Screw You Weir

Is that a good enough title for you?

Actually, I have to do something now that pains me immensely. I find myself in the unenviable position of having to admit that, shockingly and against all odds, Eric Weir was right about something. He successfully predicted my half-marathon time within 32 seconds. He said I'd knock it out in 2 and a half hours and my official finishing time clocked in at 2:29:28. I will add though, that unofficially my time was 2:28:19, which is what I had on my watch. I think the discrepancy is due to my chip activating a little early while I was still behind the starting line. In any case, my time puts me at about an 11:22 min/mile pace, which is truly mindblowing considering that I have been training at right around 12 min/mile and I had never done 13 miles before. What can I say, I guess I'm a gamer. As another pedestrian achievement, I was in fact the fastest Delaney in the race. I don't know who Tony Delaney is; I just know he's 2 minutes slower than me. Anyways, as of today I am officially recommitted to doing the marathon. Looking at my training schedule, it's actually not as bad as I thought. I really only have 4 more hellacious runs to do before the marathon; a 14-miler this weekend, a 16-miler on Sept 2, an 18-miler on Sept 9th, and a 20-miler on Sept 16th. Actually, the whole week of the 16th pretty much sucks, as I'm supposed to run a grand total of 39 miles (5-10-4-20). But after that I get to taper off for 3 weeks before the big race on October 7th.

In other exciting news, Christy and I just bought a new Prius! Actually, more accurately we will be buying it tonight. We went in yesterday and put down a deposit and the car came in today, so we will be picking it up tonight at 7:30. It will be the first new car that either of us have ever owned, and also will be quite an upgrade from our current Sunfire as well as the Escort we owned before that. We had intended to go look at a number of dealerships yesterday but after we saw the Prius we both just really liked it and decided we didn't need to look any farther. One of the cool things that will take some getting used to is the fact that the car does not have any rearview mirrors. It has a camera mounted in the trunk that shows up on a display in front of you. Very strange to back up without looking behind you, but I think the many hours I wasted playing video games will finally pay off!

While recovering from the half-marathon Sunday and yesterday, I finally got around to watching Ben-Hur. That film had the distinction of being the DVD that I have owned the longest without ever watching (~4 years). Overall I can see why the film is a classic and it has held up well almost 50 years after it was made. It is truly amazing to look at all the extravagant sets, costumes, and the sheer number of extras that were used. In modern films when you see ancient cities recreated you just assume that only a small part of it was built and the rest was all CGI. But back then they didn't have any of that so they had to build it all for real. The highlight of the film, of course, is the big 20-minute chariot race 2/3 of the way through the movie. While it lacks the explosions and manic energy of modern action movies, it again just blows your mind that something like this could be done with little to no special effects. I read later that the colliseum where the race takes place was at that time the most expensive and elaborate set ever built and that the whole sequence took over 3 months to film. I also learned that Charleton Heston really had to learn how to drive the chariot and that there is only one stunt in the sequence where a double is used. In any case, the only semi-negative I can say about the film is that it is very in-your-face Christian. Jesus shows up at pivotal points and if you're not a Christian yourself a lot of the revelry and awe that the characters feel and the story expects you to feel just won't be there. But, as long as you know that going in I don't see that as really detracting from the experience.

By the way, if you haven't gotten around to seeing The Simpsons Movie yet I highly recommend it. If you do, stick around for 3-4 minutes after the credits start to roll.