My thoughts on Spirit Of The Marathon II


Tonight I went to the screening of Spirit of the Marathon II ( Rome).  Before I give you my thoughts on the movie, here is some background in case you hadn’t read up on the film.  The film documented the journey of seven runners in the Rome Marathon.

1.       A pizzeria owner and  

2.       his cousin both from Italy

3.       A mother from Italy

4.       A young man from Ukraine who is trying to qualify for the London Olympics

5.       A young  lady from Rowanda

6.       A former teacher and coach from New Jersey

7.       A lady from California that set out to do 52 marathons in 52 weeks.

I liked that Instead of seeing movie previews in the beginning, our knowledge of marathon trivia was tested.  How young was the youngest marathon runner? How old was the oldest marathon runner? What was the fastest marathon time? What was the slowest marathon time? ….etc.  Of course I don’t remember any of the answers although I do remember that the slowest time was made by a guy wearing a full scuba gear outfit. I’m not really sure why someone would want to run in that.

I enjoyed seeing Jeff Galloway talk at the start of the film, but he wasn’t a main part of it ( I didn’t think that he would be) But he was wearing his Run Disney hat!!

I learned a lot about the history of the marathon like how woman were not allowed to compete and the distance for a marathon wasn’t always 26.2 miles.

I appreciate that we got to follow the journey of non-English speaking folks, but I didn’t particularly like all the sub headings.  Your mind wants to watch what is going on in the film, but your eyes needed to read what the people were saying.  If you didn’t pay close attention you could miss something. More than 50% of the film was sub headings.

It was nice to see that these runners are just as nervous and get race day jitters like everyone else. Some were running their first marathon and some had ran multiple marathons before this one.

Even these athletes struggled. One runner, who ran multiple marathons before this one, got to mile 20 and couldn’t complete it.

I really enjoyed the parts were the Americans were telling their stories. ( probably because I could understand what they were saying and didn’t have to read the words on the screen)

The lady from California set out to qualify for the Boston Marathon. Her dad would call her after every race and ask if she made it and she would say “no, not this time”.  Her father was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer.  Two weeks after his death, she ran her next race and that is when she qualified!  She now runs to raise awareness for pancreatic cancer.

The teacher /coach from New Jersey had a loss in his life as well. He lost his oldest son to a drug addiction.  He tells his story about how running helps him in his personal life as well.

This movie showed how people from different parts of the world run for different reason and what completing a marathon means to them.  Some are running to raise awareness  for a cause or help raise money, some are running for personal achievement, some are running for their health, and some are running just because they can!

                                                                   Why do you run?

I did not see Spirit of the Marathon (Chicago) but I am hoping to be able to see it at sometime.

If you saw either of the Spirit of the Marathon movies, what did you think of them?

5 comments:

  1. I loved it AND saw Jeff Galloway at my theater in Atlanta! Of course I had to get a picture with him and chat for a minute. The first is on Netflix if you have it :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I loved this one too, and I like how they changed the format to keep it fresh. It really makes me want to commit to a full, but I'm not ready yet.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I still need to see the first one (it is on netflix)! I did not get a chance to see this one, but it sounds amazing!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jen- How GREAT that Jeff Galloway was at the showing! Were there many people at your theater? I was only one of 5 people in our theater for this film :(

    Lesley- yes it definitely motivates one to want to complete a marathon!

    Lauren- Thanks for the heads up. I will check out Netflix for the first one. Hopefully the second one will come to Netflix soon so you can see it!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I loved the first film and can't wait to see this (although likely have to wait for it on DVD). The addition of the marathon trivia sounds like fun. Glad to see they're highlighting runners from around the world this time.

    ReplyDelete