
The Green
Girl went to go see the
Hood to Coast movie last
night.
The Hood to Coast movie is a documentary that follows the journey of four teams training for and
completing the
Hood to Coast Relay.

The Hood to
Coast race stretches 36 legs over 197 miles from the
Timberline Lodge at
Mt. Hood to the Pacific Ocean. Registration for
the race is limited to 1,250 twelve-person teams.
Last night, the feature length film played in 350 theatres across the country for a one night
special event.
I attended the screening at the
Edwards theater at the
Long Beach Towne Center.

I purchased
my ticket online through the
Fathom Events site.
Before the movie started, I ran into a fellow
Sole
Runners, Dara, and Jay from
Tri2Thive.
Dara and I chatted about training. She just completed a 20 mile run in preparation for her first
marathon,
Surf City.

As we
entered the theatre, I noticed there were a lot of runners from
AREC attending the screening.
One of the AREC members, Linda, recognized me from the
Athens Classic
Marathon Finish Line.
Instead of the usual pre-movie advertisements, running trivia was displayed on the big screen. One
trailer was played, for a documentary on the
Leadville Trail
100 bike race.

The
documentary started off with a pre-recorded red carpet with Bart Yasso,
Runner's World Chief Running Officer; Bob Foote, Hood To
Coast Founder; Olympian
Mary
Decker Slaney, Director
Christoph Baaden, and
characters from the film.
I was anxious for the movie to start so in all honesty, I would have preferred a shorter red carpet
segment.

The movie
opened with glimpses into the lives of the four teams.
The film did an outstanding job providing an animated overview of the race in the beginning. It
depicted how the legs work using two vans, each containing six virtual runners.
The four teams were Dead Jocks In A Box, Heart -n- Soul, Team R. Rowe, and Thunder and Laikaning.
The documentary featured a topological map with the
teams' logos representing their respective locations throughout the course of the race.
I felt the clips were sequenced well and I really liked how it was all tied together with the team
map.
As a runner, I would have liked to have seen more of
the actual running but I also understand they had over 500 hours of footage and it had to condensed
down to a palatable length for movie goers.
I thought they did a good job selecting teams for the documentary because they were all so different.
Dead Jocks In A Box represented a group of aging male athletes who are still holding onto the 'good ole days'.
Heart -n- Soul consisted of a close-knit group of older women. The focus was on one of the Heart -n- Soul women who was determined to run even after her heart had stopped beating on the course during a previous race.
Team R. Rowe was running in memory of Ryan Rowe who had passed away at the age of 30 just a month prior to the Hood to Coast race the year before.
Thunder and Laikaning was the unlikely team of non-athletes who decided to take on the challenge by drinking beer instead of training.
As a runner, I found the movie to be extremely inspiring and motivating.