Glenn, myself, and Jeff went to watch the "Spirit of the Marathon" documentary last week along with at least 200 other running enthusiasts in the Nashville area (I know of at least one other theater in our area that was showing the movie that night). What a fantastic movie! I am not ashamed to say that near the end I actually got choked up (all three of us did, actually!). The producers did a fantastic job of taking us on a journey with six very different individuals as they prepared to run the 2005 Chicago Marathon. Filmed on four continents, we really felt a kinship with each runner being documented and I for one found myself feeling their pain, disappointment, and victories throughout the course of their training and the actual race day.
While they did a great job of drawing us into the individual stories, the filmmakers also did a fantastic job of filming during the race itself. There was some great bonus footage after the movie of some of the techniques they used to find and film the various runners throughout the course of their race (it would be a pretty daunting task to follow 6 individuals in a sea of 40,000 over the course of 26.2 miles!). The shots of Chicago are fantastic, and despite the black eye that this race received after their difficulties dealing with the heat this past year, I would definitely consider making this one of my next races based solely on what I saw in the movie.
All that to say that it was definitely worth the $10 to go see it. And if you missed it this time around, don't fret: they have arranged for an encore viewing on February 21st (click on the race bib to find the theater nearest you). If it was any indication, at the end of the movie the audience burst into spontaneous applause (well, we started it...) in appreciation of what a great job this movie did in helping to show people how achievable running a marathon is for the "common man". Go see it - and let us know what you thought!
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