Speech

First, I'd like to thank the Academy.

I want to tell them how much I appreciate their annual celebration of all things related to film. In particular, I'd like to thank them for choosing as their Best Picture the only one of the nominees that I actually saw. I feel cultured.

For me, though, the moment of the night came from, of all people, Chris Rock. His presentation of Best Animated Film was prefaced with a speech commenting on how creating an animated movie is considered to be difficult. This job is not hard, he says. Real jobs are hard. He asks for a line, says it, "and then they pay me a million dollars." Life is good.

I love being an actor. I enjoy the time spent as someone else, and the physical and emotional release of blasting out a range of emotions in a two-hour period. I thrive on intensity.

But the real moment that make or break an actor are not the intense moments. Anyone can get mad and yell dramatic words at the height of emotion. It's the moments in between, the reactions, the nothing of a character that creates the great ones. An odd little physical tendency of a character or perhaps the certain way a biopic star holds her lips will catch the attention of those who vote on golden statues and earn that actor their moment of immortality. The yelling gets the attention, but the silence holds it.

Yes, I'm bringing this back to running. Shocking, right?

The silence of running is the rest. I do not have off days, which is, I'm sure, blasphemous to a great many coaches and people who know much more about these things than I do. However, I find that the best way to get out the door and run is to have done so the day before. I've run for almost 8 weeks straight now, and I'm feeling great. Even though I don't take days off, I do have rest runs. These are 3-4 mile runs on Sunday and Wednesday that are run at substantially slower paces than the rest of my week.

While I spend Mondays working on speed over distance, and Tuesdays going far, and Thursdays at top speed, and Fridays preparing for Saturday's distance, I don't have any agenda on Sunday or Wednesday. These days, I tell myself to go as slow as possible, and really enjoy everything around me. I can shout five days a week, but for two days, I get my silence.

Or at least a whisper.

Sunday's Run:
45 Degrees / Clear
3.09 Miles