Hood To Coast Movie

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.

Team R. Bowe

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.

Team Thunder and Laikaning

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

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.

Heart -n- Soul

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.