That is “beat” as in “surpassed,” not “treated violently.” Newsworthy the moment was because as everyone knows, there are few sports in which I could surpass Lucy.
We were at the company (hereafter referred to as “the company”), our nod to Valentine’s day being to donate blood for people who really needed something special.
We happened to get hooked up at the same time, each of us having a little rubber red heart placed in our left palm, with instructions to squeeze about every two seconds.
Meanwhile, something went wrong when the phlebotomist was hooking up the woman whose blood-doning chair was between ours. The woman yelped and groaned—and she still was not yet connected to the blood letting system. Impressively, she allowed the phlebotomist try the other arm, and finally was able to donate blood.
As the seconds ticked by, I kept my pace meticulously, taking the “about every two seconds” to mean that every 1.5 seconds merited a good squeeze. The effort (or my physical bulk) paid off for the 500ml run:
Louis: 5:58
Lucy: 6:32