Movie Review: Spirit of the Marathon

What appeared to be 400 or 500 people packed two theaters at the Regal Gallery Place theater in Chinatown. All to see a 100-minute movie about runners training for the Chicago Marathon.

Spirit of the Marathon followed two pros, Deena Kastor and Daniel Njenga, and four amateurs. Two were training for their first marathon, one was trying to qualify for Boston, and one, an older man, was espousing the John Bingham philosophy.

The movie itself was pretty good. I found myself making comparisons to the "Marathon" program on PBS late last year, which was totally disappointing in how it went into great depth at the beginning, and then suddenly just ended. Spirit was better. Flatlandish commented that the music sometimes seemed overly dramatic for household scenes and training runs, but we agreed that the actual marathon footage was inspiring.

In all, I spent most of the movie comparing myself to the amateur runners. I bristled at comments about "zen runners" (those who don't run with a watch) and people who prefer to run solo being somehow odd. Talk about how the marathon is the ultimate test. (I don't personally believe that just getting through a marathon means you can get through anything life throws your way. Maybe I'll go into that more in another entry.) And all the freaking gear they carried with them!

The parts following Deena and Daniel were much more interesting, to see how the elites train, how they live, their attitudes toward running and toward everything else. They were both so positive, even when the circumstances weren't. Maybe that was just the magic of editing, but it sounded good. I yearned to see Deena's finish, and I felt Daniel's disappointment with yet another third-place finish. The rest of the audience did too, as smatterings of applause broke out with Deena's victory, and everyone groaned when seeing Daniel's 2006 finish in the epilogue.

I didn't have that same involvement with the amateurs. Maybe for the guy trying to get to Boston, who wound up injured halfway through his training. Watching him cheer on his wife made me smile, yet with that slight ache as of course he really wanted to be out there in the crowd. I wanted to know what the one struggling woman's problems were. And how the older fellow's daughter felt after her first. Like "Marathon," it just sort of ended. I suppose the ending has to be quick, as the climax is really the marathon, but surely there is more insight they can gather after the experience.

There were some emotional points, for sure. My mood is vastly more stable when I'm running than otherwise, but I still occasionally feel a rise in my throat and tears in my eyes just before a big race. That little itch of pride and anticipation makes itself known, and then just as quickly dissolves as I get down to business. And there were a few times, especially during the introduction, that I felt that same sensation during the movie.

In the end, Race for the Soul remains my favorite running movie. But Spirit is probably a good film to, say, show my mom, to explain why I do this. It seems more accessible, less crazy, and certainly a lot fewer blood, blisters, and gore shots!