I checked out Beyond the Epic Run last night at the Starz FilmCenter, downtown Denver at the Tivoli. This was an advanced screening with the film set to release in the fall. Serge was also in attendance and was extremely personable and friendly.

Watch the trailer: “Beyond the Epic Run“.

The film is being marketed by Jennings Public Relations & Advertising. First, I was pretty impressed with the marketing of this documentary, it was a grass roots effort with the marketing community reaching out to individuals who have blogs about runnings in Colorado, smart move. They also had representatives handing out flyers to runners the morning of the Platte River Half Marathon. Thus, they did a solid job of getting the word out.

I get the impression that their goal is to get a buyer for the documentary, so that right now they are trying to get the word out in hopes of landing a deal.

I arrived at the Starz Film Festival ten minutes before the movie and had a chance to meet Serge and ask him a few questions. He was personable and friendly and his English was pretty good for not having any formal education on the language which he stated after the movie. I saw Sonja W at the show, so I took a seat next to her and her friend and waited for the movie to start. The movie started about twenty minutes lates, but most people seemed to arrive late or perhaps they were in the lobby talking to Serge, not sure.

The documentary was solid, I would recommend watching it. They admitted that it still had some fine tuning and that the English Naration was just completed the previous day. This was obvious when a few times the movie got really loud as the audio was not quite right.

The movie has mass appeal, not just to runners, although I would say that runners will enjoy the movie more. However, the movie is more about determination and perserverance which is a must for anyone who runs across the world. Serge and his wife are also interesting characters with a good sense of humor. I was amazed that Serge started of his athletics career boxing at a young age and their is even a scene of him sparing a young guy in Africa, I thought that was great footage. Serge and his wife face many battles along the way, I’m not going to spoil the movie here, but it is worth watching.

This film is not a high budget documentary, since most of of the footage was shot by Serge’s wife, but it is entertaining. I would make a few adjustments to the film before it goes into mass release. First, they’re times when Serge and his wife Nicole are speaking in their native Switzerland language, which I think is French? I know that people in Switzerland speak multiple languages, so I apologize if I am wrong. Anyway, it would be better if they dubbed over their foreign language with English, since both Serge and Nicole speak English. The documentary would go back and forth between them speaking English or French and at times that got a bit confusing. On a similar point, in the documentary they obviously refer to distances in kilometers and at one point Serge climbs a mountain in South America and they mention the height in meters, I would change those over to Imperial Units to make it easier on the American audience, so they are not trying to do calculations in their head and lets face it most Americans are not able to convert meters to feet or kilometers to miles.

At the end of the movie they had a Q&A with Serge and the Producer, which was great. They then raffled off a few prizes and I won one of the top gifts which was a Timex Heart Rate Monitor, so that was cool.

Anyway, check out the movie, you’ll enjoy it!

If you’re looking for the next Chariot’s of Fire, you will want to see Run Fat Boy Run. This movie is about the fictitious Nike River Run set in London. The protagonist is Simon Pegg, who decides to run a marathon to impress his ex-girlfriend and win her affection once again. Simon Pegg, besides having a sweet first name is actually a pretty funny actor, Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead were both solid movies.

I actually thought this movie would be complete drivel, but it was a decent and gave me a few laughs. Any and all serious runners will want to watch this flick to learn more about running. Things I learned:

* Ky-Jelly can be used to prevent nipple chaffing
* You can train for a marathon in cut off jeans, underwear and with only three weeks of training
* Elite marathon runners run at about 10 minute mile pace
* Before the start of a marathon, runners stand around and do calisthenics
* A rusty old nail is a proper substitute for popping a blister
* Hitting the wall is not just a metaphor, it literally feels like running into a brick wall

Run Fat Boy Run took in approximately $6M at the box office, thus it fell short of being a blockbuster. The movie was decent though, plus Thandie Newton is easy on the eyes.

The other night I watched The Long Green Line Documentary. A Documentary about the Newton High School Cross Country team and legendary Coach Joe Newton. The Documentary chronicles the 2005 season as the team seeks it’s 25th State Title in Cross Country in the past 50 years. Coach Newton sort of reminded me of Mickey from the Rocky movies. They look similar and they both tend to say some goofy stuff.

The York Cross Country team is huge, 200+ kids go out for the team. At the start of the school year the seniors are sent out to recruit freshman to run Cross Country. Newton’s strategy is that you may find a kid who doesn’t know he is a good runner and by the time he is a senior he becomes All State. I honestly can’t imagine how you have a team that big, but I guess it leads to depth, it’s sort of like China and their gymnastic program, if someone falters they become much easier to replace.

The documentary of course covers the trials and tribulations of the team. In the middle of the season, two of the star athletes are expelled from school after committing over $1 million in arson damage and at the end of the season the top two runners, who are twin brothers, (now running for Oregon) come down with a virus a few weeks before the state meet. Coach Newton is shown as a caring disciplinarian, he has high expectations and a system of rigorous rules. He thinks of himself not just as a Coach, but as Coach who tries to turn boys into men.

The film focused on a variety of runners, the twin superstars, a freshman just entering the sport, a kid with a disability, et al. The documentary was really good, if you’re a runner and especially if you ran High School CC, it’s a must watch. The film is rather low budget and you can tell. During the race scenes, it’s obvious that they only have one or two cameras which just capture the runners going by, instead of being able to film the race, showing how it unfolds, etc. Instead your left with a camera of the kids crossing the finish line. My only other complaint is I wish they would have spent more time showing how the kids practiced, they never detailed how hard they worked or even talked about the mileage they ran per week. Instead the documentary focuses on the human interest stories, but I assume that appeals to the masses a bit more. I still enjoyed the documentary, seeing the kids running together, super thin, busting out <5 minute miles in the races, it reminded me of my High School CC days, well except the part about running a sub five minute split in a CC race, that never happened.

Anyway, check out The Long Green Line, I promise it’s better than Deal or No Deal.

I finally saw The Spirit of the Marathon, I know that every other runner saw it in the theater, but I finally got around to watching it. Two running documentaries in seven days, first Run for your Life and now The Spirit of the Marathon.

The documentary focused on the 2005 Chicago Marathon, it followed six unique characters, including two elites, Deena Kastor and Daniel Njenga. The rest of the runners featured are your average everyday runners, a 70 year old Dad running with his daughter, etc. One complaint that I do have is I wish they would have featured one or two above average runners, perhaps good age group runners, guys running in the low three hours. Instead you had the extremes, the elite runners and people who are just getting into running, taking the 4:30+ to finish the marathon.

One of the runners featured was Ryan Bradley, who was a 3:10 marathon runner, obsessed with qualifying for Boston. He was injured during the filming, thus unable to run the marathon, so to be fair, they did attempt to have a solid runner in the documentary who was not a professional. However, Ryan gets to the point that I made the other day, how so many runners are obsessed with qualifying for Boston that they let it define them and you get the sense that he just wants to be able to say that he ran the Boston Marathon.

The documentary takes you through the training of Deena and Daniel, showing a glimpse of how the elites train. They go to Japan where Daniel lives, but he is also a native of Kenya, so the cameras follow him to Kenya as well. I wish they would have showed more footage of him in Japan. It was interesting to hear a Kenyan speaking Japanese, wearing the Japanese track suits and racing flats that you see so many of the Japanese elite runners wear, letting you know that he has been influenced by his new home country. Daniel’s story was the most intriguing, as you get an idea of what these Kenyans struggle with, for most of us the race is fun and an experience, however these Kenyans are racing for the cash prizes, hoping to improve their life and their families life back in Africa. Then of course they show you how the other six runners train, either via running groups or by training solo.

The footage and the cinematography were spectacular. The documentary also featured Runner’s World own celebrity, John “The Penguin” Bingham. I already have mixed feelings about this guy and won’t get into it too much, but when someone writes a running book called “No Need for Speed“, you have to shake your head. It’s like writing a book about basketball, titled “No Need for D.” At one point in the documentary he makes a comment about how the race course is opened for seven hours and that if you finish any faster than that, you’re not getting your money’s worth. Let’s just say that the Penguin and RunColo have different definitions of the word “worth.”

The Spirit of the Marathon was enjoyable and I highly recommend it. I have heard from a few of my friends, above average runners, that they didn’t enjoy it because it focused too much on the average runner. I understand their complaints, but when the average marathon time is 4:30, good marketing is making a documentary that caters to the peak of that bell curve, not to the people in the second or third standard deviations.

Tonight, I watched Run for your Life the story of Fred Lebow, who founded the New York City Marathon. The documentary started off with some early 1970’s porn music, just open up that first link and you’ll get a taste! There was some great footage and pictures of runners, to give you an idea of what it was like before the jogging boom swept the country.

The documentary took a look at the early days of the NYC Marathon and the New York Road Runners. The original NYC Marathon was run in Central Park, with runners doing several laps around the park. The race eventually out grew the park and was transformed into the Five Burroughs Marathon. One of the old time runners stated that “There weren’t a lot of runners back then but the ones that ran were fast.” The documentary has a lot of great footage and interviews with Bill Rodgers, Frank Shorter, Alberto Salazar, Grete Waitz, Ed Koch and other people who worked with Fred.

Fred Lebow was an interesting character. He was always running around town wearing running gear and his trade mark cycling cap on his head. He never married and had no children and the documentary makes it sound like he was a bit of a ladies’ man. He was an immigrant from Romania, born in Transylvania. I loved the footage of Fred at the finish line, he would always stand in the middle of the road about a few feet from the finish, cheering in every runner as they came by and I had forgotten that until I saw the footage.

The documentary was pretty even handed; it explored the genius side of Fred as well as some of his questionable business tactics. At one point Fred wrote a book, bragging about how he was able to pay millions of dollars to elite runners, while not paying the city of New York a dime to use Central Park or to use their police force, this did not sit well with Ed Koch. At times Fred comes off as brilliant, creating themed races, the pasta dinner, using sponsorships, etc Other times, Fred comes off as a questionable leader, it appeared that he had trouble delegating and was a bit of a dictator, also he wasn’t that concerned about the bottom line and keeping NYRR in the black. I get the impression that Fred loved the attention, at one point he was quoted as saying “that in order for the club and the race to be famous, it needed somebody who was famous at the helm.” I’d probably disagree with Fred on that point.

I enjoyed this documentary, the footage was great, but at times it did move slowly, but that’s mostly in the first 20 minutes when they delve into Fred’s early days before running. If you’re a runner check it out, you’ll enjoy it, it makes me want to run NYC Marathon that is for certain.

Also, while watching the old footage of races, can we please get the starter’s pistol back? Seriously, what happened to that tradition? Now we get a horn, or a “Go!” but it doesn’t have the same effect as seeing the Race Director holding a pistol and firing a shot into the air!