The Spirit of the Marathon

I have been putting off watching The Spirit of the Marathon on purpose. It is two weeks to the Fox Cities Half Marathon, and figured this would be the time in my training I would need a little inspiration. It has been sitting in my Netflix queue taunting me for quite some time, and after my distance run today, it felt right to pull it out.

"The triumph over the adversity, that is what the marathon is all about. And therefore you know there isn't anything in life you cannot triumph over after that." -Katherine Switzer

The premise of biopics following these six runners in various stages of training and experience is well thought out and relatable. I loved the little bits of running history thrown into the documentary. And oddly enough, the tension building music was not too terrible either.

It is interesting because the film points out how non-runners see this almost obsession with such a personal sport as crazy. The motivators for every runner is different, but the commonality of the race binds us together. The elites along with the "others".

Entirely unrelated to Spirit of the Marathon:

And onto a mini rant. The comment of the day happened during my long run by a man who resembled Al Borland, "Look at her, she's wearing shorts--she's crazy!"

No Sherlock, its only 60 degrees, which is in stark contrast to last weeks high temps. However, contrary to popular belief it does not warrant snow suits and stocking caps quite yet. In fact, if you were up to about six miles of running, you too would need to cool off. But it appears you are drinking a beer outside of your garage and making random comments about folks who you think are not listening because they are wearing earphones instead.

Let this be a lesson to you beer drinker man, runners usually keep the volume down low so we can hear traffic, and random comments from guys like you. Thanks for the chuckle though.

And for the record I am not crazy, just a runner.