The stadium of Olympia, Greece.
Too tired to be stoked about racing, yet Toumazou is hopping around as usual, persuading the idea of a dash as he craftily makes some olive branches into crowns for the winners -- to try to make it real like the ancient Olympics.

We sluggishly take off our stay-puff-marshmellow-man coats and backpacks. Guess you’re only in Olympia so many times in your life, right?

First - the men in the Olympia*. A couple opt for the sidelines, while five of the guys sprint through the stadium at rigorous speeds.

As we watch all the guys run, I was inspired. None of the girls seemed too keen about speed. So I decide to pull the slow-mo card -- instead of taking the let’s-have-an-actual-race-where-we-show-how-outta-shape-we-are route, we should just all run slow-mo without mentioning it to anyone beforehand. No presh on winning. Only slow-mo.

It was crystal clear in my head -- Toumazou would give us the ushe “READY! STEADY! HALOUMI!” [his standard saying] and then we would take off, absolute intensity in our facial expression, yet slower than Christmas.

I talked it up as fast as I could , cause time was atickin’. “Slow-mo, guys!” I could only imagine how funny that would be [there happened to be lotsa tourists around the stadium watchin’ us make fools of ourselves on this particular day]. Others seemed to think the idea was comical as well. I really thought it had the potential to be such a good joke.

To seal the deal, I just keep whispering “Let’s SLOW-MO!” and “Just SLOW-MO, EVERYONE!” to all the girls in a really quiet but fully committed voice. Everyone gives a chuckle of consent and says ok. In my mind, it had only taken moments for this race to go from being a lame-tourist-race to being the funniest joke of the day. No one would ever expect us to slow-mo.

So we trudge out way down to the other end of stadium for the big Heraia**. I’ve murmured “SLOW-MO!” so many times that there’s no way anyone in the race doesn’t know. The atmosphere is a combination of eager to slow-mo-it-up and nervous that I’m not real about the idea. But I make it clear that it’s slow-mo time.

We stand on the old ruins of starting blocks.
Prepare for take off.
Toumazou yells “READY! STEADY! HALOUMI!” [no surprise there]
Everyone takes off, looking in all peripherals to see if other partakers are slow-moing or actually dashing. I soon realize that everyone except for me is bookin’it. Hard core. And I’m running slow-mo in back, but it prolly just looks like I’m abnormally slow. You’d better believe that I’m not letting this stop my joke. Who cares if I am the only one to take this 200m race completely in slow-mo.

I still can’t figure out which is funnier -- the mental image I had hoped for of us all slow-moing. Or the reality of me being the only one to follow through.

Dave Chapelle says everything looks better in slow-mo, and Dave Chapelle is never wrong. I mean never. Seriously.

*name of the ancient race for men
**name for the women’s race in ancient times