Spirit of the Marathon movie

Watched Spirit of the Marathon movie twice in the past week. Very inspiring! Movie follows the training of six runners for the Chicago Marathon - including Deena Kastor. Thrilled to have met Kastor at the Dallas Marathon expo last November. I like how there are runners training for their first marathon and the joys they experience in reaching the finish line. I want to run the Chicago Marathon! Been to Chicago twice (in 2000 and 2003) and amazed with the architecture of the city.

• “You go through the mental struggle. The physical struggle. This is really, really hard.” (Dick Beardsley)
• “The marathon is like life. You will get hiccups. It’s how you get through them.” (Paula Radcliffe)
• “When you cross the finish line, it will change your life forever.”
• “The reason why people run the marathon, I believe, is it’s a challenge – physical, mental or both – it’s something that helps them in their everyday life.” (Alberto Salazar)
• “The marathon is the search for the holy grail we’re all after. It’s a journey we’re on, not a destination from the start line to finish line. What people learn over the course of the training is just as important as what they learn on the day itself.”
• “At some point in the marathon the distance is greater than the human ability to transcend it.”
• It’s a physical challenge for sure. It’s also a mental challenge – it’s fighting through those walls you don’t think you can fight through. That’s what a marathon teaches you – to keep going.”
• “People run the marathon to prove there still is triumph and still possibility in their lives.”
• “Whole extra layer of self-fulfillment that you’ve actually completed the marathon. Just feels you got that extra layer.”
• “”The triumph over the adversity. That’s what the marathon is all about. And therefore there is nothing in life that you cannot triumph over that.”
• “A real metaphor you actually live. There are so many others things in your life that look insurmountable. I can’t do that. There’s no way I can do that. All of a sudden, you realize what you can do.”
• “People pushing themselves to the limit. Testing themselves physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually"
• “The marathon is an epic event not only in its actual physical size and distance. In the dreams it inspires in us. It really is a transformative experience going out and attempting to do something that big. I think that is what the marathon is all aboutIt’s setting a goal, being courageous and and going out and accomplishing it.” (Director Jon Dunham)