Thursday, October 21, 2010

Movies x 2

Uneventful morning at the track today.  I was almost late because I got pulled over right before I got on the highway.  The officer asked me where I was going and if I was in a hurry.  I knew it wasn't possible that I'd been speeding -- our house is about 1.5 blocks from a traffic light.  Since I turned out in front of a car (the officer's car), I accellerated quickly so the car wouldn't have to slow down, but I knew there was a red light not far in front of me, so I wasn't speeding.  Got to the light, made my right turn, waited at the light to cross the highway and then was about to get on when he flipped his lights.  Apparently I'd made the right turn on red without coming to a full stop.  I had my license and insurance ready to show him, and everything else was current on my car.  He ran my license and didn't even give me a written warning, but gave me a little lecture about being careful.  Which was both lucky for me and well-deserved.  It's so easy to be careless about things like full stops at 5:05 a.m.  Particularly since it's dark out and I trust that I'd see the headlights of any approaching vehicle, so there's no need to really examine carefully whether a car is coming.  Anyway, with that delay, I was running a little late but still made it to the start right before everyone started leaving.  Pitched my granola bar wrapper and took off with the group, but forgot to start my watch.

Ran to the track, then 1600 easy, followed by 800 hard, 400 easy, 800 hard.  And my last 800 was awesome!  The track was crowded and passing people sometimes gives me a burst of extra energy.  It was fabulous.  David said our goal for the 800-400-800 was to finish it all in the same time as Kiran, whose marathon was a week later than ours and was just running 1600 easy.  Didn't accomplish that, but not for lack of trying.  So then we ran another 1600 easy, then 400 hard, 200 easy, 400 hard, 200 easy.  And I sucked.  Neither of my 400s was as fast as any 400 during my 800s!  But I have to remind myself it's no big deal, I'm still recovering and it doesn't matter too much right now.  I don't need to hit any particular times, this is just for fun.  Still it would have been nice to have a couple strong 400s.  Oh well!  Then we ran another 1600 easy, then ran back to our cars.  I haven't done the math (not near my log right now), but I think it was just over 6 miles, which is great. 

Anyway, since the track report was kind of boring, thought I'd mention two movies I've seen this week.  We don't watch movies in theaters very often lately.  Sometimes we go through phases where we do, but it's been a looong time.  It seems like the mainstream releases don't appeal to us that much and then when they do, there are a bunch of idiots in the theater.  Kids going in and out and horsing around, people talking, phones ringing, etc.  But this week we've seen Conviction and 127 Hours.  Both really good! 

Conviction is the one with Hillary Swank where she goes to law school to work on the case of her brother, who was serving a life sentence for murder.  Based on a true story, which makes it even better.  The murder was in Massachusetts in 1980 and I didn't know anything about it, her brother, or her story.  I kind of like movies (and books) where I know very little going in.

127 Hours is the one about the guy who got trapped in a canyon in Utah in 2003.  Another true story and a great acting job since it's largely a one-man show, though there are two women he hikes with early on and then people who are in his flashbacks/thoughts.  I just can't imagine having something like that happen.  It made me think though about always letting people know where I'm going and when I should be back.  Though obviously in Dallas it would seem unlikely that I could get trapped anywhere and not be within shouting distance of another person within at least a day.  I kept thinking about the movie this morning at the track -- thinking about calling my husband to let him know where I was:  hi honey, I'm at the track right now, running my ovals, I'm on the west side and should be on the northern loop in about 25 seconds; hi honey, I'm on the northern part of the track right now, I should be on the eastern side in about 10 seconds; hi honey, now I'm on the eastern side but if I'm not on the southern side within about 25 seconds, you should probably come looking for me...

I can highly recommend both, though of course parts of 127 Hours are a bit gory and graphic. 

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