Spirit of the Marathon Review

While up in Washington, my family and I caught a showing of the above-titled film. The movie followed runners ranging from rookies to Olympian Deena Kastor to Kenyan Daniel Njenga as they trained to run the 2005 Chicago Marathon. There was some marathon history and comments from top runners, including the distance dudes of my youth: Frank Shorter and Bill Rodgers. Spirit conveyed a sense that the distance measures the runner in many ways and that the experience is transformative. My favorite moment involved a first-timer telling her friends she was training for a marathon. They asked, "Do you think you'll win?" A theater full of runners roared with laughter.