#marathon

Towards the end of August 1999, Jong Song Ok finished first in the women’s marathon in the 7th World Track and Field Championships held in Seville. Chairman Kim Jong Il called officials to his office. When they came wondering what could be the matter, he asked them abruptly about the news of the women’s marathon. Beaming with joy, he said our runner won the race in the championships and that he had had a wakeful night at the news. With this, he paced the room. After a while, he said,

“It’s grand, really grand! The marathon race is the most significant of all sports events. Still now, there has been no Korean who won a marathon race in the world track and field championships. Before liberation the Korean runner Son Ki Jong came off first in a marathon of the Olympics, but he had to run in the name of an alien country because he was a member of a ruined nation. But this time our runner has won the world marathon championship for the first time as a Korean. How splendid!”

The press made a feature of her spectacular success and the whole country was in a festive mood singing a song about her.

Later, the Chairman said that she was a heroine of our nation who won the title in the women’s marathon in the World Track and Field Championships, the arena of competition with the best athletes from the world.

Naenara.com.kp

Race for life

After impressive, scene-stealing supporting roles in films like 22 Jump Street andGoosebumps, it was only a matter of time before Jillian Bell’s knack for comic timing landed her a leading role of her own. And, despite its underwhelming title, the main character of Brittany Runs a Marathon is a perfect fit for Bell’s talents - a funny, self-loathing heroine whose personal journey provides both comedy, and a surprisingly touching slice of drama.

From first-time writer-director Paul Downs Colaizzo, whose real-life roommate inspired the story, the film follows Brittany (Bell), a twenty-something New Yorker whose unhealthy lifestyle - constant partying and adderall abuse - seem borne out of issues of self-confidence. Yet, when a new doctor informs her that she’s overweight, she takes the step (or rather, steps) to lose a couple of pounds, and get her life back on track.

After a very relatable sequence where Brittany berates a gym instructor for the sky-high prices that gym’s charge - ‘you do know that people can just go outside for free, right?’ - she makes the daunting decision to go on daily runs, which are hilariously filmed with the sense of menace you would get from a horror movie. Setting herself the goal of the New York City Marathon, Brittany’s race to fitness, and ultimately happiness, is replete with inevitable setbacks and moments of self-doubt. Throughout this, Downs Colaizzo laces the film with humour and warmth, and is all the better for encouraging you to see multiple sides to the characters who punctuate Brittany’s journey. Michaela Watkins impresses as a well-off, seemingly frosty fellow runner whose life isn’t as perfect as it seems, while Utkarsh Ambudkar’s man-child proves a surprisingly endearing and believable love interest.

If the film does stumble on the way to the finish line, it’s in a rushed final act that slightly overplays its message about the value of self-love and supportive friendships, and ends with a running sequence that feels like it lasts the length of an actual marathon. Yet, while the end destination isn’t particularly strong, the writing and Bell’s warm performance at least make the journey worthwhile. Brittany is a character that makes a lot of frustrating decisions, often at the expense of people who care about her, but Bell, who spends much of the movie in prosthetics, draws self-deprecating humour and empathy from her character’s experiences, demonstrating a dramatic range that few films have allowed her to show. Testament to Bell, you genuinely hope that Brittany will overcome the barriers in her way, whether it’s a horribly self-centred roommate, or a mouth-watering burger meal.

It gets slightly overbearing at the end, but this is a funny, moving and uplifting film about the importance of keeping your head up in the face of hardship, with a star-making performance from Bell.

★★★

ot3:

ot3:

it’s been long enough i’m making an executive decision that we all need to go reread the tgi fridays infinite mozzarella sticks article

still just as good as i remember it

ColorKeeD Home Plans (1927) - The Marathon

Marathon is one of those words that now means something almost entirely different from what it originally meant. I love this type of shit.

To start out with, ‘marathon’ was originally a place name. You know when Pheidippides ran from Plains of Marathon to Athens to tell of the Greeks victory over the Persian army? Yeah. So running a ‘marathon’ was a reference to that (we’re all just lucky the word didn’t end up being a 'pheidippides’).

Recently, television stations have picked the word up and started using it to mean playing the same show over and over; if running continuously is a marathon, then watching the same show over and over is a marathon of that.

And then the word has gained a verb form again, now it means to participate in a marathon. To say you 'marathoned Teen Wolf’ means you watched a lot of Supernatural back to back.

Which means marathon was originally a sedentary place, and then it was an activity, and then it was something happening a lot, and now it’s a sedentary and passive activity. Full circle.