Posted By: sandybryant on

Monday, July 21st, 2008, 10:02 am

This has been a summer for movie watching for me, many of them films I've been looking forward to. I've seen Sex in the City, Iron Man, The Hulk, The Fall, Wall*E, the new Indiana Jones film, and this weekend's selections: Mama Mia! and Hellboy II.

Mama Mia! is bad. It is badly danced, the two real romantic leads (Meryl Streep & Pierce Brosnan) can't really sing their parts, and the story is just plain silly. But I guarantee if you go to see this movie you won't be able to wipe the silly grin off your face. Streep throws herself into this role and does a great job even though many of the songs are too much for her limited vocal range. (If they keep it soft and high, she does very well, but drop into her chest voice and you're listening to her croak through the song.) Pierce Brosnan cannot sing at all, something that is evident not just from the noises emitting from his mouth but also from the strain on his face as he's squeezing them out. But you have sympathy for the guy and wonder at his willingness to play a role so ripe for ridicule. In the end, you still wish you were the one kissing him and not Streep. The best scene in the whole movie is The Dancing Queen sequence, which starts as a bedroom dress up and act silly scene and ends with all the women in town dancing down to the docks and jumping into the harbor. Particularly fun is seeing an older woman collecting wood who throwns down her load to join the ladies dancing singing "OH YEAH!"

Hellboy II is very good, and I'd probably be singing it's praises if I hadn't seen Mama Mia! the night before.  It's not as fun as Mama Mia!, but as is to be expected from Guillermo del Toro, the graphics are beautiful. The little commercials on USA and Spike TV give you an idea of the humor of the film (and I say BRAVO to the folks who came up with this ad campaign idea!). The story is touching and funny and action packed. Not as great as the first Hellboy (what sequel is as good as the original?) but certainly is a worthy Part II to the story of Hellboy. And the scene where Red and Abe get drunk and sing Barry Manilow is just hilarious!

As for the rest of the weekend, I had ballet for the first time since the end of May. I'm not sore, but apparently I've already started with the bad habits. Oy, is it gonna be bad when I have to take all of September off (and already have August off) to prepare for the 3 Day! I also led a training walk of 10 miles on Sunday morning. Goodness it was hot, but folks seemed to really like the trail and I may be able to schedule more like this. It's a shame the trail doesn't have more hills on it, but I'd rather make sure folks aren't getting too much sun than worry about varying the terrain.

Tags: 3day, movies, training

Posted By: sandybryant on

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008, 11:58 am

Oooh. I'm being bad about training this week.

I should have walked on Monday but bagged it. Now it's 90 outside and humid.  I guess I'll wait 'til tomorrow night, when at least the temps will be cooling.

Tags: 3day, heat, training

Posted By: mellers on

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008, 5:46 am

I haven't blogged about my last 2 training sessions while I was on holiday in the burgundy region so here is a precis from the Running for fitness and fun board where i have kept my log:

Tags: running, training, holiday, 10k

Posted By: mellers on

Saturday, June 28th, 2008, 6:09 am

Friday 27th June

We had an early start in to Carpentras on Friday to try to avoid the worst of the mid-day and afternoon heat. The market was on and was absolutely huge, but then the town is the capital of the Ventoux Comtat Vennaissin area and the whole town was thronging. Having ambled through the streets in the cool and the shade, we stumbled across a convenient wi-fi hotspot in a shaded park outside the Maison du Pays and posted our blogs and stuff. We then wandered up to the bar & restaurant Les Palmiers for a lovely lunch. The waiter there had to be one of the most obnoxious and self-important people we have even come across.

His attitude of arrogance and superiority towards everyone (customers and other staff alike) was so blatantly indiscriminate that it reached the point of Fawlty-esqe farce! I now know the French for “how do you manage to work with this tosser”. And we spent a happy hour and a half over lunch and a demi carafe of rosé people watching and watching him in particular. It was almost a side-show.

We accidentally incurred his wrath from the word go, when seating ourselves at the only available table in the shade, which happened to be set for 3 people. Of course he moved us immediately to a smaller table for two (which has a reserved flag on it, which is why we didn’t sit there in the first place) and muttered under his breath about people not doing what they were told. The piece de resistance was when a Dutch couple sat in a prime 2-seat “eating-only” terrace table right in front of the place. He immediately confronted them as to whether they would be dining or just drinking as that particular table was only allowed for diners. They confirmed they wanted lunch, at which point he admonished them for daring to sit down without first asking his permission. “Only we are allowed to decide where you sit” he declared!!! Priceless!

Saturday 28th June - Week 4 Session 3 

This morning I ran further and for longer than I have ever run before. 4.4 miles in 48 minutes – woohoo! My route was http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2028545

The session called for 45 mins, which I seemed to manage reasonably easily (very surprised) so I carried on for another 3 minutes, at which point my hip really started hurting quite badly. So I had to stop!

I’m really pleased though that I wasn’t hugely out of breath and my fitness really seems to have improved immeasurably. I’ll never be an amazing speed merchant but it seems I do have the stamina to carry on exercising after quite some time. The only trouble of course is my crappy knee and hip joints which it seems are not built for the same stamina as my cardio vascular system. Too many years abusing them by being overweight, and it seems they were “loose” to start with so that high impact exercise like running doesn’t do them any favours.

I can hope however that I can build on my muscle strength and improve my overall condition. I can see 10k actually being something I CAN achieve.

Running in the early morning like this (7 a.m.) is really very nice indeed. Except for when I was going eastwards towards the rising sun (and couldn’t see a thing!) the views across the countryside were beautiful. Vines and cherry orchards as far as the eye could see, surrounded by Ventoux on one side and the “Dentelles” on the other and the Luberon in the distance covered in early morning haze. It was stunning scenery and a real treat to see it in such temperate weather when I was virtually the only person around.

Tags: running, 10k, holiday, training

Posted By: mellers on

Thursday, June 26th, 2008, 10:22 am

This was scheduled for Sunday 22nd June – our first day in Provence and 2 days since my previous run. I had mapped a handy route covering the last 3 miles of our 900-mile road journey from the outskirts of Carpentras to the campsite itself: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1970679 , thinking I would be itching to get some exercise after 2 days of driving and sitting.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t bargained for the hills and the HEAT!

We arrived at my starting point at approximately 4 p.m. French time and partner dropped me off and drove on to the campsite. The temp was pushing 40°C but I spotted a sprinkler watering a horticultural roundabout display & stopped and soaked myself to cool down! If there had been a bit of shade – and a flat road I might have made it, but unfortunately, while g-mpas is a fantastic tool to plan routes in flat terrain, unless you know the areas really well, hills don’t show up from an aerial photo!

I had driven down this road a few times before but of course you don’t really notice gradients when you are driving. You DO however feel them when you are running in blistering heat and sunshine!

The first 1k was pretty much all uphill with a fairly steep gradient (I’m guessing 5%-8%) and after 10 mins of running I was getting pretty hot. After 15 mins of it, I was thinking I’m not going to make 30 mins and after 16 mins I had almost lost the will to live!

I stopped running then and returned to a brisk walk – still in blazing sun (I couldn’t cross to the shady side of the road as there were no pavements and needed to make sure I could see the oncoming traffic in front of me. Walking on the right with traffic approaching from behind would have been far too dangerous – French drivers take no prisoners!

I hoped  4 mins walk would give me back the muscle power I needed to carry on, but sadly I could only manage a further 2 mins running before thinking I was going to pass out from heat exhaustion. At that point my brain went to a VERY black place indeed and I got really quite scared. I felt like I wasn’t even going to be able to walk the rest of the way (only about 1.5k) let alone run it. I had visions of myself passing out in the middle of nowhere in a foreign country with no way of contacting partner to tell him what had happened! The heat was so intense that I couldn’t even think straight and had already cancelled my planned cycle ride up Mont Ventoux on the Tuesday and any thoughts of any more running while on holiday.

I managed 4 more minutes of running over the next 1.5k to the campsite and the site of my lovely camper van nestling next to the beautiful vineyard next door and the swimming pool behind it was never so welcome. I was shaken, scared and my self-belief in my own fitness had taken a severe psychological battering. The pool and cooling down was all I could think of.

A couple of days later I was thinking more rationally and restored some of my own self-belief by cycling up Mt Ventoux – a notoriously difficult pro-cycling climb, which even killed poor Tom Simpson in the 60’s.

Resolving only ever to do ANY running or cycling in the cool of the morning, I set my alarm for 6:30 this morning (26th June), chose a different and slightly flatter route and even though I was still a bit achy from having climbed the mountain 2 days ago, completed the 30 mins running without the horror story of 4 days ago! No sweat! Well, LOTS of sweat actually - but my faith in myself is slightly restored and now I face the next challenge of 40-45 mins in 2 days time. I’m not particularly looking forward to it though, as I still feel a bit stiff!

Tags: running, heat, 10k, training