This Don Shebib flick constitutes quaint proof that folks in the '70s who knew nearly nothing about athletics bought into the so-called "runner's high" and even made movies about the nonexistent scourge, just as know-nothings were able to scare the pants off people in the 1930's with their Reefer Madness movie.
In this abysmal sports film, Canada's top distance running coach Tom Packard (Gerard Parkes) is overseeing Canadian gold medalist Tim Kerry to "a new world record of 3:53" in the summer of 1975 in Kerry's final race. Two problems with this scene; 1)"Kerry" is portrayed in stock footage by a runner wearing the national uniform of Finland, and 2)before his six terms as a U.S. Congressman from Kansas, Jim Ryun set the mile mark of 3:51.1 on July 17, 1967 (which stood until Tanzania's Filbert Bayi ran 3:51.0 in 1975).
After watching this race on a neighbor's TV (don't ask), Second Wind anti-hero Roger Matheson (James Naughton), 30, hears the call of the wild and tags along with the next pack of runners he sees (stockbroker clothes and all). After thirty minutes of movie, Roger has been promoted to become his company's youngest VP ever (whose only responsibility seems to involve selling stock in one of several aluminum companies every month or two). He's also improved his daily jog to three miles. After out-kicking another Queen's Park hoofer to the shower room (in an apparent duel of eight-minute milers UNAIDED by slow motion camera work), Roger's running buddy Pete (Ken Pogue)--an early disciple of Coach Packard--tells this 30-year-old ultra-novice that he has arranged an audition to show Packard that Roger will be Canada's next Olympic mile gold medalist! Apparently by this point Roger is exuding superstar pheromones, which cause Paula-the-Stalker (Tedde Moore) to start trailing him through Queen's Park in her Bentley convertible. Meanwhile, Roger's neglected and suspicious wife Linda (Lindsay Wagner) decides to join Roger on his next jog (not realizing she is unlikely to be able to keep up with this sure-fire Olympic hot-shot). However, as she descends the stairs WITH A JOCK STRAP WORN OVER HER RUNNING SHORTS, Roger dies laughing. (I wish; actually, he uses their vacation money to sneak out of town for 20 movie minutes of tedious jogging around a rustic resort lake).
After another half hour of agonizing will-he or won't-he (cheat on his wife? get fired from his job? actually run his first novice event?), Roger runs the race as his wife shows up on the last lap. He out-leans Canada's reigning novice miler champ at the tape to win in 4:17.9. (In other words, this 30-year-old runs his first mile race more than 16 seconds faster than Jim Ryun did as a 16-year-old; quite a feat, since his 70-second quarter-mile training intervals would project a 4:40 mile performance at best).
For those of you who may be terrified that a sequel to Second Wind is lurking out there in the bargain bin with an equally uninformative title, have no fear: Roger tosses his track shoes in the trash barrel as this poorly-researched mishmash concludes. If you want to see a good sports movie about a long-shot released in 1976, rent Rocky.
In this abysmal sports film, Canada's top distance running coach Tom Packard (Gerard Parkes) is overseeing Canadian gold medalist Tim Kerry to "a new world record of 3:53" in the summer of 1975 in Kerry's final race. Two problems with this scene; 1)"Kerry" is portrayed in stock footage by a runner wearing the national uniform of Finland, and 2)before his six terms as a U.S. Congressman from Kansas, Jim Ryun set the mile mark of 3:51.1 on July 17, 1967 (which stood until Tanzania's Filbert Bayi ran 3:51.0 in 1975).
After watching this race on a neighbor's TV (don't ask), Second Wind anti-hero Roger Matheson (James Naughton), 30, hears the call of the wild and tags along with the next pack of runners he sees (stockbroker clothes and all). After thirty minutes of movie, Roger has been promoted to become his company's youngest VP ever (whose only responsibility seems to involve selling stock in one of several aluminum companies every month or two). He's also improved his daily jog to three miles. After out-kicking another Queen's Park hoofer to the shower room (in an apparent duel of eight-minute milers UNAIDED by slow motion camera work), Roger's running buddy Pete (Ken Pogue)--an early disciple of Coach Packard--tells this 30-year-old ultra-novice that he has arranged an audition to show Packard that Roger will be Canada's next Olympic mile gold medalist! Apparently by this point Roger is exuding superstar pheromones, which cause Paula-the-Stalker (Tedde Moore) to start trailing him through Queen's Park in her Bentley convertible. Meanwhile, Roger's neglected and suspicious wife Linda (Lindsay Wagner) decides to join Roger on his next jog (not realizing she is unlikely to be able to keep up with this sure-fire Olympic hot-shot). However, as she descends the stairs WITH A JOCK STRAP WORN OVER HER RUNNING SHORTS, Roger dies laughing. (I wish; actually, he uses their vacation money to sneak out of town for 20 movie minutes of tedious jogging around a rustic resort lake).
After another half hour of agonizing will-he or won't-he (cheat on his wife? get fired from his job? actually run his first novice event?), Roger runs the race as his wife shows up on the last lap. He out-leans Canada's reigning novice miler champ at the tape to win in 4:17.9. (In other words, this 30-year-old runs his first mile race more than 16 seconds faster than Jim Ryun did as a 16-year-old; quite a feat, since his 70-second quarter-mile training intervals would project a 4:40 mile performance at best).
For those of you who may be terrified that a sequel to Second Wind is lurking out there in the bargain bin with an equally uninformative title, have no fear: Roger tosses his track shoes in the trash barrel as this poorly-researched mishmash concludes. If you want to see a good sports movie about a long-shot released in 1976, rent Rocky.