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    • Ultramarathon Documentaries: Films About Ultra Running and Long-Distance Races

    For many of us, running is not something that we are all that interested in. Ask us to run for a bus and there’s a good chance that we’ll be out of breath before we make it. The very idea of taking part in something like an ultramarathon seems entirely against what is a normal thing to do with our time, yet there are many who thrive when faced with just such a challenge.

    Ultramarathons come in all shapes and sizes, where some see the challenge made worse by the heat you have to complete it in and others are all about the madness of the terrain that you need to conquer. Learning more about them is exactly where documentaries on the subject come in.

    Obviously, this list isn’t even close to being exhaustive, but it will give you a sense of the kind of documentaries that you can watch on the subject if you want to.

    Running on the Sun: The Badwater 135

    • Format: Feature-length documentary
    • First Released: 2000
    • Length: 1 hour 40 minutes
    • Watch in the UK: No current official UK streaming, rental or digital purchase option. A full-length third-party upload with German subtitles is available free on YouTube. Region 1 NTSC import DVDs can also be found through UK marketplace sellers but will not play on most standard UK DVD players.

    Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun, as the saying goes. We are all taught from an early age to avoid going out when the sun is at its hottest, which appears to be something that the runners that take on the Death Valley ultramarathon decided to ignore.

    Ultramarathons are obviously hard enough in normal circumstances, but add in the fact that Death Valley in California gets its name from the fact that it is the hottest and driest place in North America and you can suddenly begin to understand why it is that someone might want to make a documentary about its participants, who run in conditions the rest of us would avoid.

    Running on the Sun: The Badwater 135 is a documentary that was directed by Mel Stuart and follows the athletes who took on the 135-mile run of the Badwater Ultramarathon in 1999. It starts in Death Valley, reaching its conclusion at Whitney Portal, which is the trailhead to Mount Whitney itself.

    If you want to get a sense of just how tough this run actually is, the winner (spoiler alert) in 1999 was Eric Clifton, who made it to the finish line in 27 hours and 49 minutes, which was quicker than the previous year’s victor. Not just far, not only in insane heat, the ultramarathon also sees competitors go from -282 feet to an elevation of 8,360 feet.

    Spirit of the Marathon

    • Format: Feature-length documentary
    • First Released: 2007
    • Length: 1 hour 44 minutes
    • Watch in the UK: Available worldwide from Running Films for digital rental or purchase.

    Directed by Jon Dunham, Spirit of the Marathon is a documentary that was released in 2007 and looks at the journeys of six different runners whilst they are training to compete in the Chicago Marathon. The film offers a look at the history of the race, offering us a glimpse of previous dramatic marathons that involved runners such as Rod Dixon and Dorando Pietri.

    Commentary is offered by well-known proponents of the sport like Frank Shorter, Dick Beardsley and Alberto Salazar. Mainly, though, we follow the journeys of Deena Kastor, Daniel Njenga, Jerry Meyers, Leah Caille, Lori O’Connor and Ryan Bradley as they get ready to run in the 2005 marathon.

    Spirit of the Marathon Documentary

    We follow them through the thick and thin of training, up to and including the race itself; although Bradley is unable to participate in it because he suffers a knee injury during training. If you want to get a sense of how many people take part in the Chicago Marathon, then this film will offer you exactly that, showing panoramic shots of the race itself and the large number of runners participating.

    In one of those wonderful coincidences that sometimes happen to documentary makers (another spoiler incoming), one of the runners that the film has been following is able to hold off the challenge of Romanian Constantina Diţă-Tomescu in order to win.

    The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats its Young

    • Format: Feature-length documentary
    • First Released: 2014
    • Length: 1 hour 29 minutes
    • UK Age Rating: Unrated
    • Watch in the UK: Available from the Apple TV Store for rental or digital purchase.
    • Subtitles: English closed captions, plus French, German and Latin American Spanish subtitles.

    In 1977, James Earl Ray, who had been convicted of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., escaped from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary and covered just over 100 miles in the 54 hours after his escape. Gary Cantrell mocked this, suggesting that he could ‘do at least 100 miles’, which resulted in the Barkley Marathons being born.

    Cantrell and his partner in creating the event, Karl Henn, named it after Barry Barkley, Cantrell’s longtime neighbour. In The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats its Young, the filmmaker explores why it is that a small town in Tennessee has arguably the toughest trail race anywhere in the world.

    Accepting just 35 runners each year, only ten actually finished the race in its first 25 years of existence. The cult-like race sees people from around the world entering to try to prove their mental and physical endurance, with the documentary looking to answer the question around the value of pain.

    You might wonder exactly how hard the ultramarathon could possibly be, which is answered with the knowledge that those who complete it will have climbed and descended twice the height of Mount Everest. The story of the film is a genuinely fascinating and inspiring one, in which failure is spectacular and the pain the participants go through unimaginable.

    Where Dreams Go to Die

    • Format: Feature-length documentary
    • First Released: 2017
    • Length: 1 hour 16 minutes
    • Watch in the UK: Available free through the official Ginger Runner website and its embedded YouTube upload.

    If watching The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young gives you an appetite to learn more about one of the toughest endurance races in the world, it would make an excellent double bill with Where Dreams Go to Die. Created by Ethan Newberry, who is better known as ‘The Ginger Runner’, it follows Gary Robbins as he engages in two different attempts to complete the Barkley Marathon.

    The Canadian ultra-runner was filmed across two years as he looked to take on what seems like the impossible, alongside the demons that tend to follow. If you want to know what sort of sacrifices people make to take on these kinds of races, this is the film for you.

    Where Dreams Go To Die Documentary

    In a candid moment in which Robbins speaks to the camera, he reveals how his partner said to their child that ‘daddy’s going to war today’ before he left, which he admits ‘could not be more accurate’. A big part of the battle is the ‘war between my ears’, which is why he said he was a ‘shell of myself’ after failing to complete it the first time, leading him back in 2017.

    What helps the documentary tick along is the fact that Robbins is a loveable guy, meaning that we are willing him to succeed in his quest. Given the fact that the vast majority of us will never attempt a race like this, Where Dreams Go to Die gives us a real insight into just what it takes to do so.

    Unbreakable: The Western States 100

    • Format: Feature-length documentary
    • First Released: 2011
    • Length: 1 hour 46 minutes
    • Watch in the UK: Available free on YouTube through filmmaker Journeyfilm’s official channel.

    The Western States Endurance Run is a 100.2-mile ultramarathon that is run in the Sierra Nevada Mountains each year. The last weekend in June is when people head along to take part in one of the five 100-mile races that are considered to make up the Grand Slam of Ultrarunning, with the others being the Old Dominion 100 Mile Endurance Run in Virginia, the Vermont 100 Mile Endurance Run in Vermont, the Leadville Trail 100 in Colorado and Utah’s Wasatch Front 100 Mile Endurance Run.

    With the Old Dominion run not being competed anymore, it means that the Western States 100 makes up just one of four possible runs.

    The film follows four men as they gear up for the journey, made up of Hal Koerner, Geoff Roes, Anton Krupicka and Kilian Jornet. The runners have to climb a cumulative total of 18,000 feet and descend 23,000 feet if they hope to win the race, which begins at 5am and continues for around 30 hours, with those completing it in less than 30 hours given a bronze belt buckle and anyone doing it in under 24 hours getting a silver one.

    In the eyes of those that know about ultramarathons, Unbreakable: The Western States 100 is the best documentary on the topic that there is, so if you want to learn more then this is a good place to look.

    Once Is Enough

    • Format: Feature-length documentary and stand-up comedy film
    • First Released: 2020
    • Length: 1 hour 14 minutes
    • Watch in the UK: Available free on YouTube through the official Indie Rights Movies For Free channel.

    Sitting in a waiting room as his mother dies of obesity, Jeffrey James Binney reads a running magazine that poses the question, “Is the 100-mile ultramarathon the new marathon?” Now a ‘chubby comedian’, he wants to avoid the same fate that his mother was met with and so decides to take on one of the most difficult trail marathons in the world.

    If you are a fan of the genre of documentary that sees a total beginner tackling something that seems impossible, this will delight and amuse you in equal measure. The part of the film that most people will be interested in is the one that follows Binney as he trains for the Leadville Trail 100 ultramarathon.

    If you are hoping for something with a touch more light relief, you will be pleased to know that Once is Enough offers exactly that. Juxtaposed to the training is a story-based comedy on the journey itself, which results in a 75-minute movie that is as likely to make you laugh as it is to make you cry.

    The running was his way of coping with the loss of his mother, inflicting a level of discomfort and pain that offered a respite from the emotional torment and grief he was suffering from in his everyday life. Binney decided to live by the quote from Mae West that said, “You only live once. But if you do it right, once is enough.”