In 2008, I tried to do at least one organized race a month. It was fun to plan out & pick a race months ahead of time. I did a 5K on vacation with my son Gavin & my nephew’s David & Erik (nothing like running a race with teenagers to make you feel old), and I did a 4 miler on my birthday with my sister Molly (yeah, I beat her & yeah, it felt good). This year, I think I’m going to keep it to three races: The Broad Street Run, The Run For Tony & The Philadelphia Marathon. Training has been getting better in the last few weeks. There are a million reasons/excuses to stay in bed at 5:00am, but as the miles pile up, I’m trying to look at my 5:15 runs as "my time."
For this weeks entry, I thought I’d compile the best running scenes in movies & TV. In no particular order, here are some of my favorites:
Will Ferrell as Hank The Tank streaking though campus in Old School.
Dustin Hoffman as Babe in Marathon Man. The scenes in which Babe is running in Central Park & flashing on Ethiopian marathoner Abebe Bikila are great.
Watching the 1500m on TV during the Seoul Olympics, 1988. I was visiting my wife at Mt. St. Mary’s College for the weekend. A student at The Mount, Peter Rono was competing in the Seoul Olympics for Kenya. The thinking was he had no shot at winning a medal, but it would be a lot of fun just to watch him compete. A party was thrown in his dorm room & we all settled in to watch Peter run half a world away. At the wire, Peter wins the 1500m by less than a ¼ of a second & the campus of Mt. St. Mary’s erupts!
Denzel Washington running with the team through Gettysburg in Remember The Titans. Bonus points for the following lines: You drop a pass, you run a mile. You miss a blocking assignment, you run a mile. You fumble the football, and I will break my foot off in your John Brown hind parts, and then you will run a mile.
Rocky at The Art Museum, of course
Nicolas Cage running from the cops while trying to pick up some Huggies in Raising Arizona.
Paulie Walnuts & Chris-to-fuh chasing the Ukrainian through the Pine Barrens in The Sopranos.
Tyler Durken running in Fight Club. HUGE bonus points for the line: I ran. I ran until my muscles burned and my veins pumped battery acid. Then I ran some more.
Probably the beach running scene from Chariots of Fire. This came out in the early 80’s, and I probably would have rather gone to mass in August wearing my wool slacks from Al’s than go see an artsy film, so I never saw this movie.
Dumbest movie running scene: Anything from Forrest Gump. Here’s what bugs me. Forrest spend God knows how long waiting on a bench because Jenny told him to take a bus to her apartment. At this point, Jenny knows Forrest has spent three years of his life running back & forth across the country. Doesn’t it occur to her to just say, "Walk the last few blocks to my apartment to see me & meet your bastard child."
Saving the best for last. John Belushi for Little Chocolate Doughnuts. If you grew up in the mid-70’s, you have to remember how often the would show that Wheaties commercial after Bruce Jenner won the decathlon in the ’76 Olympics. To see John Belushi spoof him was just priceless. The funniest part of the entire commercial is that Belushi is sitting at the table with a lit cigarette. Most comedians would insist on puffing on the cigarette to make it more obvious. But Belushi just sits at the table with the cigarette burning while he’s doing his pitch. To me, it’s a subtle move that make the spot so much more funny.
Broad Street Run is a little over a month away & registration for the Phila Marathon opens today.
Thanks for reading, Pat
