Monday, September 1, 2008

10K Unconfirmed PB 53.41mins

I did the 10K run yesterday and set a PB of 53.41mins over 10K and 25.57mins for the 5K which I will strive to improve on this week when I run on Tuesday and Thursday. Of course, on the track, I could probably slash some three minutes off because there is no hill and no cars being driven dangerously by intoxicated drivers and no gaping manholes to jump over and so on and so forth. We will establish that soon when we visit the track.
I lost another one Kg last week and I feel lighter. Hopefully, I can lose another Kg this week. If I keep dropping a Kg per week, I may even surpass my goals if I can reach normal weight by 26th October.
Note that the lighter you are, the faster you can be because your blood has less volume to distribute oxygen to, so your heart can be more efficient and not taxed by having all that mass to feed with oxygen.
I started the first 5K by employing long strides and in the secong 5K, I relied more on pushing myself forward using my toes. This latter aspect, I found, contributes better to speed than large strides. At any rate, I will combine the two and find a balance in-between that is most efficient for my body. Its always about balance, about what suits your body best. Every athlete must find what works best for them.
I feel great. No injuries so you can be sure that I will push it on Tuesday. It is clear I am approaching a 5mins per Kilometre pace which is a great improvement from my past paces. But I am sure I can reach four within September (with more than 8Kgs off, why the heck not?). And I will reach four. Then sub four...

I went to watch MIRRORS. This is the best horror movie I have watched in a couple of years. It has very scary stuff that will take your heart from your chest and shake it down. It is also the first movie I watched where some of the audience could not take the dread and violence anymore and left before the movie ended, much to the amusement of those that remained, clutching onto each other for strength.
24's lead character, Kiefer Sutherland aka Jack Bauer is the starring in this film.
The movie starts with the hard breathing of a running scared night-watchman who eventually slices his throat using a piece of broken mirror. And that eerie scene sets the mood for the rest of the movie. Kiefer acts as an ex-alcoholic ex-cop who left the force after he killed someone. His eccentric behavior forces him to leave his family and he crashes at his little sister's house.
He finds a job as a night guard as he tries to get back on his feet and reunite with his family. His job is to guard a shopping mall that was burnt down. In that mall, alone at night and surrounded by burnt statues, a flooded basement and clear mirrors he hears strange sounds and sees strange things, he even hallucinates that he is burning and soon, the mirror at his sister's place possesses another character like himself. He falls backward when his image in the mirror stares back at him and transforms. He struggles to understand what is happening, everyone thinks he is nuts. His sister's jawbone is ripped out of its sockets by a demon in the mirror that takes possession of her body. It is a gory scene, she splashes in the bathtub, screaming in pain and the tub is full of blood. Her screams tear your heart out. And leave you looking for something to hold onto.
Kiefer realizes that the demons are after him. In anger, he shoots the mirrors but they repair themselves. They print 'eseeker' when he screams "what do you want from me???!!!" He uses his connections at the police force to seek and find eseeker. Meanwhile, he tries to remove all mirrors from his home knowing that the demon will come after his family just like it came after the family of the guard he has replaced. His wife almost calls the cops on him after she cannot take his erratic behavior any more. Meanwhile, his son gets friendly to the demon. At one time, Kiefer's wife finds her talking to his image in the mirror. When she calls him to her, he comes to her but his image in the mirror remains staring straight at her. She breaks down and is scared shitless. She calls her husband and they paint all the mirrors in their home.
It turns out that 'eseeker', what the demon wants, was a 12 year old schizophrenic girl. She got enlisted under a pshychiatrist who believed that schizophrenia could be cured by forcing the patient to face their own images in a mirror. That confrontation, he believed, destroyed any other multiple personalities the schizophrenic possessed.
So eseeker was strapped in a chair and placed in a room surrounded by mirrors in all directions. What happened was that a demon that possessed her left her body and joined her reflection in the mirror. She left and went into obscurity in a monastery where there were no mirrors.
The demon then, locked behind a mirror, started killing people as it sought to reunite with its host 'eseeker'. Kiefer finds eseeker and brings her to the building under gunpoint – 24-style and saves his family, which by that time is sucked deep into mirrors and reflections by the demon, which thrives on becoming whatever is reflected in the mirror.
The movie's end is confusing because it appears as if Kiefer is in a mirror because he sees all letters written backwards and left is right.
Maybe the director wanted to leave a window for MIRRORS II.

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