Friday, March 14, 2008

Still on the fence about tomorrow...

I'm still not sure whether or not to race tomorrow. Sure, if I run then that would be one less race to qualify for the Marathon next year. And yes, I did already hand over a non-refundable, non-transferrable fee of $17 dollars. Yet, it's going to be miserable tomorrow morning, I'm going to have to get there by no later than 6:30am (5am wakeup call), because I have no time today to get my running number. I have to get my kids tonight....etc etc.... lots of excuses, right? Perhaps the best excuse of all is that my left leg is still acting up a bit, and I would rather do a long run, then to do a short explosive one in the slippery road.....Okay, I think I've just made up my mind and I'm going to blow the NYRR8000 off. There's just too many reasons not to run tomorrow, and I am all too familliar that's there's a fine line between competitiveness and blindness. Perhaps my compromise might be to just run with my club both days. Sunday is my first club meeting. I'm actually pretty excited about it. That, and the *bagel* I will probably consume (oh, brother).

My Garmin 305 came with a heart monitor, which I have not used. Until today. Everything's okay, but I am going to use it to see my heart rates at various speeds. If it is true that fat burning is your primary source of fuel when your heart is at 60% of it's max rate, then I need to know what means to me in terms of my speed. The equation for heart max rate is 220 - current age. So my max heart rate is 178. 60% of 178 is 106. Even when I am running slow, I think my rate is at about 120. However, this might have answered the question of why it is I sweat like a pig when I'm using the Stairmaster, which does not require my body to go into overdrive.

I'm going to go to SUNY Farmingdale's track (hoping that it was completed-last year it was under construction), but if not there then I'll just head over to LA Fitness. I'll come back here then to post my progress and prognosis.

Meantime, the Tribeca Film Festival is rapidly approaching. Last year, I just meandered around there, but this year I have a bonafide reason to attend. "Run For Your Life" is a documentary about the life of Fred Lebow, arguably still the heart and soul of the New York Road Runner's Club. Without him, there would be no 5-borough NYC Marathon. I already saw a preview and it looks fantastic as well as ... funny? This might turn out to be a group outing with the Forest Park Road Runner's club, as I found out about this from them on email earler today.


Nothing from You Tube that I can post here just yet, but here's the link to the site and
to the movie preview. The premiere is slated to be held at the Tribeca Film Festival in April.

In other entertainment news:
"Seventeen concert dates on the Van Halen tour are being rescheduled so that Eddie Van Halen, who is currently under doctors' care, can continue medical tests to define a course of treatment," über-promoter Live Nation said in a statement. "The tour will resume on April 19."
Ugghh! Looks like I'll be having extra time to enjoy my corned beef, cabbage, mashed, and Guiness (though I might be leaning on Killean's this year to suffice my quest for Irish suds).
I had great tickets for that concert too. Hopefully, it does get rescheduled, and it's not on a date where I can't go... Else......ebay anyone? My seats are the first section off the floor, dead center, 2nd row!!! Well, at least there's always Billy Joel at Shea this summer. In the meantime, I offer the nastiest picture I can find of Eddie and offer these words...... Eddie, if you fell off the wagon because of your ex's tell-all book, then please get back on. We need you onstage!! Get well soon!

Lastly, it looks as if the NYRR's club has come up with an easy way for it's members (like me) to volunteer for a race. As we all learned last month, we must now volunteer to help out at a race, (in addition to the 9 NYRR, qualifier completed races) in order to gain acceptance at next year's NYC Marathon. I have to say, they've created an excellent API online for this:


La Vie En Rose Starring:Marion Cottiard

This movie was good.

Okay. Let me give you a more descriptive review. This is the true life story of Edith Piaf (Piaf means 'Little Sparrow' in French) and how she grew up in terrible conditions but yet somehow became the toast of Paris. Her voice and her melodies may not suit contemporary tastes, but to the French, she was Elvis back in the 40's. I really liked this movie as the story was well crafted, albeit it did bounce around the timeline a little too liberally. Her acting was fantastic, so I can see easily why she edged Ellen Page in Juno for the Academy Award for Best Actress. I still cling to the fact that Jodie Foster's role in The Brave One, was great, but I also have to admit that there was a bumper crop of fine performances this year, and she might very well have been the 3rd best of the year in the Actress category. Don't worry about the subtitles, this movie is very visually well told, and will have you glued to your chair even after the credits appear. As for foreign films, I still don't understand why The Diving Bell and The Butterfly did so well. Both were French movies, but I must say, this movie was so much better in just about every cat.

Rating: 8 out of 10 Gonzos

And I said to my friend Serge Gilodi, when climbing the last few yards of Mijas Mountain in Spain, back in the summer of '82...... "Viva La France!"

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi ALex,

Great blog!

I'm Fred's Nephew and I'm so happy to hear your reaction to the film!

If you like the trailer you will LOVE this film!!

I have a question for you . Is there an email you can be reached on?

All the best

Moshe

Machine. said...

Hi Moshe,
Sure thing.
It's alexgonzalez0709@aol.com

Take care,

Alex

DGA said...

I have an idea for your next blog. How about a contest to see who can guess how many tons of solid, liquid, and ethereal drugs were consumed by Van Halen between the two pictures shown by you?