Adventures in Running

In a self-imposed initiative, I’ve decided to transform myself into a more serious runner.  That isn’t to say that I’ve never been a runner until now.   You’re looking at a guy who anchored a 4X400 relay in 8th grade track and field.  In high school I even prided myself on being one of the fastest guys on every sports team I played on.   But, soon thereafter I got to college and realized that playing three varsity sports in high school heaped all sorts of unrealistic expectations on me.   Everyone wanted me on their intramural team, because three varsity sports?  This guy must be a tremendous athlete!  A high-school superstar!

It’s a nice thought, but it wasn’t long into the intramural soccer or softball season that people would suddenly see me for who I really was: at best, a mediocre athlete.  One detail about my high school that I forgot to mention?  I graduated with a whopping 86 classmates – sadly, a fact that made us one of the larger high schools in the state of Vermont, but also a fact that privileged any kid with a pulse and a pair of cleats to play a varsity sport.   But, back to running…

Throughout my life – and even in those glory days of my Eighth-grade hundred meter dashes – I never once considered myself a long distance runner.  You see, to play three varsity sports at such a tiny high school, you didn’t really have to push yourself to great physical lengths.  In practice I ran the wind sprints, ran the occasional timed mile, but dreaded anything that required more than one lap around the field.  I just wasn’t a long distance guy.  And that’s something I hear quite often, “I don’t do long distances.”  For nearly 28 years of my life, that was my suspicion of myself.  Why?  Because running long distances is hard, it provides resistance, and therefore, I’d never done it, so it must not be for me. 

After college, I’d run to keep healthy, but I’d run one, maybe two… and on that rare occasion… three miles. 

Then one day last fall, as I ran along Lake Michigan, something came over me… or perhaps it’d be more accurate to say that something didn’t come over me.  I didn’t have any nagging urge to stop.  And when I found a second wind, it seemed nearly effortless to just… keep going.  I ran six miles – nearly twice the distance I’d ever challenged myself to run in my entire life.  

What was this strange alignment of stars that allowed my feet, my lungs to push forward?  Had I suddenly become a ‘long-distance’ runner without knowing it?  Perhaps it was just a series a factors – the weather, my mood, relaxed muscles, etc.- that had made this run possible?  By breaking down and examining all of these factors, I figured I could try to understand how to make these six-mile runs the norm for a guy who never thought he was a long-distance runner.

Here’s all the preventative factors that I found would shorten or prematurely halt my runs:

1) Sore muscles, pains, etc.  I’d soon find out, after a trip to a physical therapist, that some of these pains in my knees were attributed to tendonitis.  The solution?  Oddly enough, fixing a pain generating from below my knee could be cured by doing a series of ‘rubber-band’ exercises that strengthened seemingly unrelated muscle groups – such as a hip flexor.  The bottom line is that running is tough on the body in general, but your muscles and joints are more prepared to handle the load of running when you supplement running by strengthening your core and peripheral muscle groups.  Running requires a lot more muscle activity than just your quads and your calfs.  They’re all connected, so a weak set of muscles in one part of the body is going to put more stress on a set of muscles in another part of the body.  

2) Itchy skin.  This one sounds stupid, but sometimes the dumbest factors can force you to stop, or make your run generally less enjoyable.  For me, it was a simple matter of dry/sensitive skin, that made my legs itch so much that sometimes I’d be forced to stop my run to avoid the discomfort (agony).  A little intuitive planning – like using a dab of moisturizer was all it took to cure the problem.  Now if I could just learn to tie my shoes properly.

3) Music or lack thereof.  Sadly, running can be boring for some.  Sometimes a nice soundtrack can help spruce it up.  Charge up that iPod and load it full of music.  Make sure you’ve got the right playlist.  Investigate what motivates you to run and keeps you running.  Some music just triggers the right chemicals in my brain that pushes me to keep going.  Sometimes, I’ve found the best music comes when I take my headphones out and can hear the birds chirping, or the cool breeze whizzing past my ears… the sweet music of one of my favorite bands called Mother Nature… 

4) The biggest prohibitive factor I found to prevent me from longer runs?  Treadmills.  Sure, it’s nice to have a treadmill kicking around when it’s 16 degrees out and there’s 11 inches of snow on the ground, but nothing beats the real thing.  Running is an adventure that stimulates the brain as much as it stimulates the body- an adventure that you really can’t have when you’re running in the same place.  Not only does running outside keep things fresh, but think of it this way…  On a treadmill, you can stop at any time.  You start to get bored… the episode of Fear Factor you were watching just went to commercial break… that lady at the gym has been eyeing your machine with a disapproving scowl… there’s lots of easy reasons to just quit.  But when you run outside, you can force longer distances on yourself.  Want to run 10 miles today?  Easy.  Run five miles away from home, and unless you want to spend half a day walking back, you HAVE to run that extra five miles.  You don’t really have a choice!  Try doing that on a treadmill.

5) Reluctance to walk.  I’m not really sure why I’ve had any aversion or seen shame in walking, but I just always assumed that when I stopped running, I was finished.  On a treadmill, it’s easier to just press ‘STOP’ then it is to slow down and start back up again.  But, in reality, when you’re tired, the best way to improve your endurance for future runs is to walk a bit to catch your breath and then keep going.  You’ve still got plenty of juice left in the tank, you just might need a second.  Sometimes after just a mile or two I need a short break, but I end up running several more miles.  Cut yourself a little slack, refresh, and keep going.  Rather than just running until you think you’re spent, give yourself a time limit.  Block off an hour for running, and then just walk in short spurts as needed.  

With a little pre-run preparation, I found it’s rather easy to limit extraneous factors that slow me down or make it easier to quit.  By allocating at least an hour for running I’ve allowed myself to maximize my running potential.   We’ll see if I can make myself a long distance runner yet.

Top Films of 2008

Just in time for the Oscars, I give you my Top Films of 2008 under the naive assumption that you might actually care what I think.  I’ve been trying to squeeze in as many contenders as possible so that explains why my list comes so deep into 2009.  Below are my top twenty films of the year, listed in order of their impact and effect on me as a movie-goer.   As a viewer I hope to be engaged, educated and most importantly entertained, so my list reflects that. 

 

(As a brief disclaimer, I wasn’t able to see everything, but I think I put in a good effort.  Here is a quick list of some notable films I was not able to catch in 2008, which should help explain why any one of them is not present in my list: W, Vicky Christina Barcelona, Rachel Getting Married, Gran Torino, The Changeling, Mamma Mia, Kung Fu Panda, The Wackness, Religulous, Let the Right One In, Happy-Go-Lucky, Seven Pounds, Hancock, Waltz With Bashir, Australia, JCVD, American Teen, Pineapple Express, Bolt, Time Crimes, Surfwise, The Bank Job, Cadillac Records, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, I’ve Loved you So Long and The Class.)

Without further ado, we jump right in at #20…

20. IRON MAN

Robert Downey Jr. is back.  While I like the fact that the academy is bold enough to nominate him for a movie as goofy as Tropic Thunder, I can’t help but disagree with the nomination.   But Downey Jr. is instrumental in putting Iron Man on his shoulders.  While it helped raise the bar dramatically for ‘superhero’ movies, Iron Man  is still a movie with its flaws and for my money, is buried in the shadow of The Dark Knight. 

 

19. TRAITOR

Flying just under the radar this year, comes another cleverly plotted thriller about espionage, terrorism and the middle east (see also #14 below).  Traitor is a fun ride, that will be even more fun the less you know going in.  We’ve got Cheadles!!! What more can you ask for?

 

18. THE VISITOR

A really small film that’s totally worth looking into. A grumpy college proffessor returns home to a New York City condo that he’s hardly used since the death of his wife to find a pair of illegal immigrants living in it. From Tom McCarthy, the writer-director of The Station Agent comes a terrific starring vehicle for Richard Jenkins (Six Feet Under, Step Brothers, Burn After Reading) to finally shine as a leading man.  One of the best performances of the year.

 

17. TRANSSIBERIAN

Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer play an American couple on a train journey from China to Moscow.  As the couple travels through a foreign and seemingly lawless land, they become involved in an investigation of drug smuggling and murder as a Russian narcotics detective – played by Ben Kingsley –  boards their train.  Transsiberian works a perfect balance between cleverly conceived plot and beautifully painted characters.

 

16. DOUBT

A movie I really wanted to love that just fell a little short for me, Doubt features a handful of homerun performances to be expected from the likes of Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Meryl Streep and Amy Adams.  But perhaps it was the marketing of the film that doesn’t allow it to be a complete success.  I felt like I left the theatre without seeing anything more than I had seen in the film’s 30-second TV spots.  While it was all very good, I can’t really place my finger on it except to say that I had hoped for a little more.   

 

15. THE DUCHESS

Studying a bizarre love triangle and the gender-politics of 18^th century England, The Duchess is a movie I enjoyed exponentially more than I presumed I would.  Keira Knightly plays the Duchess of Devonshire wonderfully- a woman who in modern times would’ve been a tabloid poster-child. The only thing I found unrealistic about her performance was that after birthing three children she still looks like a skeleton in a coat of skin.

 

14. BODY OF LIES

All the right pieces are there:  Ridley Scott directing, Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio starring, and an excellent script from one of the best writers in the business-  William Monahan (The Departed, Kingdom of Heaven).  Yet, for some reason, this movie seemed to be absolutely forgotten by the end of the year.  Perhaps it was released too early in the year?  Perhaps we’ve seen one too many movies on the subject matter?  Or maybe it is really just a good movie and not a great one… I found Body to be a wonderfully executed film with some great thrills and twists, but the one thing that I couldn’t get past, was just how silly and one-dimensional Russell Crowe’s character seemed to be.

 

13. NICK AND NORAH’S INFINITE PLAYLIST

In spite of its fun indie-soundtrack, Infinite Playlist ends up stumbling down familiar, by-the-numbers, romantic comedy roads.  But it’s still a really fun road to travel down… at least when Michael Cera is riding shotgun.  This kid can really do no wrong.   He is just a tremendous, awkward, bundle of joy.  I’ll throw down my ten bucks for any movie this kid is in. 

 

12. FROST / NIXON

I typically am not a fan of Ron Howard movies.  A lot like Clint Eastwood films for me, they often come across as by-the-numbers award-season fodder.  Cinderella Man, Da Vinci Code, even A Beautiful Mind all fall flat for me.  But Frost/Nixon is told with a great sense of style and is cast perfectly.  Frank Langella is merely unfortunate to be up against Mickey Rourke this season because his performance as Richard Nixon is deserving of great accolade.  This is my favorite Ron Howard movie yet.  (Can’t wait until he directs a feature Arrested Development!!!)

 

11. SLUMDOG MILLIONARE

Not in the top ten???  Not in the top ten???  Slumdog may have connected with enough people to become the award-season darling, but it just didn’t connect to the same degree with me.  It’s a really fun and inventive movie that I had a great time watching, I just wasn’t able to invest in the characters as much as I’d have liked.  And I didn’t really take much away from a story told with fairytale logic.  Congrats to Danny Boyle- one of my favorite directors- for what looks like could be an Oscar night sweep.

 

10. SYNECDOCHE, NY

 

This movie will hurt your brain, let that be known up front.  Charlie Kaufman has written some of my personal favorite and most precious films in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Adaptation.  Synecdoche is Kaufman’s first attempt at directing and while it’s a very valid one, this is a film that will most likely alienate the vast majority of its audience.  This film is so layered and complex, one might argue that it makes no sense at all.  While the movie seems very intent on causing disconnect with its audience, it still is rich with thought-provoking imagery and ideas.  

 

9. THE READER

Set in Post-Holacaust Berlin in the 50’s and 60’s in a time when people apparently didn’t wear clothing, The Reader serves as a very powerful film laced with rich symbolism and difficult moral questions.  Kate Winslet – who wears clothing for roughly 10 percent of her time on screen – pulls off a very interesting transformation, that along with her work in Revolutionary Road this year has garnered much deserved praise. 

 

8. MILK

While it’s a pretty standard bio-pic, Gus Van Sant manages some fantastic performances from Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, and James Franco.  The result is a moving experience with an important message that could’ve been useful a few months earlier (in time for the Prop 8 vote in November).  But alas, it still can serve as a humanizing portrayal of some of the original members of a movement that is struggling for equal rights today.

 

7. THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON

Much has been made of this movie’s failures and shortcomings…  and no question, it is full of them.  While Brad Pitt’s Button is a masterful example of visual effects, his character seems thin as… well… as a button.  At many points his character seems almost like a foil for the film’s concept and for the first hour or two the film really seems to meander in pursuit of a theme.  Is it a film about embracing our differences?  It is a film about making the most of life?  The film’s redemption for me is that towards its end- just like its main character- it decides what it wants to be when it grows up (or is it… grows down?).  When this movie finally starts to put it all together, it eventually manages a moving and powerful conclusion.

 

6. MAN ON WIRE

 

In 1974, a Frenchman set out in the ultimate pursuit of love.  But this love story isn’t about a woman, so much as it revolves around a man and his dream- his goal to accomplish what any sane person would say was impossible.  He would (illegally) traverse a tight rope between the two towers of the World Trade Center.  The documentary follows his quest as if you were following a bank heist as Phillipe Petit and his team infiltrate security, smuggling in equipment in preparation for the big day…  a true testament to life, love and the pursuit of one’s dreams.

 

5. DEAR ZACHARY

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.  This small-production begins as a labor of love from one friend to another.  A filmmaker salutes his childhood friend who has recently been murdered by a deranged ex-girlfriend, by traveling the country and interviewing everyone who had ever known him.  Dear Zachary is forced to evolve as the situation continues to complicate itself.  That ex-girlfriend who killed the documentary’s main character?  She flees to Newfoundland, untouched by the law and is now pregnant with his child (Zachary).  Don’t bring tissues.  Bring buckets.

 

4. WALL-E

Why is it that the best love story of the year comes in the form of a robot who doesn’t speak a word?  This seemingly huggable robot is like Pixar’s thesis presentation that displays this studio has not only started a revolution in the world of animation, but in all of cinema as well.  After Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Ratitouille, WALL-E is proof that Pixar is a vehicle firing on all cylinders.   I’ll be greatly looking forward to Up – the next Pixar feature in the queue, and is there any question it’ll be another success?

 

3. REVOLUTIONARY ROAD

One of my favorites quotes comes from filmmaker Akiri Kurusawa saying that, “In a mad world, only the mad are sane.”  It seems very fitting then that the only character in Revolutionary Road who really seems to understand the plight of the Wheelers is a recently discharged mental patient.  The battles they go through with everyday suburban normalcy may be an incredibly relatable for some, while others may say this film is bitter and pessimistic. Its makers (Directed by Sam Mendes, the film was originally a novel by Richard Yates written in 1961) should be applauded for its bold, yet necessary statement that is no less applicable today then it was when the film was set in 1955.

    

2. THE DARK KNIGHT

What more can be said of The Dark Knight?  In spite of the box office numbers, critical acclaim and buzz surrounding both Heath Ledger’s amazing performance and untimely death, The Dark Knight seemed to fade just out of reach of Best Picture Oscar contention by year’s end.  Certainly Heath Ledger will be awarded his post-mortem Oscar for Best Supporting Oscar, but it seems unfortunate that nobody in the Academy quite had the [guts] to throw Batman his due nod.  Christopher Nolan has composed a film with top-notch acting, directing, cinematography, screenplay, and the list goes on and on.  This film was a success in everything it set out to accomplish and shattered the expectations of what we expect from a ‘superhero’ movie.  Unquestionably the most exciting, breath-taking piece of entertainment we’ve seen all year, The Dark Knight doesn’t ask you to check your brain at the door.  For my money, this film has just as much to say or is as equally valid a work of art as any of the actual Academy Award nominees.

 

1. THE WRESTLER

The other man in tights… Only so often does a movie this potent and brutally honest come along.  Beneath all the grime and dirt is a film so pure, moving and real.  It almost seems as if Mickey Rourke’s life was meant to be filled with turmoil so he could one day play this role.  The result is perfection.  The Wrestler is simple, but executed with the utmost precision.  Thanks to Mr. Rourke and Mr. Arronofsky we’ve been given a bittersweet masterpiece—a hammer-on-the-head portrayal of an entertainer well past his prime.  The final scene in the deli is powerful and perfect- it’s exactly why I go to the movies.   Mickey Rourke gets my Best Actor vote hands down, and a special nod to Bruce Springsteen for creating a song that so perfectly captures the spirit of this film.  And of course… this is the Best Film of 2008.

To the Gentleman with no inner-monologue sitting behind me in an empty movie theatre

Dear Sir,

Recently while I attended a matinee of the Oscar-nominated film The Reader, it became apparent early on of your malicious intent to ruin an anticipated movie experience for me.  In spite of being presented with the limitless possibilities of an almost empty theatre on a Monday afternoon, you and your friend decided to sit directly behind me, quite close enough to smell the Sno-Caps and jalapeno-seasoned popcorn on your breath.  As the trailer reel rolled, you talked throughout, and if I’d known the talking wouldn’t be the worst of it, I’d have been smart to move to the opposite corner of the theatre then and there.

 

But I stayed, and what started out bad with the talking only got worse.  You see, your entire movie experience was dictated outwardly to the world through a series of annoyingly audible reactions.  It seemed as if every response triggered inside of your head, found its way out of your mouth in the form of speech or worse- overtly noisy, reactionary groans.

 

While I judge movies on the merit that they’ve initiated some sort of reaction in me, it is a reaction that I’m able to confine within the boundaries of my brain.  You see, I have a little something I like to call ‘will power’. When I feel an emotion or reaction bubbling up inside of me… I concentrate really, really hard and re-direct that crazy sensation so that it stays inside my head.  It’s not easy, but once, when I was about two years old, I developed these things called motor skills and was able to hone this unique set of skills to the point that I had control over what comes out my mouth and what does not.

 

Perhaps sir, we should back up just a little.  I’m in no way advocating that people aren’t open with their reactions in movie theatres.  I mean, comedies require laughter, right?  And laughter is infectious.  Sometimes seeing a comedy in a group actually makes it even funnier.  Hearing others laugh informs and validates our own laughter and relaxes us so that we can have a good time and are more comfortable to laugh ourselves.  Horror movies operate in a similar manner.  Heavy tension and big scares typically generate a response in most people- gasping, jumping out of their seat, clutching the hand of the loved one sitting besides us- it’s all part of the game, and that’s what makes those movie experiences fun.

 

But, The Reader was neither a comedy nor a horror film, and while we can bend the rules a little bit to allow for some genuine audible reactions in a dramatic film… I found no excuse or patience for your supplementary soundtrack.  Every time there was a twist in the film, you kindly pointed it out to your neighbor.  Which is a good thing, because the filmmakers were careless and didn’t bother spelling out all of the film’s subtext.  Frankly, if you weren’t sitting right behind me, sir, I’m not sure I would’ve been able to follow it all by myself. 

 

And even though the woman to my left answered her ringing phone and carried on a two-minute conversation throughout a really tense moment in the film, it wasn’t even half as ridiculous as some of the noises that came from your mouth.

 

When it wasn’t a running play-by-play commentary on what was transpiring on screen, (at one point you lean in to your neighbor with the astute observation that, ‘in the last scene it was raining, and now, in this scene… it is snowing’.) it was a continual series of moans, gasps and sighs that dictated to the entire theatre your specific emotional reaction during every given second of the film.  In particularly moving scenes your moans would crescendo into an emotional, “oh boy… Oh Boy… OHHH BOY!”  While your inability to control these emotional outbursts at any point during the film had me questioning whether the person behind me was watching a movie or being waterboarded. It was clearly a difficult experience for you, sir, as there were a few points during the film when the focused breathing behind me sounded like something one might expect from a hospital delivery room.

 

Perhaps your most shining moment came towards the end of the film [Minor, minor spoiler alert] in a scene where Ralph Fiennes is reunited with his former lover Kate Winslett.  The film has set up that her character refers to him as ‘kid’ in their past encounters, and at a point in this scene it becomes apparent that she is about to call him ‘kid’ once again, even after all these years.  As we build up to this big moment, you see it coming- the clever movie watcher that I’ve discovered you to be- and you just don’t know what to do with all these messy emotions and nostalgic recollections of what happened forty minutes ago in the movie, so you start shouting, “Nooo…. Nooo… Noooo….” And Kate Winslet says it – ‘kid’ – you just can’t take it and voice trembling, you wail, “Ohhhh God!!!”  [end spoiler alert]

 

I know you saw me.  Polite at first, my stares weren’t checking in or making sure that you were okay.  I was making eye contact to tell you to ‘shut the hell up.’  As a general rule of thumb, when someone is sitting in front of you in a movie theatre and makes a continued effort to turn around the complete 180 degrees it takes to look you in the eye- it’s safe to assume that you are doing something wrong… perhaps even inapropriate?  At one point, I questioned my own intentions in looking back.  After all, what if you suffered from sort of unfortunate disorder… This guy could have turrets, I thought to myself.   

 

Okay, so now I’m the asshole?

 

See the problem with your actions is that as you boisterously whimpered away through the final thirty minutes of the film, (like a child who can’t decide whether or not to cry after dumping their ice cream on the sidewalk) it created an unfavorable movie experience for me – adverse to the one you so clearly were able to have.  Your obnoxious sighing was a constant reminder that I was, in fact, just watching a movie.  Movies after all, are just a lie, and good movies are really good when they trick us into forgetting that it’s all a lie.  When one is really good, we invest in the characters and believe for a moment that they are real.  We are sucked in and feel the emotions that they feel and experience the joys and tragedies alongside them as if they were happening in the real world right next to us.  But this past Monday afternoon the only thing happening right next to me was… well… you. 

 

To quote Fight Club, ‘your lie reflected my lie,’ and thanks to you, I was robbed of ever having a powerful emotional reaction to The Reader that may have been possible… had you NOT had a powerful emotional reaction.  Sir, I wonder if next time you engage in a running dialogue with the movie you’re watching, it will occur to you that the movie is not responding back to you personally.  I wonder if when you stand to your feet and clap as the credits roll, you understand that none of the filmmakers responsible for this film are present to accept your applause.  Sir, most of all, I wonder if next time you plan on sitting behind me at the movies… you might just wait until it comes out on DVD.