. My favorite song was probably 2 Legit 2 Quit. For that one, he started by yelling WE ARE! a couple of times and then did the hand gestures. When he performed it, he yell out "put it up there!" And of course, what the Reverand Hammer says, the people do.

For one of the songs, Hammer asked all West Coast Players who can Cha Cha to come up on stage with him and dance. If you'll click to enlarge on the picture at the right, you'll be able to see our buddy Kent Sommer with the sunglasses just to the right of Hammer. I think Kent and I are living parallel lives because this next week he is planning on going to Muse, and so am I. But adhering to male standard practice, I don't want to start asking him out.

And I'll close with this lovely candid of us outside of the Coliseum. Is that not a whole host of the most delicious man-meat you will ever feast your eyes upon? I challenge you to find better! I think if Greg comes across this post that picture will make him more sorry than anything else that I could have mentioned, that he wasn't able to run it. Peace everyone.