Operation Cannoli was a great success, although we ended up going with Italian cookies over cannoli, simply because of the potential mess factor. But the overall plan worked like a charm. We had the cookies in a bag and got no trouble walking in with it. We also bought a large drink and soft pretzel, so the theater company got plenty of our money for the evening anyway. The only problem was that once the movie began, it was impossible to see the cookies to see what kind you were eating. Next time, as a logistical improvement, I'd arrange the cookies in a particular order so we knew what we were blindly eating. However, freshly made Italian cookies beat Twizzlers any day.
I won't bore anyone with a review of The Dark Knight Rises, other than to say I think it was a.) the best of the three Christopher Nolan Batman movies (although they're all great) and b.) the best superhero movie I've seen maybe ever, and that includes Superman II. But, I like Batman darker and grittier like Nolan envisioned him, so that has a lot to do with it. Plus, as I've noted before, I'm not a big Spider-Man fan. I will say that this movie and the first Iron Man movies are close in my book, but my affinity for the Caped Crusader seals the deal for me.
I also had a successful running weekend and managed to get both my intervals and long run done. No major problems, although the weather was very humid, so the long run was a tough slog and it was a challenge to keep my heart rate under control throughout. From here on out, I'm going to be focusing on ramping up my mileage as the half marathon in October approaches. So, this weekend will be a 6 miler, building up to 10-11 miles the week before the race, ideally. To supplement that, I'm going to be much better about cross training, stretching, etc. I need to improve my aerobic fitness, but also my flexibility, as I don't want to pull a hamstring trying to get through a long run.
Cutting out Italian cookies might be helpful too, now that I think about it.
And, in a brief follow up to Saturday's post: Shalane Flanagan and Kara Goucher came in 10th and 11th in Sunday's women's Olympic Marathon, respectively. They were up with the leaders for much of the race and, given the heavy hitters in the field, I think they did great. The winning runner set an Olympic record, so being the 10th and 11th fastest women in the race is nothing to feel bad about at all.
And the Curiosity rover touched down on Mars early this morning (in the east), without any problems, which is really unbelievable. The rover sent a few pictures back from the surface already and it's incredible to think that hundreds of scientists and engineers were able to put a car, basically, on another planet, after shooting it into space and building a computer to navigate the millions of miles from Florida to freaking Mars.
Here's a link (courtesy of The Atlantic and NASA) to the video of the control room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the minutes leading up to the confirmation transmission from Curiosity that it had reached Mars. I think I'd be jumping up and down ecstatically too, if I had spent years working on that project.
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