I’m a firm believer that you need to actively seek out inspiration on a regular basis if you want to stay: (insert desired adjective/adverb) 1) sane, 2) vibrant, 3) awesome, 4) healthy, 5) interesting, 6) curious, 7) young.

What does inspiration do to your soul?  Does it fire it up?  Does it numb or dumb it down?  Does it crack it open wide?  Does it provide mindless reprieve?

All effects may be useful to you, depending on your circumstances and your immediate needs.  We can’t all go around giddy with delight all the time, now can we?  What would that do to the economy, after all?  It would be positively exhausting to inhabit the heights day in and day out.  Who would do the grunt work and remember the laundry lists?

Aside from these very  legitimate concerns, we need to respect our need to breathe fire, if only on rare occasions.  Desert Runners allows you to breathe a little spark without getting burnt.

Desert Runners follows a handful of people as they make their way across four ultramarathons, each run spanning a different desert.  What motivates these people, what gives them the gumption to keep going?  In this movie you can step inside the minds of these runners at some of their darkest moments and cheer them on when their courage wavers.

I was looking forward to seeing this movie for a while, knowing the camera work was done by Sevan Matossian,  the same Sevan who does most of the ‘behind the scenes’ segments for the Crossfit community.  In one of the extra segments on the DVD, Sevan talks about how his physical training and preparedness were essential for dealing with the gruelling conditions on this film shoot.

A definite shot of sharp inspiration, Desert Runners will have you ruminating on the characters that make these runs, those who film them doing so, and what it is they find along the way.