Marathon challenge - the movie

In preparation for the Boston marathon, I watched "Marathon challenge". It is an "experiment" done at Tufts university in Boston, where a group of average nonrunners/nonexercisers signed up to train for Boston marathon in over 20 weeks. Most of them were of normal weight, with only one woman being about 40 lbs overweight, between ages of 30 and 55. One of the participants has had a heart attack a few years back. Prior to their training they had body fat, VO2 max and others such tests that determined their fitness level. All but one had the fitness level of a person 10-20 years older.

The training program was simple. They had to do short runs on their own, and a long run together. Doing a 1 mile run was a challenge, but they slowly built up. Some of them (interestingly, only the women) got injured - one developed a stress fracture related to her diabetes, a few developed sprains and runner's knee. All but the woman with the stress fracture made it through and finished the marathon.

It was interesting to watch their journey. It is so hard for me to imagine that anyone would have a hard time running 1 mile, and be so out of shape that running a mile would be such a huge accomplishment. But that is the reality of our modern fast paced short term goal oriented society..

A few interesting facts about the experiment:
1. No one lost weight, except the overweight woman who was on a diet under the supervision of a nutritionist.
2. No one experienced changes in BMI.
3. All experienced a change in VO2 max, and went from subaverage or average to superior.
4. There is something called "innate ability to be a great runner". One of the participants had a superior VO2max from the start. He skipped all the training at the beginning, and was able to run up to 12 miles without training. But, his strategy did not work for the longer runs - he had to train. He ended up doing a sub 4 marathon, finishing first of the group...

This was an inspirational movie. I recommend it.