In 2006, Dean Karnazes was the second person to run 50 marathons in all 50 states on consecutive days. You can now watch a documentary of his exploits on the big screen, which is titled after his book, Ultramarathon Man:
Unfortunately, there’s no screen time scheduled right now for Maine, so I won’t get to see this when it comes out. Hopefully I’ll get an opportunity to see it later in the year, though. Current screenings and more information can be found at the website: 50marathons.com
(Hat Tip: STTB)
Biting… my…. tongue…
Hey, there’s been a lack of running movies outside of the documentaries for the past few years. You can only watch Without Limits so many times…(there was a humorous commercial about this concept but I can’t find the link…)
I want to see this myself (and blogged about it the same day you did! ;). I’m off to Olive Branch, Mississippi on August 1 and hope to find it still playing somewhere in the Memphis area.
It’s easy to criticise Karnazes and it’s certainly true that he’s the master self-promoter, rivalling Timothy Ferriss in that area, but this documentary looks great.
Well, I haven’t met Tim Ferriss yet so I’ll reserve judgement, but I’ve met Dean and he seems to be a likeable enough guy, and I enjoyed reading the books by both men. I don’t see self promotion as a bad thing, especially when your self promotion results in as much charitable work as both of those men engage in.
Absolutely. Don’t get me wrong – I’m a fan of both – but they have their critics and it’s hard to argue that they aren’t supreme when it comes to getting the word out about… themselves. 😉 But as you say, they do a lot to help others and that’s often what it takes. You can’t do much if nobody knows who you are.
I noted on my blog that Dean edged out Pam Reed at Badwater. Is the rivalry between them hyped-up by Outside and the like or is there really something there? It seems more on her end from what I’ve read, but a lot of the ultrarunners seem to really have it out for Dean, mostly for pretty shallow reasons. But again, this is all from somebody elses view (i.e., a journalist), so who knows, really? (Although maybe you do. 🙂 )
I think the biggest problem from Dean isn’t the blatant self promotion, it’s the popularizing of ultrarunning. A lot of ultrarunners compete at these insane distances because they can’t win at anything shorter and they want to feel superior to people. (And by “a lot”, I mean some, and even those ones have other reasons for running, but it’s still very real.)
Dean has helped grow the sport more than any single other person in the last decade or so, and he gets a lot of awards and recognition that some people feel are deserved by some of the more talented or more serious ultrarunners. Unfortunately, only other people in the sport know their names.
I think you’re right, and also I’ve noted that a lot of the serious ultrarunner guys seemed to like and want to keep the sport a little bit more in the dark. It’s kind of like that thing where you have a favourite obscure band that you think only you like. When it suddenly gets really popular, it makes you kind of angry – in some ways, you kind of feel YOU discovered them, and did all the groundwork. And then this other guy comes along and all everybody cares about is what he thinks.
It’s silly, of course, but there’s not much as silly as folk.
Cheers for your thoughts. 🙂