Tuesday, October 30, 2007

must see: NOVA's Marathon Challenge

Just after tonight's earthquake (5.6 near San Jose, yes we're fine) I happened to catch NOVA: Marathon Challenge on our local PBS station tonight, and it was fifty minutes of television watching well spent.

The gist of the challenge: take a dozen folks who'd otherwise belong on the sidelines of the Boston Marathon cheering the racers and put these sedentary folks through a forty week training course so they could actually finish the very same Boston Marathon they'd only been able to watch the year before.

Given the body types and fitness levels across the dozen participants, I found the program fascinating viewing if only to be able to see the transformation these folks went through on their way to running 26 miles. NOVA did a great job of mixing human interest with medical observation and the physiological explanation of the events.

Nice to see WGBH has posted the training calendar for the group, and they've also listed ten tips for novice runners which I think is smart preventative programming given just how inspirational some of the participant's completing the marathon.

Completing a marathon is still on my "list," but I'm focused on completing at least an Olympic distance triathlon first.

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