Sometimes it takes a little longer to do something right.
As I was working from home today, I needed some sort of noise in the background. It's a bit of a paradox really, in that I need sound so that I have something to ignore and focus on my work. Actually, I do this when I go to bed, also, leaving the television playing, because silence keeps me up.
The selection for today's background noise was the first Lord of the Rings movie, but we don't mess around with stuff like this. No, no. We get us the extended edition, so as to avoid having to make another decision a mere two hours later. I started it late in the day, but I was still amazed that my work day had ended and the movie was still going strong. It's because, I think, Peter Jackson firmly believes that in order to do something right, you have to do it all, and it's okay to take your time.
Having not yet read the Lord of the Rings books, I still appreciate this idea with regard to those three films. In his devotion to the fans of the books, Jackson was determined to include as much of the story into the film version as he could, unlike certain wizard movies I could mention. In the end, we are left with a sweeping epic of a film that at least appeased everyone. In this particular case, having something take forever worked out.
The flip side of that coin is King Kong, which was just plain awful. To this day, I don't know how it ends, because I fell asleep with 20 minutes to go, having already sat through too much of the movie. Here, Jackson really should have hit the editing boards hard and taken out... well... most of it.
So how do you know when you've taken too long? When you get to the end and look back.
Today's run was 8 miles, which is longer than I've run (except for Sundays) all season. It's a familiar course for me, but that only means I know how challenging it could be, so I decided to take my time. Every time I felt myself starting to speed up, I'd remind myself just how much I had left to go, and I'd ease up on the gas a bit. Even with three miles to go, when I was feeling strong, I did not let myself start to push, fearing that doing so would result in having to walk or worse. And how did it look when I finished?
It looked slow, but it also looked complete. I probably could have gone faster, but I've got a pace run on Saturday during which I can prove that. All I wanted to make sure of this morning was that I finished and that I did not have to walk at any point in a fairly long run, and both of those goals were easily accomplished. You could say I took the Peter Jackson approach to this morning's run.
When in doubt, take your time.
Wednesday's Run:
79 Degrees / Before Sunrise
8.11 Miles
1 Hour, 3 Minutes, 19 Seconds
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