Last night Nikki and I, along with Nikki’s running pals and several other Todd’s Road Stumblers went and saw “The Spirit of the Marathon.”

Here’s the trailer from youtube if you haven’t seen it yet.

There are some really good parts of the documentary, but there were also parts that I felt a little bored. I personally liked the triathlon documentary that I just got called, “What it Takes” better. The running documentary put out by the same group called “Showdown” is also more interesting. But there are some key differences that could influence someone’s enjoyment.

Here are some thoughts:

1. SofM doesn’t focus upon the professional or elite athlete, which is kind of nice. They include people like Deena Kastor (who is a top pro) to a grandfather that is running the marathon with his daughter, doing it for, as he says “for the t-shirt”.

2. They follow the runners for a long period before the actual marathon. I liked this part because you were able to follow their training. Although, it appears that all the age group runners were part of the same Chicago training group. It would have been nice to see different stategies.

For instance, you see the Hanson Project guys at the start of the marathon leading out the professionals. I was thinking that it would be nice to see one of the age group runners that train with them. Maybe I’m biased, but this movie reinforces the idea that someone training for a marathon needs to build up to a 20 mile run. And most people know how I feel about that! (Maybe that’s why I favorite the Hanson Project theories.)

3. I know I am jaded about some things in life, but the whole Boston Marathon thing just digs at my soul. The movie again has hints of, “to be a really good runner you have to qualify and run in Boston” attitude. I have to be a little subdued about my distaste for this right now because I believe Nikki would like to run in Boston. And I need to support her in that.

I wonder if Matt Carpenter or Scott Jurek have run Boston yet? Maybe they have.

4. I guess the biggest disappointment that I had with the movie was that I’ve heard the same stories a hundred times or more by now. The people in the movie appeared to be great people, they have very similar hobbies and interests that I do, but they are no different than the 25 people that I was with in Arizona to run the Rock N Roll Marathon.

In fact, there are a couple runners there that day that would have more interesting stories to tell. I’m positive about that.

My suggestion would be save the $10 (which is another thing, we had to pay a premium to see this movie) and rent it, maybe even buy it on dvd. If you head to the movies, go see Juno or No Country for Old Men. Two movies I’ve been wanting to see but will have wait now that I had my movie going experience this week.

The movie scores a 13 on the Borg Scale of Perceived Exertion.