13 Quotes for A Half Marathon

This is for all you Half-Marathoners out there courtesy of Ann. Thanks Ann! And may you find everything you need in these thoughts.

Mile 1:
She wanted something to happen - something, anything: she did not know what.
-Kate Chopin
Mile 2:
I tell our runners to divide the race into thirds. Run the first part with your head, the middle part with your personality, and the last part with your heart.
- Mike Fanelli
Mile 3:
Give all to love; obey thy heart.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)
Mile 4:
The long run is what puts the tiger in the cat.
- Bill Squires
Mile 5:
If you start to feel good during an ultra, don't worry. You will get over it.
- Gene Thibeault
Mile 6:
Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.
- Seneca (5 BC - 65 AD)
Mile 7:
Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for truth.
- Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)
Mile 8:
People forget how fast you did a job - but they remember how well you did it.
- Howard Newton
Mile 9:
Joy is prayer - Joy is strength - Joy is love - Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.
- Mother Teresa (1910 - 1997)
Mile 10:
What we truly and earnestly aspire to be, that in some sense, we are. The mere aspiration, by changing the frame of the mind, for the moment realizes itself.
- Anna Jameson
Mile 11:
Now if you are going to win any battle you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do. The body will always give up. It is always tired morning, noon, and night. But the body is never tired if the mind is not tired. When you were younger the mind could make you dance all night, and the body was never tired...You've always got to make the mind take over and keep going.
- George S. Patton, U.S. Army General and 1912 Olympian
Mile 12:
What matters is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight - it's the size of the fight in the dog.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Mile 13:
I think I can . . . (chant at increasing speed five times)

Blumbering Villains and Lame Heros

It's been an inadvertent theme lately - one of those things that just sort of happens in threes. Except it's only happened in twos so far.

It all started with a book. A good book called Soon I Will Be Invincible. It's about Dr. Impossible ... an evil genius ... who just can't quite be successful in his evil endeavors. And a set of superheros that are ... well ... not exactly like WonderWoman or Superman.

And then I heard about a blog. One of the best blogs ever. Dr. Horrible's Sing A-Long Blog. A musical with a supervillain (Dr. Horrible played by Neil Patrick Harris), his archnemesis (Captain Hammer played by Nathan Fillion) and a beautiful girl (Penny played by Felicia Day). This project, which was conceived in the dark days of the writers strike and was streamed on the internet, is about the best thing I've seen since sliced bread.

Now some of you might know that I am a huge Joss Whedon fan. It all started with Firefly (the best television off the planet), has progressed through Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel. And now there is something new and brilliant in Dr. Horrible. As Joss puts it on the website - musical supervillains are really just too few. Go Joss!

I'm looking forward to the third blumbering villain and lame superhero installment - but I'm wondering how it can beat Dr. Horrible.