With a terrible cheesy horror movie and an international action flick, it's time to switch things up a bit and show something that will tug at your heart. I heard about Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son about His Father a few years ago and it was one of the .01% of movies that Mary has watched in its entirety with me, rather than telling me how stupid it is, before promptly leaving the room
The movie is a documentary created by Kurt Kuenne, to honor his murdered friend, Andrew Bagby and to serve as a memory scrapbook for his friends, family and future son. Kurt travels around the United States, interviewing all of Andrew's former friends. However, the documentary also tells about a child custody battle between Andrew's family and his ex-girlfriend/mother of Andrew's son (who also murdered Andrew).
I don't want to give too much information and I know that description was terrible but it's definitely a movie you just need to see. And like Battle Royale, you can also find this movie on YouTube.
Monday: 4.4 miles (6:37); Also got some Graston treatment. The lateral side of my heel was hurting a ton. Very sharp, stabbing pain.
Tuesday: 4 miles; 6 miles Wednesday: 4.6 miles (6:47); 4.5 miles (7:11) Thursday: 3.4 miles (6:49); 7.5 miles (6:34) Friday: 3.7 miles (6:59); 4.9 miles (7:27); Got some more Graston today. Didn't really hurt at all Saturday: 8.3 miles with 10k race. I did 2.1 miles warm-up and then the 10k. My time was 34 something but I feel like the course was short because it seemed like I was running over 6:00 pace the second half. Took it very easy and won by a little over eight minutes. No achilles/heel pain
Sunday: 8 miles (7:02) Week Total= 59.3 miles. Achilles/heel is much better this week. The last time I felt some pain was the last couple of miles on my 2nd run Tuesday. I don't know how things turned around so quickly? Graston? Night splint? Cissus supplement? The plan is now to spend a few weeks slowly adding some hard workouts and hopefully be in my pre-injury shape in about six weeks. I signed up for the Houston Marathon, so right now, I have my sights set on that one.
Last year, I had to duke it out with Jef Scott and I really was hoping he wouldn't show up this year. If he did, it would take everything I had in me to have a chance at beating him and I really didn't want to have to run that hard today. I just got back to easy jogging this week and have barely even dipped under 7:00 pace on my runs. I knew running 5:00 pace would not be a good idea.
For my warmup, I did a lazy 2.5 miles or so and didn't even run any strides, in fear of stressing my achilles. Fortunately, there were only about 30 people there and it seemed like I would be able to get the win again this year.
I accidently left my watch at home, so I wouldn't have any idea on my pacing. I decided to keep a medium type effort and run around 5:45-6:00 pace. There's nothing really interesting to put here. I was alone the whole time and the only things of note that took place was smelling a strong odor of Old Spice cologne and a half-mile later, passing an old man walking on the greenway, who smelled strongly of Old Spice cologne.
A little bit later, I saw a man walking backwards up the hill. For a brief, fleeting moment, I had a strong desire to tabletop him but the last thing I need is a lawsuit on my hands.
I ended up winning by around eight minutes in 34:46. The effort was nice and relaxed but I felt really rusty and out-of-shape. I have a long road ahead of me.
I spent another late Saturday night scrolling through Netflix, trying to find a movie to watch. I probably spend more time scrolling for movies and looking them up on rottentomatoes.com than I actually do watching the movie I picked. Harry Brown looked decent, and I wasn't in the mood to watch a Korean horror flick, so I decided to give it a go.
Harry Brown is about an old guy who likes doing old guy things...walking in the park, playing chess, and talking about the good ol' days with his friend. He lives in an area with your typical English punks: bad dental hygiene and worse attitudes. Drug dealing and violence runs rampant, which has made everyone in area fearful for their safety.
Harry's wife was in a coma and on his way to visit her in the hospital, he has to take the long way, due to his fear of the gangs. Before he gets there, she dies. After Harry's BFF gets killed by some of the gang members, he's had enough. He resorts to his former military hero background and goes vigilante style on them, without a Batman mask. The movie has a decent story line, has good action and it's always fun to watch loud-mouthed Brits get beat up by an old man.
Monday: 4.6 miles (6:43); Went to Nashville Running Company to see Chris Scoma for a free injury screening. He said my back was on lockdown on the right side, which is causing a lot of issues with my nerves. He didn't say much about the achilles because he felt everything correlated to my back issues. I'll probably go in for a visit on fall break
Tuesday: 6.4 miles (6:49)
Wednesday: Went to Middle Tennessee Spine and Joint to get a different perspective on my issues. I saw Elizabeth Hicks, who felt that I have some weak glutes and tight hip flexors on my right side, which is causing too much pronation with my right foot. I've noticed for years that my right foot has had issues, while my left foot has a pretty decent footstrike. The hip/glute issue was most evident when I was asked to do a one-legged squat with both legs. I had perfect form on my left but with my right, my knee collapsed inward after going down a few degrees. The collapsing knee results in a collapsing foot. I got some ART on my back and some Graston on my achilles. I've heard good things about Graston with tendon injuries, so hopefully it will help out. It was definitely a painful experience; .1 miles. Achilles hurt way too much. Dr. Hicks said there would be increased inflammation, so I stopped the run.
Thursday: 1.6 miles (7:23). Had a lot of tension and pulling on my heel/achilles. Maybe I could have gone further, but I wanted to play it safe.
Friday: .6 miles (7:15) Too much achilles pain. Hoping this is still a result from the Graston, instead of the injury becoming worse; 4.6 miles (6:54) I was surprised I was able to manage this. Ran pain free until about three miles, then the last couple of minutes, it got to the point where I knew I needed to stop. I heated before I ran, so maybe that helped things out. Found a killer knot in my posterior tibialis, so I spent a ton of time rolling and massaging it. Knots there can refer pain to the achilles, so hopefully it loosens things up.
Saturday: 3.4 miles (6:50)
Sunday: 5.3 miles (6:34)
Week Total= 26.5 miles. Lowest week in a very long time. It felt like things were getting better but I couldn't get out there as much as I wanted to. The first Graston session set me back for a couple of days but hopefully it will speed up my return. It was frustrating seeing so many fast times at Chicago, along with the USA 10 Mile Championships, while I sit on the disabled list. I'm hoping I can knock this out within 1-2 more weeks and hopefully find a marathon in early/mid January. I need to find some good exercises for my hips/glutes to get things more aligned. Also started a supplement called Cissus. I've heard mixed things on it but I figured I would at least give it a shot.
For this week's pick, I'm adding a little bit of international flavor. I've heard about Battle Royale for a couple of years but never really got around to watching it. I'm surprised it took me so long to get around to it because Quentin Tarantino lists it as his favorite movie of all-time. He even said, "If there’s any movie that’s been made since I’ve been making movies that I wish I had made, it’s that one."
Last year, I read The Hunger Games and really enjoyed it. It was written really well, the author did a great job of making you feel connected to the characters and it really made you use your imagination I watched the movie a month or two ago but wasn't impressed. Everything was rushed, character development was terrible and they left out so many smaller aspects about the story.
But that's how movies made from books usually go for me. I was a huge Harry Potter dork and to this day, it's far and away my favorite book series. However, I never cared for the movies and only saw the first couple. Stephen King movies were pretty terrible and don't even get me started on the Dean Koontz movies. However, the Lord of the Rings series were great books and movies. People always say you should read the book before the movie, but I feel the opposite is true. If you read the book first, you spend the whole movie gripping about everything they got wrong. If you watch the movie first, you are potentially impressed with what you see and then reading the book takes it to an entirely different level.
But anyway, yeah, Battle Royale is the movie of the week. I used to believe this was a manly version of the Hunger Games but since the Hunger Games is a total rip-off, I would call the Hunger Games a sissy version of Battle Royale.
I don't want to give any spoilers, but there are so many similarities between the two movies. In Battle Royale, people revolt against the government, so the government decides to put them in their place. It becomes an official military project used to scare people from revolting ever again. A class is selected to compete in the Battle Royale. A to-the-death competition on an island where they are given three days to find a victor. If the fighting isn't over after three days, everyone dies. As mentioned, there are so many similarities between the movie, it's insane. One battle scene in the Hunger Games is almost a carbon copy of a scene in Battle Royale. And when the movie is over, there is another strong similarity.
Some people may be put off by the subtitles, but with this type of movies, it's not an issue at all. It easily captures your attention and after watching this movie, you'll never want to see the Hunger Games again. And even better, the full movie is also on YouTube. Sayonara.
Wednesday: 5.6 miles (6:56); 6.1 miles with 3.1 miles barefoot
Thursday: 5 miles (6:58); 3.8 miles with 1.2 miles barefoot
Friday: .5 miles (7:49). Back was insanely tight and painful; .04 miles Holy crap, my back was hurting
Saturday: 6.8 miles (7:31);.1 miles. Back strikes again
Sunday: 7.5 miles (6:37); 4 miles (7:01)
Week Total= 64.7 miles. Originally, I was hoping to be in the 80s. My achilles had its good days and bad days. I added some barefoot running in order to stretch and strenghthen it but the second day in a row of it made it flare up pretty badly. I don't know what happened with my back. It would completely lock-up and hurt really badly. I can limp through some miles but I couldn't run with that. If I can get in the 80s with a moderate run or two, I'll sign up for CIM (as long as the flight is refundable). If I can't do CIM, who knows?
