Run For Your Life - The Fred Lebow Story

Run For Your Life - a Review
by John Elliott

Now Available on DVD Run For Your Life was issued on Oct. 29th on DVD, so you can be one of the first to buy it at www.FredLebowMovie.com - enter "MGuide" as a coupon code and receive 20% off (or buy on Amazon.com if you prefer that) And, Now Playing... Run For Your Life is showing on the big screen at the Village Cinemas East (2nd Ave. & 12th St. at 2/4/6/8/10 from Oct. 29 to Nov. 6. As a special for MarathonGuide.com, just mention your favorite website at the box office (MarathonGuide.com that is) and pay just $8.50 instead of the usual $12.00 New York Ticket price. Director Judd Ehrlich will be speaking after the 8PM Friday showing.

We usually think of the New York City Marathon as an established behemoth - but we should remember that everything started somewhere and usually small. Run For Your Life is the story of the running boom, the story of the New York City Marathon, the story of one man who was the visionary and driving force behind it all...

And what a great movie and story this is - and well told. Run For Your Life will appeal to runners and non-runners alike. Amidst the backdrop of New York in the 70s - a city in crisis - we learn of the audacious plan to develop a marathon race that will run throughout New York, a plan that - while part of today's city fabric - seemed crazy at the time. In the movie we also see the development of the first women's race - the New York Mini; the rise of the superstar marathoners of the 70s and 80s: Grete Waitz, Bill Rodgers, Alberto Salazar; see a lowpoint in running as Rosie Ruiz is exposed as having cheated at the New York City Marathon (the effect of which qualified her to become famous by pulling the same stunt at the Boston Marathon); and experience the rivalry between the big city marathons of New York and Chicago.
The archival footage is amazing - we're still scratching our heads wondering where the director was able to find such incredible reels. It shows running the way it used to be: we were amused at Lebow's marketing antics - setting Kathrine Switzer to run with Playboy Bunnies on the bridal path in Central Park in a promotion for the first New York Mini; we see Rosie Ruiz holding up her finisher's certificate as "proof" that she ran a 2:36 marathon at New York (yeah, right!); and we reminisced about the old days watching men running a multi-lap race around Yankee Stadium in shorts in the snow (for those who didn't know, running tights didn't really appear until the mid 80s). The interviews are fantastic and feature Grete Waitz, Kathrine Switzer, Allan Steinfeld, Bill Rodgers, Frank Shorter, Alberto Salazar, George Hirsch and more who tell the story of Fred and the Marathon.

A great soundtrack accompanies the film, faithfully capturing the sounds of the era in which the various scenes are set. You'll actually want to watch this movie more than once and share it with your running (and even non-running) friends. We give it two thumbs up as does everyone else who sees this film....

Run For Your Life Trailer

Click on the video to the right to watch the trailer for Run For Your Life...

And don't you think a movie that starts out by saying: "road running people were thought of as freaks..." Yes, that's what it was like in the 60s/70s - and then the running boom started and the rest is history!