When I’m on a treadmill and know that it will be a while before I venture off of it, I am desperately searching for a movie to keep me motivated, or at least focused on it and not on the mileage counter. Many times I choose an action movie to keep my adrenaline pumping and my mind focused. Recently, however I came across Brittany Runs A Marathon on Amazon Video and I really enjoyed it. I felt like all runners could relate to her. It is based on a woman named Brittany O’Neill who started running as a way to change her own life, written by her then roommate Paul Downs Colaizzo.
Brittany Forgler is a 27 year old, educated woman living in New York City. She lives with her friend with whom she regularly goes out partying. The beginning of the movie reveals her depressed life and her attempting to cover up her insecurities by reverting to being everyones comedic relief. One morning, she goes to a doctor’s office she found on Yelp in an attempt to get a prescription for Adderall. Instead she received a dose of reality.
In order to improve her health, Brittany started running. The movie does such a good job of portraying the fear most of us have when we first start running. The anxiety about being seen or fear of the judgement of others. Eventually, she joins a running group and starts forming new friendships with other fellow runners. She finds her unhealthy relationship with partying and her judgemental best friend start to fade.
The movie follows the transformation she makes in her life after she starts running, drops pounds, and decides to run the New York City Marathon. I could relate to watching her push herself, even to unhealthy points where she injures herself and subsequently watching her start to slide back into her old ways due to her depression. There have also been times in my life that I’ve stopped running for one reason or another only to later get back into the game when I was tired of feeling bad for myself.
Brittany Runs A Marathon isn’t about an elite athlete who is trying to be the very best runner. It is about a regular person who transforms her life through running in the pursuit of achieving a goal only 0.5% of the United States population ever achieves. We can all relate because of the human aspect of a regular person navigating through difficult times while keeping her goals in focus. Her story is so similar to all of ours. We are runners, we all started somewhere, and we all have a goal which we have to navigate through our own difficult times to accomplish. Brittany is in many ways all of us.
I won’t spoil the ending in case you haven’t seen it, and perhaps I am emotional watching feel good movies, but the end did make me tear up. So, I definitely recommend getting on that treadmill for the long run you have been dreading, get your water bottle and some energy gel, and turn on Brittany Runs A Marathon. Maybe you’ll find it inspiring you to run a marathon!
