Avatar 3D Review

So I went to go see the movie Avatar over at Ronnie's in South County on Tuesday night. First time I have ever been to that theater, and must say I was pretty impressed! One of the biggest theaters I have ever seen, and they sell beer there too! - not very cheap, but a cool option to have. The movie was pretty good, but I was more impressed with the visual effects. Plot line was decent, but was choppy at parts. My friend Dave best described it as a "Dances with Wolves" type movie (very accurate), and he made a point that he found it hard to become emotionally attached to the characters, which after some thought I agreed with. I'm glad I saw it, but not one of the best movies I have ever seen. Special effects were pretty amazing though, and it gets pretty intense! And if you do want to go see it to see all the hype, I emphatically recommend seeing it in 3D - pretty amazing stuff. And don't drink more than 1-2 beers, the 3D will absolutely destroy you!

Because of working late on Tuesday, and the absurd length of the movie, I got in 0 miles!!!! This is not the end of the world, since I will just switch my off day with Friday, and do something light then. Yesterday night, got home from work, finally had some good weather (sunny and 40's), so put on the shoes to get in a run. Did an out and back through Glen Carbon, since the trails still had some snow on them. Thought I felt good, so wanted to go hard. Was pushing the first mile, but was pretty demoralized when I saw the first mile split - not very fast at all. Intentionally slowed it down, but must have picked it up because my 2nd mile split wasn't too far off the first one. Tried to push through the next couple miles, but hit more crappy times and just felt that deadened leg feeling. Last mile, said "eff it" to myself and wanted to end strong. Kicked the last quarter for a faster last mile time, but overall not good given the effort. Not my day, and I realized afterwards that my lack of running in December really killed me. Kind of mad at myself, since I was doing much harder workouts not too long ago, and hopefully just a really bad day. Time to get back on the track! Did 1 mile cooldown back home, stretched, minor corework. Total mileage: 6 miles - splits were (wore my Timex instead of Garmin, so these are rough estimates): 6:52, 7:16, 7:02, 7:08, 6:26.

So I will be in Denver next weekend, and Tim and I signed up to run the Fast and Flurry-ous 4 mile race over in Boulder. I am clearly not in good speed shape, so don't know what to expect. Factor in the altitude (killed me last August when I was running out there) and I'm sure a crazy Saturday night, so most likely not going to be setting the world on fire so will treat as a good workout run. Looks like a really competitive race, so can work on race tactics while I'm there. Figured out my tentative race schedule leading up to Boston - really wanted to do a half marathon, but will not fit in but found a couple local races in March that I ran last year that will be great spring tuneups - Top of the Hibernian 5K (great local race, I believe first major 5K on the Illinois Metroeast side), and St. Patrick's Day Parade Day run (one of the top STL races, brings out the best of the best, and awesome to see the Big River Running group in full force!). I'm doing a couple week mileage buildup, then following a Hal Higdon 12 week Boston Marathon schedule, mixed in with speed work from a program that my buddy Ben from Big River sent me. So it will be intense, but I'm determined to jump to that next level as a runner in 2010!