The Awakening of the Panther:
So far, my "desperate training" has been a success, as has been validation of my theory that I have a storehouse of unspent "running capital." I went from running 3-6 miles/week to running 27 miles from last Monday through Saturday. I was a little sore after the first day, but not after that. Each of the three seven mile runs on which I went got successively easier and faster, as (I believe) my muscles & body more or less remembered their previous form & flow, and settled in. Oh, and remember me mentioning that my previous time in running was 56-54 minutes for 6-7 miles? I was daft. The distance is a full 7 miles, and the only previous recorded times I had for the route (in the midst of my duathalon training, as I recall) were 1 hr 8 min & 1 hr 5 min. Well, on that particular route, which I ran on both day 1 and day 4 of my training this time 'round, my times were 1 hr 11 min & 1 hr 8 min, respectively. So, I'm hardly off that time at all. I'm gonna feel pretty good if I end up breaking 1 hr. Really, really good if I am breaking 8 minute miles (<56 minutes) by the end of my training.
Burned!
Had the afternoon with Lucy yesterday. I did a great job with sunblock on her (totally sunny day and about 85 degrees) in a 2 mile round-trip up to a Mississippi River playground and swimming pool. I also put sunblock on my own neck and tops of shoulders-the only places I recall battling sunburns in the past. Suprising: the low number of times I go around in a tank-top these days. Unfortunately, I totally missed my upper back (exposed due to the low plunging neckband) and sides under & behind my shoulders (similarly exposed). I ended up totally fried in this unique places to the point where it actually made laying down for sleep uncomfortable. I think it's actually been so long since I've had a bad burn that it was pre-"society freaked out about UV" era. Will definitely be wearing a T-shirt for my next couple of runs, but as Sharon reminded me, the elevated amount of heat my body will give off during the run definitely promises some level of torture.
Balance to the Force:
Watching Anakin's fall hit effected both Sharon & me emotionally, but the extent to which it affected Sharon was actually quite surprising. We were just getting ready to embark on viewing of episodes IV-VI, when she made come comment to the affect of, "It's just so sad and tragic, knowing where he came from and seeing how far he fell. Not that you can really have any sympathy for Darth Vader, but it just seems like a waste-he was that child that was so altruistic, had all this potential, and it was all for nothing." To which I replied, "But, of course...he does end up bringing Balance to the Force and Peace to the Galaxy." "Huh?" "You do remember how episode VI ends, right?" She did not, and after I gently reminded her that Anakin did indeed kill Vader & the Emperor in one fell swoop and effectively put an end to the Sith forever, she was much happier.
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4 comments:
Good job on the training.
I overcompensate for sunburn, having become paranoid about spending days in extreme discomfort.
Annakin didn't quite make up for his shitty behavior as Darth by deposing the emporer.
On a similar note - we're given reason to believe in EP III that Obi-Wan will learn to persist after his death from Qui-Gon, while furiously masturbating in a cave on Tatooine. Nobody taught Annakin the same technique, though you could argue that A) he was very powerful or B) Obi-Wan and Yoda caught him as he was casting off his mortal coil.
I'm definitely much better on prevention in the realm of sunburn these days, with this instance as an obvious exception.
Obviously, much pain & suffering would have been avoided, had he helped Windu finish off the emperor right then & there, but I think there were 2 points I am kind of taking from the whole situation:
1) In a sense, it was the Jedi who failed Anakin. He was a good little kid with great spirit. He was too old, had too much fear, etc. to become a Jedi, yet they were wishy washy about it and failed him every step of the way. Obviously, he acted like a total dick, but thinking of it in the way Obi-Wan presents it to Luke mades some sense to me-that Darth Vader betrayed and murdered Anakin. Don't even think of them as the same person.
2) Interesting, too-that everybody's prophesies & future-gazing in the movies get fulfilled, one way or another.
Good catch on the teaching to persist thing-Sharon has had a couple of really good catches. One is that a single button on the Naboo ship in episode I seems to do just about everything. I forget the 2nd...
I actually think the Qui-gon figuring out some new aspect of the force is pretty dumb and unnecessary. Should have been spending his time on light saber training so he wouldn't get his ass kicked by Darth Maul.
If they hadn't made a deal out of it we might have assumed that all Jedi could do it, except for all the non-human ones (other than Yoda) for as Dan pointed out, they suck.
Perhaps Qui-Gon was WANTING to get killed, so he could try his new trick.
Or because he was ashamed of his resemblence to the guy in "My Left Foot."
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