Allison’s Foe of the week: Tree Pollen

Stupid trees.  Why does Seattle have so many trees?  Why can’t I live in a nice concrete jungle like Dallas?  Oh yeah, question answers itself.

This week the Universe has sent me tree allergies to try and derail my half marathon training.  Well, I won’t be so easily denied Universe.  Ha!  Last Sunday I did my first 5 mile run in about 2 years.  It doesn’t really matter that I spent the rest of the weekend fatigued on the couch, I followed the training plan.  In lieu of doing actual activity after running my 5 miles I rented two movies about running to help keep me motivated.  I had never seen Chariots of Fire (although I have always admired the theme song) and Prefontaine (I have always admired Jared Leto) so I decided a proper Sunday afternoon would include watching those.  I started with Chariots of Fire because it won multiple Oscars, one for best picture even.  I don’t think it is one of those movies that translates well over time.  From what I could tell, the basic premise was 4 almost indistinguishable white dudes from Brittan train for the 1920 Olympics.  Their major foes are some badass (and you can tell they are badass by the awesome team training sequence) Americans, one of which is the fastest man in the world.  The best parts of the movie were the aforementioned training sequence and the very first scene where all the Brits run on the beach to the theme song.  I kept watching the movie, even though I couldn’t really follow the action because everyone looked the same, waiting for the dramatic race scene where we watch someone win a race in slow motion with the theme song pumping in the background, but it never happened.  Very disappointing.  Prefontaine was a lot easier to follow.  Only one runner to keep track of.