PBS to air Marathon Challenge, a show about training 13 out-of-shape people for Boston
Posted Thursday, 20 September, 2007
How do you run 26.2 miles if you have trouble making it around the block? With good coaching, discipline, and lots of group support—as NOVA shows when it follows 13 sedentary people through a nine-month regimen designed to prepare them for the grueling Boston Marathon®, on Marathon Challenge, airing Tuesday, October 30, 2007 at 8pm ET/PT on PBS (check local listings).
Created in cooperation with the Boston Athletic Association®, which granted NOVA unprecedented access during the 111th Boston Marathon®, and Tufts University, the film takes viewers on a unique adventure inside the human body, tracking changes in the runners’ bodies. Every year thousands of athletes from across the globe flock to Boston to run the city’s marathon, known worldwide as the ultimate test of stamina and endurance.
Marathon Challenge also features special participation by former Olympian and three-time Boston Marathon winner Uta Pippig, the renowned elite runner, who helped coach and inspire NOVA’s runners throughout their training.
Donald Megerle, director of Tufts’ Annual President’s Marathon Challenge, served as head coach for the group, which ranges in age from 22 to 60 and includes prospective runners with a wide range of medical histories and backgrounds. The common factor: none has ever run a marathon before and all are out of shape.
Marathon Challenge gives a behind-the-scenes look at the challenges, frustrations, and joys of renouncing a sedentary lifestyle to train the body to do what it evolved to do millions of years ago: run long distances across the open savannah—or, in this case, along greater Boston's picturesque roadways.
Team NOVA includes Betsey, a hospital administrator who became severely overweight while recovering from surgery; Jonathan, a hard-charging CEO and father of five whose marriage is breaking apart; Sama, a reformed smoker mourning the recent death of her mother to a hit-and-run driver; Larry, a social worker and 14-year survivor of a serious heart attack; Xenia, a woman in her 40th year struggling with being an “aging sedentary physician” who wants to practice what she preaches to her own patients; and Steve, a Harley-riding former NFL linebacker, who sees a marathon as a novel challenge for someone more used to running short distances and then tackling an opponent.
Together with their seven other teammates, they undergo a battery of physiological tests by Tufts scientists to gauge baseline levels for weight, cholesterol level, maximal oxygen uptake, and other health and fitness factors. These same tests are performed again at the completion of the training to chart each runner’s response to increased activity.
And increase it does, albeit slowly and under the watchful eyes of Pippig and Megerle, who shepherd the novices from relaxed workouts to demanding long distance runs. Injuries and family problems take a toll, but the group meets faithfully every Sunday for nine months to prepare for the race to end all races. Physical conditioning is only part of the process; equally important is the psychological support that team members get from their coaches and from each other. “We have a lot of fun. It’s almost like a love fest,” says Pippig.
In the course of the program, NOVA covers the physiology of running with stunning inside-the-body computer graphics showing how the body adapts to the demands of long distance locomotion. Also featured are noted sport medicine experts Timothy Noakes of the University of Cape Town, bio-anthropologist Daniel Lieberman of Harvard University, and author and nutritionist Miriam Nelson of Tufts University.
As marathon day approaches, the forecast calls for pelting rain, gale force winds, and the possibility of snow, conditions that daunt even experienced marathon runners. On the day itself—April 16, 2007—those who have made it through training arrive at the tail end of the storm in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, sheathed in ponchos with dry shoes in plastic bags. Then at 10:30 a.m. the starting gun fires and they join 20,000 other runners for the epic race to Boston—a journey that few on Team NOVA ever dreamed possible.
Now in its 34th year of broadcasting, NOVA is produced for PBS by the WGBH Science Unit at WGBH Boston. The director of the WGBH Science Unit and senior executive producer of NOVA is Paula S. Apsell. Funding for NOVA is provided by The DOW Chemical Company, David H. Koch, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and public television viewers.
NOVA is closed captioned for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers and described for people who are blind or visually impaired by the Media Access Group at WGBH. The descriptive narration is available on the SAP channel or stereo TVs and VCRs. Marathon Challenge will be available on DVD wherever videos are sold. To order direct from WGBH Boston Video, visit shop.wgbh.org or call 800.949.8670.
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