45,000 minutes

As has been stated here numerous times, I’m not a “movie guy.” Not at all. Chances are, if you make a movie reference, I will be as clueless as if you were having a discussion of the Periodic Table of Elements (I was terrible in chemistry and biology).

The other night as I was reading a book around bedtime, my wife was flipping through the channels on TV. I mumbled something like “just put on 62” (that’s the Weather Channel on our cable system). But as she was surfing with the remote, she got to AMC – where Rocky II was on. Wait! Stop! Put that back on!

Rocky! Yo, Adrian! If I have one weakness, one movie vice, it is the Rocky movies. I can – and have – watched them, repeatedly. Heck, one time a few years ago when I was up in the middle of the night with one of my children when they were sick, I remember watching Rocky IV on the Spanish language station. I love it. Can’t get enough Rocky.

So there I was the other night. I put my book down. I shut my reading light. Rocky II was on! Gotta watch it.

Admittedly, the dialog in these Rocky movies isn’t the most scintillating. Put it this way: When I watched Rocky IV in Spanish, not much was lost in the translation. Grunting sort of transcends language.

But these Rocky movies contain some priceless nuggets. Midway through Rocky II, when our hero’s motivation is flagging and he is going through a moribund workout session with his ancient trainer Mickey, Mick turns to Rock and bellows out:

“For a 45-minute fight, you gotta train hard for 45,000 minutes, 45,000! That's 10 weeks, that's 10 hours a day, ya listenin'? And you ain't even trained one!’’ And then he follows Rocky into the lockerroom and proceeds to call him a bum.

Fuzzy math aside (I think Mick is off by a few thousand minutes, but whatever …), as an athlete you cannot help but be motivated by the training scenes in these Rocky movies – replete with the now-dated, cheesy theme music. C’mon, admit it: Tell me you’ve NEVER been pumped up hearing “Gonna Fly Now” or “Eye of the Tiger.”

So my books will have to wait a few nights, as AMC runs through their Rocky week. Gotta cheer for my hero vs. Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang and the truly evil Ivan Drago.

45,000 minutes. Gonna Fly Now. Eye of the Tiger. Yo.